Eduard Brinkama
Eduard Brinkama (born February 28, 1927 in Hamburg ; † October 23, 1978 ibid), was a German antiques dealer and custodian of historical buildings.
Family background
Eduard Brinkama's father, who came from a farming family from Weddewarden with East Frisian origins, worked in import and export in the automotive industry. Mother Katja (née Kobritz) was a Jewish Russian . They lived in a Wilhelminian apartment building on Ulmenstrasse in Winterhude . A lot of Russian was spoken at home, little was read about politics and little read. When Eduard Brinkama came to power in 1933, he was six years old. He kept a special memory of accompanying his Russian grandparents to the train station with his family, from where they had to drive to a concentration camp in cattle trucks . Brinkama rarely talked about the past.
First years of employment
After graduating from secondary school , his father registered him for an apprenticeship as a car mechanic at the Hamburger Borgward representative, Hugo Pfohe . A commercial apprenticeship followed.
In 1946 the eighteen year old went into business for himself. He bought scrap motorcycles, repaired them and preferably sold them to South American sailors. From the proceeds he bought seven knitting machines and let in Hamburg-Bergedorf twinsets ready for Hanseatic Haberdasher, where he ironed himself and annähte buttons.
Antiques
In 1951 he bought his first antiques. He married the war widow Ruth Witte, daughter of an antiques dealer, from whom he acquired specialist knowledge. Brinkama temporarily went into his father-in-law's business.
In 1953 the couple opened their own antique shop with initially eight pieces of furniture in Hamburg's posh street Hohe Bleichen , where three established antiquarians already resided. With borrowed money from his father-in-law, Brinkama bought furniture in England and was enthusiastic about the British way of life, especially London's undestroyed city quarters with houses from the late 18th and early 19th centuries such as Chelsea and Kensington . In the time after the currency reform , Brinkama's British mahogany furniture brought great business success in Hamburg. In the years that followed, customers soon asked him for entire interior fittings, such as Axel Springer for Gut Schierensee . Brinkama also worked as a supplier for the architect Caesar Pinnau , who in turn fitted out yachts, cruise ships and villas of international celebrities.
Pöseldorf
In 1959 Brinkama bought an old carriage shed in Milky Way 11 for 100,000 Deutschmarks. It was once designed by Hamburg architect Martin Haller for the nearby Budge Palais . Now it stood empty and shabby in the center of Pöseldorf, an undamaged urban district within Hamburg-Rotherbaum . Pöseldorf is not an official field name with fixed boundaries. It was created as a residential area for servants of the villa owners on Harvestehuder Weg , for craftsmen, coachmen, gardeners, shopkeepers and milk dealers. Brinkama had the coach house renovated according to his ideas in the style of old British buildings and furnished with antiques. He moved into the former stable himself, opened his shop on the ground floor, and wound the clock in the tower every day.
In the years to come he acquired more of the often small and nested pieces of land in Pöseldorf with workshops, stables and houses and had them restored. He rented the resulting noble buildings mainly to people who, in his opinion, enriched Pöseldorf, to artists, gallery owners, media professionals and students. He sold houses at a profit only to buy more land and estates immediately. In 1971 he applied for 37 of his houses to be included in the Hamburg list of historical monuments. At that time he owned a total of around 70 houses in and around Pöseldorf, a farmhouse on Sylt and a property in Switzerland. His second marriage was Marion Countess von Moltke-Kirsten, and it was a short marriage.
He married again, became the father of three children and a member of the Hamburg Monument Council. The media accompanied his efforts to upgrade Pöseldorf with primarily positive reporting.
Last years
With success, the difficulties grew. Competition in the real estate market became fiercer. Brinkama was troubled by the mixture of bureaucracy, political requirements, monument protection, credit lines from banks and citizens' initiatives. One initiative fought against the plan of a real estate entrepreneur to build a large complex in Pöseldorf. In another, he fought, partly without success, for the preservation of Hamburg's historic Deichstrasse . Banks charged 19 percent interest on loans at the top.
In 1977 he began to build a new life with his fourth wife Edda. He bought the renowned Adolph Meyer antique shop on Ballindamm and opened it under his name as an art house . In December 1978 Eduard Brinkama died of cancer after a long illness . His grave is in the Keitum cemetery on Sylt.
literature
- Gisela Schiefler: We, Eduard Brinkama / A life for a more beautiful city - it all started in Pöseldorf ... Hanseatische Edition GmbH, Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-921554-00-4
- Eduard Brinkama . In: Hamburgische Biografie, Volume V, pp. 63/64
- Hamburg: awakeners in the village . Der Spiegel No. 5, 1965
- Antiques - Rumors in the Industry . In Die Zeit , January 26th, 1968
- Died: Eduard Brinkama. In: Der Spiegel , No. 44, 1978
- Volker Albers: Living in a splendid decor. Storage house as a boutique . In: Hamburger Abendblatt from August 12, 2005
Footnotes
- ↑ Gisela Schiefler: Wir, Eduard Brinkama / A life for a more beautiful city - it all started in Pöseldorf ... , pp. 13-16.
- ↑ Gisela Schiefler: We, Eduard Brinkama, Life for a more beautiful city ... , p. 18
- ↑ http://grabsteine.genealogy.net/tomb.php?cem=306&tomb=195&b=B&lang=de
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brinkama, Eduard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German antique dealer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 28, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 23, 1978 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |