Camillo Castiglioni

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Camillo Castiglioni (born October 22, 1879 in Trieste , Austria-Hungary , † December 18, 1957 in Rome ) was an Italian-Austrian industrialist, stock market speculator and pioneer of Austrian aviation .

Life

Castiglioni was born the son of a rabbi in Trieste and studied law. His brother Arturo Castiglioni (born April 10, 1874 in Trieste, † January 21, 1953 in Milan) emigrated to the USA in 1939 and became professor of medical history at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Castiglioni was the son-in-law of the well-known German engineer Ernst Körting and married to his daughter Anna. For the Österreichisch-American Gummiwarenfabrik AG he went to Constantinople as a representative , where he worked so successfully that he was brought to Vienna as head of the export department . Here he soon became deputy director and director. In 1904 he was appointed general manager.

He achieved further social advancement through the chairmanship of the supervisory board of Austro-Daimler in Wiener Neustadt and the takeover of the Allgemeine Depositen-Bank, founded in 1871, which was acquired by Castiglioni in 1918. He was also head of the Austrian Fiat company.

In 1901, together with Viktor Silberer and Franz Hinterstoisser, he was a co-founder of the Vienna Aero Club, which later became the Austrian Aero Club .

In 1909 the enthusiastic balloonist bought his own balloon and successfully passed his balloonist test on August 24th. In order to derive business advantages from the growing enthusiasm for aircraft, he also founded the "Motor-Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft mb H" (MLG) in 1909. Through this company - a pure trading company - he acquired the Etrich patents and the distribution of Etrich pigeons in Austria-Hungary .

In 1912 he founded the Ungarische Flugzeugwerke AG (Ufag) together with other companies in Budapest - Albertfalva . Due to the patents acquired and contracts negotiated with the military, this company received an order for an aircraft to be manufactured for two aircraft ordered from the Lohner company in Vienna.

During the First World War , Camillo Castiglioni founded further aircraft factories, which he sold again towards the end of the war in order to enter the automobile business. In 1922 he bought back the engine construction and the BMW brand and, by merging with the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, re-founded BMW AG , which in 1923 resumed aircraft engine construction and motorcycle construction.

During the period of inflation in the first half of the 1920s, he successfully speculated a fortune with company investments ( Puch-Werke , Austro-Daimler , Österreichische Alpine-Montan ), which he invested in a private art collection in his Viennese palace, formerly Palais Miller- Aichholz , Prinz-Eugen-Straße 28, used. Between 1923 and 1924 he financed the renovation of the theater in the Josefstadt in Vienna and the Salzburg Festival for Max Reinhardt .

As a result, bad speculations caused the wealth empire that had built up to largely disappear again; For example, the Allgemeine Depositen-Bank went bankrupt in 1924. As a result, Camillo Castiglioni relocated his activities first to Berlin and later to Italy . After the Second World War he also worked for the Yugoslav government .

Aircraft companies

During the First World War, Camillo Castiglioni founded numerous aircraft companies in Austria-Hungary , but also in the German Empire .

  • The Motor-Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft mbH, founded in 1912, was a pure trading company. It was through them that the military obtained their aircraft from the Lohner company.
  • Ungarische Flugzeugwerke AG (Ufag) (Budapest-Albertfalva), founded in 1912
  • Austro-Hungarian Albatros-Werke Ges.mbH, founded in 1914
  • Hansa and Brandenburgischen Flugzeugwerke , Berlin and Brandenburg, founded in 1914
  • Phönix Flugzeugwerke AG, Vienna-Stadlau, founded in 1917
  • Bayerische Motoren-Werke, Munich-Oberwiesenfeld, founded in 1917 as a GmbH, since 1918 AG (1922 restructured by Castiglioni to today's BMW)

literature

Movie

  • Camillo Castiglioni or the morality of the sharks, director: Peter Patzak , Austria 1988 (TV) - 88 min.
  • The millionaire, The dazzling life of financial juggler Camillo Castiglioni, ORF documentary series "People and Powers", director: Georg Ransmayr , Austria 2019 (TV ORF) - 50 min.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vienna, City of Jews ( Memento from March 19, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Press information about the exhibition of the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna on May 17, 2004
  2. ↑ Biographies about Junkers ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Christian Marx: Review of: C. Pierer: Die Bayerischen Motoren Werke bis 1933. In: hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de . September 13, 2011, accessed October 19, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Castiglioni, Camillo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Trieste
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1957
Place of death Rome