Edgar Hoeppener

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Edgar Hoeppener about 1890

Carl Edgar Eduard Hoeppener (* February 11th July / February 23rd  1865 greg. 1865 in Reval , † June 25th 1937 in Jena ) was a German-Baltic entrepreneur , banker and later a private scholar .

Life

Edgar Hoeppener's father, councilor Ludwig Theodor Hoeppener, ran the family business Eduard Hoeppener & Co. , founded by grandfather Eduard Hoeppener in 1817 , a trading company with a focus on the forwarding business , which was opened as a result of the opening of the Reval-St. Petersburg proved particularly rewarding. Edgar Hoeppener was interested in science from an early age and was actually aiming for an academic career. However, his father died in 1874, so that his uncle Gustav Friedrich Grühn (* 1830 in Lübeck ; † 1899) took over the company and now, as his guardian, moved him to join his father's company as an apprentice in 1882.

In 1893, however, Edgar Hoeppener founded his own banking business under the Edgar L. Hoeppener company, but it was merged again after a year in his father's company, as its previous owner and former Reval councilor (1876–1886) Gustav Friedrich Grühn moved to the German Empire in 1894 withdrew and Edgar Hoeppener took over the company. The steadily expanding banking business required ever greater equity, so that in 1900 the company was converted into a limited partnership with an initial capital of 400,000 rubles, which rose to 825,000 rubles by 1917. The Russian Revolution of 1905 led to a severe economic crisis with a fall in prices for all Russian values. Nevertheless, thanks to its reserves and good work, the company managed to pay out a dividend of 6% (compared to 7-10% otherwise).

In 1909 Edgar Hoeppener took over the insolvent Petersburg forwarding company Wm.Müller's Successores & Co., in order to then outsource the forwarding business in 1910 and merge it with the Petersburg company R. Foerster Co. by establishing the new company Foerster Hoeppener together with Robert Förster and Alexander Lambert Co. founded. In 1911 he opened a bank branch in Wesenberg . He was also involved with his bank in the machine factory Franz Krull AG founded in 1819, of which he was also director.

The outbreak of the First World War led to a serious crisis for the company, as the import of goods via the Revaler and Petersburg ports completely stalled. However, Edgar Hoeppener obtained a deferred payment from the Russian finance minister, and the Petersburg partner Alexander Lambert managed to quickly set up branches in the only functioning ports of Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok , which meant that the company survived. For this purpose, own port facilities had to be built in Arkhangelsk in order to be able to unload steamers there. This, in turn, was a unique selling point so that the flow of goods was concentrated on the company. The balance sheet total , which in 1894 was 100,000 rubles for the combined banking and shipping business, rose to about 7 million rubles for the bank by 1917 and about 5 million rubles for the shipping business.

Edgar Hoeppener played an important role in Reval's economic life. In particular, he was a co-founder and director of the Mutual Loan Company and vice-president of the Reval Exchange Committee . In addition to his business activities, Edgar Hoeppener also took the time for his scientific interests. In his large villa, currently at Estonia puiestee 15, Kesklinn, Tallinn , designed by his cousin, the Moscow architect Max Hoeppener (1848–1924), he had an observatory for astronomical observations built. The house now serves as a public observatory, while Edgar Hoeppener bequeathed his observation instruments to the future new observatory (in the former Glehn Park in today's district of Hiiu, Nõmme , Tallinn) of the Physics Institute of the Tallinn University of Technology when Edgar Hoeppener left Estonia in 1919 . In addition, Edgar Hoeppener was a member of the German Literary Society, co-founder of the German Association in Estonia (1905/6) and city councilor and honorary citizen of Revals.

The end of the First World War in Estonia also meant the end of the Hoeppener companies. While in early 1917 Edgar Hoeppener was still able to celebrate the centenary of the Hoeppener company with his family, Soviet power was proclaimed in Estonia on November 8, 1917, all banks were nationalized and speaking German was forbidden. On February 24, 1918, the members of the Estonian Parliament proclaimed the Republic of Estonia . How many German-Balts welcomed Edgar Hoeppener grateful to the bloodless invasion of German troops on 25 February 1918. In close connection with the knighthood captain of Estonian knighthood Eduard von Dellingshausen (1863-1939), the Estonia left on 27 November 1918 sat Edgar Hoeppener publicly advocated the cause of the Baltic Germans with poems.

In the autumn of 1919 Edgar Hoeppener emigrated with his wife Anna Elisabeth Wilhelmine, b. Treumann (born August 13, 1866 in St. Petersburg, † September 18, 1941 in Jena) from Estonia and settled in Jena to now lead a life as a private scholar . He was a guest student at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and heard, for example, the history of modern philosophy and Greek festivals . In 1925 he became an honorary citizen of the university. He assisted the botanist Professor Otto Renner , with whom he also published together, and thereupon he was promoted to Dr. phil. nat. appointed hc. He also translated works and days of Hesiod, Antigone and King Oidipus of Sophocles into German (unpublished) and, in his path to truth , summarized the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophers from Thales to Plato in verse.

Works

  • Imatra , Reval 1892.
  • Poems: Dedication to the German troops , money and song , An Runebergs Grabe , Heimat , Peter the Great , Fateful Hour , Reval 12./25. December 1917 , December 18/31, 1917 , February 25, 1918 on the arrival of the Germans in Reval , in: Voices of poets from Estonia's hard times , publisher Franz Kluge, Reval 1918.
  • Genetic and cytological oenothermic studies (together with Otto Renner), Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin 1928; Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1929, 86 pp.
  • Festival song for February 17, 1929 - dedicated to the Jena student body , Jena 1929.
  • Anakreon redivivus - Old songs about roses, wine and love for young people over 60 years, brought into German rhymes , Verlag Carl Friedrich Ernst Frommann, Jena 1935.
  • The way to truth, a poetry that seeks truth , Wassermann, Reval 1938, 39 pp.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edgar Höppener † , Revalsche Zeitung No. 151, Friday, July 9, 1937
  2. ↑ M. Mars, T. Aas, V. Harvig: THE TALLINN PUBLIC OBSERVATORY IN CHANGING CONDITIONS. Odessa Astronomical Publications Vol. 20 (2007), p. 126.
personal data
SURNAME Hoeppener, Edgar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoeppener, Carl Edgar Eduard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic banker
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Reval
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1937
Place of death Jena