Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorr

Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorr

Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorr (born May 15, 1800 in Meerdorf near Braunschweig, † May 20, 1875 in Heilbronn ) was the founder of the Knorr food company in Heilbronn.

life and work

CH Knorr's father was Johannes Christian Julius Knorr (1766–1832), who worked as a teacher and cantor . His mother was Johanna Dorothea Henriette Knorr, b. Rosenthal (1762-1845). Carl Heinrich Knorr learned a commercial profession and married Henriette Ziegenmeyer in Süpplingenburg in 1828 , with whom he moved to Osterode am Harz . In 1829 the daughter Henriette Caroline Juliane Emma Knorr (1829-1901) was born. However, his wife died in 1834. As a result, Knorr moved with his daughter to Hanau and worked there as a businessman.

A business trip took him to Heilbronn, where he met the merchant's daughter Amalie Henriette Caroline Seyffardt (1806–1867). On April 24, 1838, Carl Heinrich Knorr and Caroline Seyffardt married. This marriage had five children: Anna Knorr (1839–1875), who married Carl Monninger from London in 1861, Olga Knorr (1840–1911), Ludwig Otto Knorr (1841–1842), Carl Heinrich Eduard Knorr (1843–1921) and Alfred Knorr (1846-1895). The two sons Carl Heinrich Eduard and Alfred later joined the father's company.

Also in 1838, after submitting certificates of approval, Knorr was granted civil rights in the city of Heilbronn and opened a grocery and grocery store in downtown Heilbronn (at today's Kaiserstraße 7). He announced the opening of the business with an advertisement with the following text in the Heilbronner Intellektivenblatt :

"Business opening and referral. I do not fail to announce that I have opened my specialty goods business to-day to a local as well as to a foreign public by remarking that I will endeavor to serve everyone as cheaply and as best as possible.

Heilbronn, d. 29 Aug 1838.

CH Knorr, on Kramstrasse next to Drei König. "

He also received “the lease of the“ Schlachthaus-Beletage-Stock ”from the city of Heilbronn for a period of four years to set up a drying plant for chicory.” . Just two years later, he gave back the lease on the first floor of the meat shop . Caroline Seyffardt had contributed two thirds to Knorr's start-up capital of 8,667 guilders as a dowry. With this capital, CH Knorr also founded a chicory factory in which he produced coffee substitutes from the roots of the common chicory (also called chicory ). He had received the concession to build this factory on September 28, 1838. This was erected in front of the bridge gate west of the Neckar, i.e. in today's Heilbronn station district. He sold the chicory coffee in Württemberg as well as in Baden, Bavaria and Switzerland. In 1855 Knorr sold the factory, which had grown to become the largest in Heilbronn with 53 workers, to August Closs , the brother of his son-in-law Johann Friedrich Closs (married to Emma Knorr, his daughter from his first marriage). In 1857 Knorr founded a cloth factory with spinning, finishing and fulling in the Hefenweiler, Heilbronn's first industrial area. However, the entry into the textile business was unsuccessful, and so Knorr had to close this factory again in 1858 due to unpaid debts. Knorr then founded the company CH Knorr wholesale business in rice, barley, sago and regional products at Sülmerstrasse 37. The exact time when this company was founded is unknown. In 1862 Knorr was, according to the Heilbronner address book, an agent in regional products , the wholesale business is mentioned in 1868, but probably existed a few years earlier. The company headquarters was moved to Innere Rosenbergstrasse 24 (today: the intersection of Rollwagstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse) by 1872. Knorr traded in agricultural products in all German states and as far as Hungary.

After his two sons Carl and Alfred joined their father's company in 1866 and 1870, CH Knorr began to produce food as well as trading in agricultural products. At the beginning of the 1870s, he began to produce flour from legumes (green spelled, peas, beans, lentils), which were sold under the brand name beehive . In addition, the production of mixtures consisting of legume flour, dried and ground vegetables and spices, an early form of ready-made soup, began. Knorr's sons got to know the idea for this in France and for a number of years experimented with drying and grinding vegetables and herbs in their father's factory.

Carl Heinrich Theodor Knorr died on May 20, 1875. He was buried in the old cemetery in Heilbronn. The grave is no longer preserved. After his death, his two sons continued the company together and expanded it into a large soup factory.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Knorr: Knorr Chronicle 1838 to 1959. Volume I - 1838 to 1938 . Deutsche Maizena Werke GmbH, Hamburg 1959, page 2

literature

• Uwe Jacobi: 150 years of Knorr: 1838–1988 . Maizena Gesellschaft mbH, Heilbronn 1988.
• Hans Keiper-Knorr:  Knorr, Carl Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 222 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Alexander Knorr: Knorr Chronicle 1838 to 1959. Volume I - 1838 to 1938 . Deutsche Maizena Werke GmbH, Hamburg 1959.
• 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.
• Arnold, Jürg: The Cloß family of merchants and manufacturers in Winnenden and Heilbronn / Neckar with contributions to the life stories of Robert Mayer, CH Knorr and Paul Hegelmaier . Association for family and heraldry in Württemberg and Baden eV, Stuttgart 1987.