Carl Berg (airship builder)

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Carl Berg

Carl Berg (born February 4, 1851 in Lüdenscheid , † May 26, 1906 in Bonn ) was a German entrepreneur and airship builder .

Berg came from a family in the iron trade. His great-grandfather founded a button-making workshop in Lüdenscheid in 1786. In the following generations, the company expanded into an important metal processing company. Among other things, a brass factory and a hammer mill in Eveking (today Werdohl) were added.

Carl Berg took over the company at the age of 20 after the death of his father and used the founding years for further expansion. He banked on the opportunities offered by the electrical industry early on and was the first to deliver double bronze wire for the telegraph and telephone to the Post. There were also other articles made of non-ferrous metals.

Berg founded the copper works in Germany in Berlin and Austria in Außenig (Bohemia, then the Austrian monarchy ) as a subsidiary . Above all, however, he sensed the opportunities for aluminum as a lightweight construction material. His company in Lüdenscheid became a pioneer in the aluminum industry.

In 1892, Berg supplied the airship designer David Schwarz with the material for the planned first dirigible airship in the world. The Berg company also carried out the construction of the framework and planking made of aluminum. After Schwarz's death, Berg worked in the same way for Count Zeppelin's airship projects . ZI was preassembled on the factory premises in Lüdenscheid and sent from there to Friedrichshafen . Berg also supplied the material for Z-II and Z-III free of charge. The engineer Fritz Burr worked briefly as operations manager in Eveking and then founded the aluminum works in Wutöschingen .

After Berg's death, aircraft construction became a customer of the Berg company.

His son is the chemist Herbert Berg (1905–1988), who developed pioneering production processes for Wacker Chemie in the 1930s.

literature

  • Wilhelm Schulte: Westphalian heads . Münster, 1977. p. 23 f. ISBN 3-402-05700-X .
  • Hans G. Knäusel: Company Zeppelin . Bonn, 1994. p. 21. ISBN 3-7812-1366-8 .
  • Nikolaj Müller-Wusterwitz: The Berg family companies: Chronicle from 1787 . Lüdenscheid, 1999. ISBN 3-921595-30-4 .
  • Eckhard Trox (ed.): The dream of flying: Carl Berg and the airship idea from Lüdenscheid to Lakehurst . Lüdenscheid, 2000. ISBN 3-929614-43-X .
  • Eckhard Trox, The underestimated industrialist Carl Berg (1851–1906): Aluminum alloys, difficult business relationships and zeppelins , in: Der Märker. Regional history journal for the area of ​​the former Grafschaft Mark and the Märkische Kreis , Altena 2001, pp. 57–67 ISSN  0024-9661 .
  • Otto Zündorf:  Berg, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 74 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Berg, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and airship builder
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludenscheid
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1906
Place of death Ludenscheid