Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr

Commerzienrat Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr (1913)

Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr (born June 27, 1843 in Heilbronn ; † May 8, 1921 in Heilbronn) was a German entrepreneur and headed the Knorr food company .

biography

Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr's father was the company founder Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorr (1800–1875), his mother was his second wife Amalie Henriette Caroline Knorr, nee. Seyffardt (1806-1867). This marriage also gave birth to four other children: Anna Knorr (1839–1875), who later married Carl Monninger, Olga Knorr (1840–1911), Ludwig Otto Knorr (1841–1842) and Alfred Knorr (1846–1895).

Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr completed a commercial apprenticeship and a first year as a professional in two companies in Heilbronn. He then went to Le Havre for three years and Liverpool for one year. In 1866 he joined his father's food company. His brother Alfred followed him four years later. The two brothers brought with them the idea of ​​making soup preparations from dried ingredients from France.

After the company's founder died in 1875, the two sons jointly took over management of the company. They laid experimental gardens to improve the soup ingredients and with the construction of a mill in the south quarter in 1884 the foundation stone for the long-standing company premises (today Knorrstrasse 1). The 1870s and 1880s gave the company a huge boom. In addition to its soup preparations, it also produced dried vegetables, military canned food and the well-known Knorr oatmeal, among other things. In 1885 packing stations were opened in Austria and Switzerland in order to avoid an increase in import duties in these countries. Knorr ready-made soups were not only offered as powder in bags, but from 1886 as bars, from 1889 in sausage form (the legendary pea sausage ), in 1897 as tablets and in 1910 in the form of soup cubes.

Villa Carl Knorr Gutenbergstrasse 51

Tomb of the industrialist family Knorr in Heilbronn

Knorr family grave (left panel)

After the death of his brother Alfred in 1895, Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr took over sole management of the company. In 1897 he had the Berlin architects Prof. Johannes Vollmer and Heinrich Jassoy build the Villa Carl Knorr , also known as the Villa 'Lerchenburg', at Gutenbergstrasse 51 in Heilbronn .

In 1899, together with his sister-in-law Therese, the widow of Alfred Knorr, he converted the company into a stock corporation in which the two Knorr families initially each held 40% of the shares. In the period that followed, smaller shares were given to senior employees and Knorr relatives. The previous authorized signatories Christian Eberhardt (1857–1939) and Gustav Pielenz (1862–1944), who remained on the management board until 1925 and 1936, respectively, were appointed to the management board of the company. Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr was a member of the supervisory board from 1899 to 1905, and in 1905 he joined the board of directors. On July 1, 1912, he moved back to the supervisory board.

Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr was awarded the title of Kommerzienrat in 1899 . In 1901 he donated his Benin collection of bronzes from today's Nigeria to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. In 1905 he and his family received Prince Rangsit of Chainad , son of King Chulalongkorn of Thailand in his villa .

Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr was married twice. In 1878 he married the daughter of a banker and landowner, Lucy Marguerite La Roche (* October 21, 1855, † June 3, 1881) from Basel. In January 1880 the daughter Caroline Alice Knorr was born, but she died one day after the birth. On May 18, 1881, their son Carl Emanuel Knorr (1881–1952) was born. The mother Lucy Knorr died in childbed a few days after giving birth. On May 29, 1886, Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr married nineteen-year-old Antonie Clementine Krust (born March 12, 1867 in Heilbronn; † July 14, 1947 in Bad Tölz) after five years of widowhood. This marriage resulted in three children: Toni Knorr (1887–1947), who married Lothar von Weltzien , and Alexander Knorr (1889–1978) and Hans Albrecht Knorr (1894–1896). The sons Carl Emanuel Knorr and Alexander Knorr worked in the company, as did the grandson Carl Heinrich Clemens Knorr (1913–1985) later.

Kommerzienrat Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr died on May 8, 1921 in Heilbronn at the age of 78. He was buried in the Heilbronn main cemetery in the family grave designed by the Stuttgart sculptor Emil Kiemlen . Alexander Knorr quotes in his Knorr Chronicle as follows from an obituary for his father:

“The deceased was not only a brilliant and industrious businessman, but also an extremely affable and universally popular personality. In his binding manner, he never missed an opportunity to make his products known to the world around him. His pockets were always filled with sample parcels, which he distributed up and down. "

Individual evidence

1. ^ Julius Fekete, Simon Haag, Adelheid Hanke, Daniela Naumann: Monument topography Baden-Württemberg. Volume I.5 Heilbronn district . Edition Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1988-3 . P. 141
2. ↑ Alexander Knorr: Knorr Chronicle 1838 to 1959. Volume I - 1838 to 1938 . Deutsche Maizena Werke GmbH, Hamburg 1959, page 48

literature

• Alexander Knorr: Knorr Chronicle 1838 to 1959. Volume I - 1838 to 1938 . Deutsche Maizena Werke GmbH, Hamburg 1959
• Uwe Jacobi: 150 years of Knorr: 1838–1988 . Maizena Gesellschaft mbH, Heilbronn 1988
• Werner Thunert u. a .: They made history. Twelve portraits of famous Heilbronn residents . Verlag Heilbronner Voice 1977, pp. 80-88
• Around the world with the pea sausage. Carl Heinrich Knorr and his sons Carl and Alfred . In: Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn heads . Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1998, ISBN 3-928990-64-0 ( Small series of publications from the Heilbronn City Archives . 42), pp. 40–49
• Felix von Luschan: The Karl Knorr'sche collection of Benin antiquities in the museum for regional and ethnology in Stuttgart . Württemberg Association for Economic Geography, Stuttgart 1901