Carl Wilhelm Grether

Carl Wilhelm Grether (born May 1, 1803 in Lörrach ; † November 14, 1890 in Schopfheim ) was a manufacturer.

The eldest son of the Lord Mayor of Loerrach and member of the state parliament, Joh. Fried. Grether attended the home education department and was then accepted into a boarding house in French-speaking Switzerland. In Lörrach he completed an apprenticeship in the factory of Peter Koechlich & Sons ( KBC ), where he was introduced to trustworthy positions.

In 1828 he married Elisabeth in Schopfheim, b. Gottschalk, sister of the manufacturer and liberal politician Ernst Friedrich Gottschalk . Your son died at a young age. Their daughter married Ernst Friedrich Krafft in 1851 .

At the request of a company of Swiss, he entered a printing and dyeing business as a partner, which, however, did not show the expected success and was liquidated. At this time, Baden joined the German Customs Union.

His in-laws in Schopfheim had hydropower that they had used for a wire pull for a long time . Around 1846 he entered into an association with his brother-in-law Gottschalk and agreed with him to use this water power for a cotton spinning mill. Around 1849/50 it worked with 25,000 spindles and was later expanded by 10,000. Up to 300 textile workers worked there. From this parent company (later part of Zell-Schönau AG and closed in 1990) under the company Gottschalk & Grether , further establishments emerged.

In early 1848 he corresponded with Karl Mathy .

In 1852, together with the Augsburg banker Obermaier, he was able to acquire the St. Blasien cotton spinning mill belonging to the late Baron von Eichthal at auction, and commissioned his son-in-law Krafft to manage it.

In Schopfheim he acquired land north of the Wuhr and several buildings on Hauptstrasse, including the former Rössle and Sonne inns , which later gave way to the Grether-Kym'schen Palais (demolished in 1960). In 1861 he was able to purchase another piece of land along the station area. In 1875 he had it built upon pressure from the city, surrounded with an iron mesh fence and designed by architect Hasslinger from Karlsruhe into a garden based on the English model. His granddaughter Anna Kym-Krafft invited children here during Easter. Today it is the city park.

In Hausen he acquired an ironworks in 1865, in the place of which he built a foil silk spinning mill in 1870. After an expansion, up to 250 workers were employed here at times. The products mainly went to Krefeld.

He bequeathed St. Blasien to Krafft, whose grandchildren had to stop the business in 1933 during the Great Depression.

literature

• Karl Wilhelm Grether . In: Friedrich von Weech (Ed.): Badische Biographien . Fourth part. Karlsruhe 1891, pp. 160-162 ( digitized version ).
• Arts and Crafts Sheet. Volume 40, 1854, Col. 502 ( digitized in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.badische-zeitung.de/schopfheim/freiheitliche-gesinnung-gemaessierter-geist--63369930.html
2. ↑ Atzenbach. The district of Atzenbach ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ()  
3. ^ Rudolph Dietz: The trades in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Braun, Karlsruhe 1863, p. 491 ( digitized version )
4. ^ André Hönig: As from the seeds of disobedience. In: Badische Zeitung. August 18, 2012 ( digitized version ( memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ,) 
5. ^ André Hönig: Chronicle. In: Badische Zeitung. August 18, 2012 ( digitized version ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ,) 
6. ↑ Gisela Müller: The origin and development of the Wiesental textile industry. 1965, p. 52
7. ^ Wolfram Fischer: Economy and society in the age of industrialization. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972, ISBN 3-525-35951-9 , p. 245 ( digitized version )