Berthold Holzschuher

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Berthold Holzschuher (1511–1582), relief from 1566, British Museum, London

Berthold Holzschuher (* 1511 Nuremberg; † 1582 Stollhofen, Styria) was a patrician as well as councilor and mayor from Nuremberg, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the insurance concept. He was also an inventor and mechanical designer as well as a coal and steel entrepreneur.

He came from the Nuremberg patrician family of clogs . He was appointed mayor of Nuremberg in 1551, but was deposed the following year. He became known for developing technical and financial projects. The most important of these include a forced saving plan and the design of a wheeled armor.

Life

From 1539 he was assessor at the regional and peasant court, from 1542 at the city and marriage court in Nurnberg. In 1548 he joined the council of the imperial city of Nuremberg and became young mayor in 1551 (see: History of the City of Nuremberg ), but already a year later because of the refusal to conclude a less honorable peace treaty with Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Kulmbach-Bayreuth (1522–1557 ) Dismissed from his offices.

In 1538 he married Brigitte Welser , the daughter of the councilor and patrician Jakob I. Welser (1468–1541), who had come to Nuremberg from Augsburg before 1494 and founded the Welser line there. In his second marriage he married Ursula Ebner von Eschenbach .

In 1565 Holzschuher developed the plan of compulsory saving with an insurance-like character for a trousseau in memoranda to the council of the cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Nuremberg, to Duke Johann Albrecht I of Mecklenburg and other princes. The primary purpose of the company was to raise public finances; In addition to this financial policy, there was also a social purpose. Holzschuher assumed that the people marry early and penniless and therefore could not leave anything behind the numerous children. In order to remedy this poverty, parents or godparents would have to pay a thaler for each newborn child ; as soon as the children got married, they were to get back three times the sum without making a distinction between girls and boys. The proposal already represents an embodiment of the insurance concept, as Holzschuher dealt with the interest rate, capital investment, risk and probability of this contract; he believed that only half of all children would reach marriageable age and many would not marry at all. The profit will go to the public purse. Although Holzschuher had the opportunity to present the project to the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1566 , it was not realized.

After leaving the City Council of Nuremberg, he also laid down a number of mechanical inventions in drawings and descriptions. He made the secrecy of the drafts compulsory for his heirs and allowed their evaluation only for the benefit of his family or "Christian potentates", namely the emperor. In particular, this includes the construction of automobile cars that should be driven by eight men and have space for eight passengers. Furthermore, the draft of a combat and war chariot, which he called "Basilischko", drive machines and gear constructions, gripping and lifting tools and a mill. None of these inventions was realized, but Holzschuher's efforts to produce salt in the diocese of Würzburg led to the construction of the Bad Kissingen salt works in 1563 .

He later went to Austria, where he owned mining rights in Carinthia and wanted to build smelters on the monastery grounds of Admont Monastery .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Holzschuher, Berthold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German patrician
DATE OF BIRTH 1511
DATE OF DEATH 1582