Carl Woermann

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Carl Woermann 1879
Woermann- Hulk on the Cameroon River
Old Woermann factory in Cameroon
Grave site Ohlsdorf cemetery

Carl Woermann (born March 11, 1813 Bielefeld ; † June 25, 1880 in Hamburg ) was a Hamburg overseas merchant and founder of a shipping company . He founded the company that made his son Adolph Woermann the largest German West Africa merchant and the largest private shipping company in the world. He was also part of the founding consortium of Commerz- und Disconto-Bank, now Commerzbank .

Life

Carl Woermann was born in the Woermann'schen Hof in 1813 into a family of linen manufacturers from Bielefeld. In 1837 he founded the trading company C. Woermann . Woermann first established trade connections with South America and the West Indies, then with India and Australia. Increasingly, however, his interest turned to the trade opportunities in West Africa, first of all in Liberia , where a local leadership class had formed. In 1847 Carl Woermann bought his first ship, a brig (two-master), which he named Eleonore after his first wife . In 1849 Woermann sent the cutter Constanze to the West African coast, and in 1852 he bought the schooner Liberia for the Liberia trade . Two years later, C. Woermann founded the first trading office in Liberia's capital, Monrovia .

After heavy losses in the global economic crisis in 1857, Carl Woermann managed to get his company back on a growth path. In 1859 C. Woermann already owned eight ships. In 1862 Woermann founded a branch in Gabon and in 1867 sent E. Schulze there as a representative, who later became the first German consul in Gabon's capital Libreville . This was followed in 1868 by a branch in Cameroon with a Hulk (disused ship) anchored on the Cameroon River , which was expanded in the following years by a few trading posts and in 1881 by a branch on the mainland ( Duala ). Here sat C.Woermann an increasingly own ships for trade transportation.

The trading house C. Woermann mainly exchanged brandy and weapons from the German Empire for palm oil and rubber . Palm oil was at the time, sought after in Europe because it's just becoming whale oil as a lubricant and as margarine -Grundstoff ( Palmin replaced). Other imported goods were coconut, bananas, peanuts and ivory. The local traders often received the European goods on credit and delivered the agreed barter goods at a later date.

When his eldest son and planned successor Carl showed no interest in the retail trade and instead wanted to become an art historian, Carl Woermann asked him to change his name to Karl Woermann and broke off contact with him. The successor in the C. Woermann company was instead the second oldest son, Adolph Woermann, who joined the company as a partner in 1874. From 1877 to 1879 the company's first steamship was built, the Aline Woermann (named after the second wife of Carl Woermann) with 1279 gross tons . In 1878, C. Woermann gave up all business interests in East India and from then on concentrated only on business in Africa.

After Carl Woermann's death in 1880, Adolph Woermann took over the company entirely and expanded it into one of the most important trading houses for Africa trade and the largest private shipping company in the world. When Carl Woermann died, the company owned twelve sailing ships and the steamship that had just been launched.

Woermann was a member of the Hamburg citizenship from 1859 to 1868 . From 1874 he was senior elder in the parish of Sankt Petri and remained a member of the senior elders' college until his death. His daughter Marie Woermann became a painter.

Carl Woermann was buried in the grave of his family in the Ohlsdorf cemetery , grid square Q 24.

Web links

Commons : Carl Woermann  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus J. Bade (1975, 2005). Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age. Revolution - Depression - Expansion. Freiburg i.Br. (2005 with a new foreword: Osnabrück), p. 362 (accessed on November 23, 2006; PDF; 3 MB)
  2. ↑ Klaus J. Bade (1975, 2005). Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age. Revolution - Depression - Expansion . Freiburg i.Br. (2005 with a new foreword: Osnabrück), p. 315 (accessed on November 23, 2006; PDF; 3 MB)
  3. ↑ Detlef Krause: The Commerz- und Disconto-Bank 1870-1920 / 23: Bank history as system history . Franz Steiner Verlag 2004 (dissertation, ISBN 978-3515084864 ), p. 73 ( online )
  4. ^ Albrecht Schreiber (2005). Remembrance days I: Carl Woermann - The linen dealer from Bielefeld became a major shipping company from Hamburg. Zeitschrift für Trauerkultur, Vol. 89 (II) (accessed November 13, 2006)
  5. ↑ Foreign Office: Gabon. Historical data ( Memento from June 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b private website www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de , accessed on November 13, 2006
  7. ↑ Klaus J. Bade (1975, 2005). Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age. Revolution - Depression - Expansion. Freiburg i.Br. (2005 with a new foreword: Osnabrück), p. 347 (accessed on November 23, 2006; PDF; 3.0 MB)
  8. ^ Website of the German Historical Museum: 1871-1914. The German colony of Cameroon ( Memento from July 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Herwarth von Schade: Carl Woermann . In: On the harmony and welfare of this good city: 475 years of the senior elders' college in Hamburg . Convent, Hamburg 2003, OCLC 53903206 , p. 396-397 .
personal data
SURNAME Woermann, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant and shipowner
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Bielefeld
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1880
Place of death Hamburg