Christian Gebhard Nordmann
Christian Gebhard (t) Nordmann (born December 26, 1755 on the Warmsdorf domain ; † September 24, 1823 in Pötnitz ) was a German farmer who managed the Pötnitz domain. Today he is referred to as a pioneer of agriculture, made the Pötnitzer sheep breeding, the Pötnitzer fattening ox and the Pötnitzer wheat famous throughout Germany and was honored by State Councilor Thaer .
Life
Christian Gebhard Nordmann was born as the seventh child of the tenant of the Anhalt - Köthenschen domain Warmsdorf, Johann Christian Nordmann, and his wife Johanne Sabine, geb. Hardt, born. His baptism and confirmation in 1771 took place in Amesdorf . He attended the public school in Köthen and then learned from his father. He then worked for his eldest brother as an administrator for five years.
On May 7th, 1778, at the age of 22, Nordmann took over the Pötnitzer domain and Gut Kleutsch near Dessau as a tenant. A little later he married Dorothea Hase, a bailiff's daughter from Grimschleben . In 1782 the only daughter Dorothea Viktoria was born.
In the first few years on the domain, the uncultivated and poor-yielding soils, as well as cattle diseases and even anthrax, caused him serious problems and consumed the assets he had received from his father and father-in-law. Finally, he made the decision to send his young wife back to his parents' house, since he could not get her, and to give up the domain lease, but was stopped by Raumer's ducal chamber administrator , who gave him support.
From this moment on, Nordmann suddenly worked with great success, which earned him the title of senior official in 1800 .
Sheep farming
Nordmann was forced to lease or buy useful meadows and pastures to feed his sheep, and he found what he was looking for at Wittenberg , among others . He also got rid of the 1,800 sheep of inferior quality he had taken over with the domain and bought 150 mangy Spanish merino ewes at a ridiculous price in Saxony , where they would not have been tolerated. His shepherd secretly drove the sick herd to Pötnitz, where it was restored with tobacco liquor and later sold at a high price. Nordmann was the first tenant to hold merinos in Anhalt-Dessau. Nordmann also bought Spanish rams, the export of which was forbidden, in Saxony and secretly brought them across the border. After he had gotten many more sheep in this way than the 1,800 foreseen in the lease and the space in the barn had become tight, in 1811 he invented the so-called floating rake, a hay rack that was only lowered from the stable ceiling for feeding and then again was pulled up. Annually he sold around 300 rams at an average unit price of 4 Louis d'or . An auction of eradicated ewes in 1818 brought him over 16,000 thalers in gold. In 1820 he bought a sheep farm in Süptitz , later also several vineyards there, in which he could use the fertilizer that his flocks of sheep produced, and in which he also farmed in his own pocket, as the condition was tied to ownership of the sheep farm, said vineyards To supply fertilizer.
Cattle breeding
From the 1790s onwards, Nordmann improved his cattle population by purchasing West Frisian cattle , which thrived so well in Pötnitz that they were delivered to Berlin , where they were sometimes shown like miracle animals for money and sung about in verse. The heaviest fattened steer that Nordmann produced fetched 475 thalers at auction and was bought by a Leipzig butcher.
Pig breeding
In pig breeding, Nordmann relied on feeding with waste from the Dessau brewery and with potatoes , instead of allowing the animals to graze in the forest, as was still common at the time.
Grain cultivation
Nordmann worked with the fertilizer his own herds produced and bought-in materials such as ash and achieved excellent results here too, although the land he had leased had originally given little cause for such hopes.
obituary
In an obituary for the farmer, his successes were honored with the following words, among other things: “One can therefore assert that Nordmann's economy did not overlook or neglect any branch of economy to the detriment of the other [...] he left his lease in the most flourishing and exemplary Condition [...] the villages of Pötnitz and Kleutsch mourned his death as if each and every one of them had lost a father in him. ”Nordmann, who died of a“ nervous biliary fever ”, left his wife and daughter behind.
To the Pötnitz domain
Between 1813 and 1815 the Pötnitz domain was plundered by the French, but Nordmann was soon able to compensate for the damage. After his death, Nordmann's heirs continued the lease until the contract expired in 1832.
The domain was originally owned by the Nienburg monastery and emerged from two noble estates that belonged to the Lords of Helldorf and von Posem. Johann Georg II. Von Anhalt-Dessau bought these two goods cheaply in 1665 and set up a sheep farm in Scholitz and the rest of the farm in Pötnitz. In 1700, Leopold I completely redesigned Gut Pötnitz and in 1708 it was linked to Gut Kleutsch. The main courtyard with office and brewery was initially in Kleutsch. The Pötnitz domain was about 6 kilometers long and between 2 and 3 kilometers wide. It lay on the right bank of the hollow . At the time of Leopold I it was administered by bailiff Zimmermann, who soon fled the country and was replaced by bailiff Laddey, who managed it until it was taken over by Nordmann.
In 1800, Nordmann added four large half-timbered sheep pens with roofs in plank truss construction , a construction that was known from the renovation of the Parisian Halle aux Blés in 1783. The stables were about 30.5 meters long, 10 meters wide and 12 meters high. One of the stables has been preserved, was restored in 1985 and is now a listed building.
In 1832 Friedrich Morgenstern took over the lease, who made special efforts to improve the brewery, but died after a few years. A potato syrup factory was set up under the next administrators in 1834, but it was closed again in 1840. The agrarian reform of 1856 led to a downsizing of the estate, 334 acres of land went into the hands of small tenants. In 1919 the Vorwerk Kleutsch was nationalized, Pötnitz itself remained ducal private property, which was, however, divided by land levy. The remains were used as a fruit farm, part of the land was also sold for the construction of small settlements. In 1927 the rest of the goods were given up, which were initially leased and sold soon afterwards. His remains became part of the LPG Mildensee after the Second World War .
Commemoration
Christian Gebhard Nordmann is buried in the church cemetery of Mildensee , formerly Pötnitz; his tomb is located in the southwest corner of the Pötnitzer church . A memorial stone for him was erected there in 1999, bearing the inscription “Pioneer in Agriculture 1755-1823” under Nordmann's name. It was also considered to create a memorial for Christian Gebhard Nordmann in the Napoleon Tower. An information board on the memorial stone says that Mildensee has been holding events every year to commemorate Nordmann since 2000. In September 2011 the 11th Nordmannfest was celebrated.
The Nordmannring in Mildensee is named after Christian Gebhard Nordmann.
literature
- Agricultural reports from Central Germany: containing the latest and most worth knowing for agriculture , Voigt 1833, pp. 42-46 (The text on Nordmann first appeared in 1824 in: Friedrich August Schmidt (ed.), New Nekrolog der Deutschen , Ilmenau 1824, Pp. 651–663)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Mildensee story
- ↑ a b c life
- ↑ a b Nordmann's work
- ↑ a b Agricultural reports ... , p. 45
- ↑ my home
- ↑ Sheepfold in Bauernweg 4, Mildensee
- ^ Mildensee
- ↑ Nordmann saved from oblivion ( memento from September 9, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ 11th Nordmann Festival (PDF; 415 kB)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nordmann, Christian Gebhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Nordmann, Christian Gebhardt |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German farmer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 26, 1755 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Domain Warmsdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 24, 1823 |
| Place of death | Poetnitz |