Eduard Lang (showman)

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Eduard "Edi" Lang (born June 25, 1912 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † November 5, 1995 in the Vienna Prater ) was an Austrian showman and entrepreneur .

Live and act

Eduard Lang was born on June 25, 1912 as the youngest child of Oskar Lang and his wife Rosa (née Tauber). His three older siblings were Wilhelm (1904–1967), Albert (1907–1970) and Anna (1910–1966). Lang lived with his family in the 2nd district of Vienna, Leopoldstadt , in the immediate vicinity of the Vienna Prater . Lang already spent a lot of time there during his childhood and in his youth (from 1926) started working as a showman's assistant. At the same time, after completing compulsory schooling, he completed an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and silversmith at the elementary and community school, which he attended from 1918 to 1926. In the Prater he initially worked on weekends as an assistant to the Eigner family at the address Prater 64 (now 47). After successfully completing his apprenticeship in 1930, Lang worked as a jeweler for several years. When he passed his master craftsman examination, he was already husband and father of a daughter (Erika; * 1934). As an entrepreneur, he subsequently ran three jewelry stores. However, the marriage to Margaret, the mother of his daughter, broke up in the course of the Second World War . During this time Lang also did his military service and was sometimes a prisoner of war .

A little later he married Margarete, with whom he had the children Eva (* 1944), Eduard junior (1945–1995) and Gertrude (* 1947). At the beginning of the 1950s Eduard Lang returned to the Prater, where he bought Prater 55g (today the location of the Jack the Ripper attraction ) from Ernst and Nikolai Kobelkoff, a family that came from the Russian Empire and had lived in Vienna for decades. In 1959 Eduard and Margarete Lang were divorced, whereupon Lang fell in love with Liselotte Gruber (née Schaaf; * 1927), a descendant of the Kobelkoff family, who was 15 years his junior . She brought the children Elisabeth (* 1951) and Renate (* 1953) into the relationship from her first marriage to Josef Gruber. The couple married three years later and had two children, Silvia (* 1962) and Karl (* 1963). Lang was on the Prater's board of directors for the first time in 1960. Over the years, the couple, who have been closely associated with the Wiener Prater since childhood, came to a number of other businesses in the Wiener Prater through hard work and many privations. In 1983 the family already had eight different businesses. One of these businesses was Prater Hütte 81 (later 64, today 47), in which Lang once started as a showman's assistant in his youth and which his daughter Silvia took over in 1987 and continued to run the oldest amusement arcade in the Prater as Daytona Beach . At the time of his death he owned eleven shops in the Vienna Prater.

As early as the 1960s, Lang was appointed deputy chairman of the Association of Prater Entrepreneurs and rose to its chairman in 1980. He remained in this honorary position until shortly before his death in 1995. Lang spent his last day wintering the farms. Around 3:30 p.m. on November 5, 1995, he sat down at his desk in the office to listen to music and to rest a little before he died of a second at the age of 83 . Helmut Zilk , meanwhile former mayor of Vienna and a friend of Lang, gave the funeral oration for the last "King of the Vienna Prater".

Other activities that Lang exercised in the course of his life were labor court assessors (1971–1981), deputy chiefs and committee members of the “Allgemeine” section (1974–1980), deputy chiefs of the “amusement businesses” (1974–1990), committee member of the “Allgemeine” trade association "(1975–1980) or member of the committee of the professional association" Amusement companies "(1979–1990). Furthermore, from 1980 to 1990 the Commerce Council was chamber councilor of the tourism section of the Chamber of Commerce for Vienna (Vienna Chamber of Commerce ).

His wife Liselotte continued to work in her husband's business even after his death and was mostly to be found at the Wiener Rutsche , one of the attractions of the Lang family , until 2016 . Since then she has been spending her old age in familiar surroundings in the Vienna Prater.

Honors

Eduard Lang has received several honors and awards throughout his life. In 1978 he received the Chamber of Commerce's Great Silver Medal of Honor ; In 1983 he was awarded the professional title of Kommerzialrat and the Silver Town Hall Man. A year later he received the Golden Town Hall Man from the outgoing mayor Helmut Zilk. In 1985 he received the Julius Raab Medal of Honor from the Vienna Regional Group of the Wirtschaftsbund ; also in 1985 he received the Golden Medal of Honor from the Vienna Showmen Association . In the year of his 80th birthday, Lang was awarded the Golden Medal of Merit of the State of Vienna . According to a resolution of the municipal council committee for culture on May 16, 1997, a path running through the Prater with the banal name Weg 18 was named in honor of Lang, who died a year and a half earlier, in his honor, Eduard-Lang-Weg . The path was inaugurated on July 9, 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Everyday Story - Darling, I'm in the Prater , accessed on April 28, 2019
  2. ^ Eduard-Lang-Weg in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna , accessed on April 28, 2019
  3. ^ Prater - Opening Eduard Lang Weg July 9, 1997 (1/2) , accessed on April 28, 2019
  4. Prater - Eduard Lang Weg Opening July 9, 1997 (2/2) , accessed on April 28, 2019