Emanuel Herrmann

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Professor Emanuel Herrmann
Grave of Emanuel Herrmann

Emanuel Herrmann (born June 24, 1839 in Klagenfurt , Carinthia , † July 13, 1902 in Vienna ) was an Austrian economist . He made the decisive proposal for the first official post office introduction of the postcard in Austria-Hungary. However, he was not the sole inventor of the postcard, as there were earlier approaches.

Life

His father Alexander Herrmann was district captain in Klagenfurt. Herrmann's grandfather Josef was a drawing master and his great-grandfather Johann immigrated from Silesia , who was a cabinet maker. The Canon Heinrich Herrmann was his uncle, a famous historian of the 19th century.

From 1848 to 1856 he went to a grammar school in Klagenfurt where Benedictines taught. After completing his law studies in Vienna , Prague and Graz , he joined the Financial Procuratorate in Klagenfurt in 1861 as an intern. A short time later, he completed his habilitation in Graz and was there from 1863 at the university as a private lecturer in economics. After a short study visit elsewhere in 1864, he gave lectures in Graz. From 1868 he taught economics and encyclopedia of law at the military academy in Wiener Neustadt . Next, from 1871, he was a lecturer at the Vienna Commercial Academy. Then he was Ministerialrat at the Ministry of Culture and Education. From 1882 to 1902 Herrmann was then full professor of economics at the Vienna University of Technology .

On January 26, 1869, he published an article in the Neue Freie Presse under the title About a new type of correspondence via the post . In this article he suggested that all cards, written or produced by copying machines or printing, in the format of an ordinary letter envelope, may be sent openly with a two-cross stamp if they contain no more than 20 words, including the address and signature of the sender. The normal postage at that time was five Kreuzers .

Herrmann's proposal fell on fertile ground. The then general post director Ritter v. Maly took up the thought. As early as September 1869, the Ministry of Commerce issued an ordinance on the introduction of the correspondence card, according to which the postal administration issued postcards from October 1, 1869, on which short written messages were sent to all parts of the monarchy regardless of distance for a fee from two new cruisers can.

The correspondence card made its way from Austria through the whole world. Herrmann became a well-known man through this invention. However, its authorship was later contested. In the German Reichstag, for example, a government representative declared that the Prussian Oberpostrat and later Reichspostdirektor Heinrich von Stephan was the actual inventor of the correspondence card, as he had already proposed it in 1865 at the postal conference in Karlsruhe . However, this claim was always rejected by the Austrian side with the argument that Stephan did not propose a correspondence card at the time, but a post office sheet that should be available in the size of a money order at all post offices, but before use only with a stamp worth the previous postage (a silver groschen) had to be pasted. However, this would not have been a novelty, since the postage should not be reduced; rather, it was only intended to facilitate the manipulation of the post. In fact, it was not the Postblatt proposed by Stephan, but a postcard exactly like the Austrian correspondence card that was introduced in Germany. Incidentally, Stephan never claimed to be the inventor of the postcard himself.

Herrmann owned the Villa Seefels in Pörtschach am Wörther See , and he also collected folk songs and published them as books.

Herrmann is buried in Vienna at the Meidlinger Friedhof in an honorary grave (section E, row 7, grave no. 113). The gravestone reads: "The inventor of the postcard".

Trivia

The in Vienna on the Danube Canal lying beach bar Herrmann takes its name Emanuel Herrmann.

Works

  • With Valentin Pogatschnigg: German folk songs from Carinthia , 2 volumes, Graz 1869 and 1870
  • The theory of insurance from an economic standpoint , Graz 1868
  • Guide to Economics , Graz 1870
  • Miniature pictures from the area of ​​the economy , Halle a. S .: Nebert, 1872
  • Natural history of clothing , Vienna, Waldheim 1878
  • Culture and nature. Studies in the field of economics , Berlin 1887
  • Technical questions and problems of modern economics , 1891
  • The secret of power. Original studies . 2nd edition Berlin 1896

literature

  • R. Zimmerl: 126 years postcard . In: The postage stamp No. 10/1994; also published in: Manfred Stippich (editor): The postcard. Dr. Emanuel Herrmann - an Austrian invention conquers the world , exhibition catalog, Klagenfurt 1995, pp. 10–15
  • Franz Kalckhoff : The invention of the postcard and the correspondence cards of the North German Federal Post . Leipzig 1911.
  • Herrmann Emanuel. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1959, p. 291.
  • Haffner, Alfons: The maternal ancestors of the inventor of the postcard, Dr. Herrmann. In: Carinthia I , 1984, Volume 174, pp. 413-478.

Web links

Individual references, comments

  1. ↑ cf. Postcard blog: Double inventions & innovation ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 13, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ansichtskarten-sammeln.de
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h R. Zimmerl: 126 years postcard . In: The postage stamp No. 10/1994; also published in: Manfred Stippich (editor): The postcard. Dr. Emanuel Herrmann - an Austrian invention conquers the world , exhibition catalog, Klagenfurt 1995, pp. 10–15.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Dr. Hans Paul Meier: Dr. Emanuel Herrmann. In: Manfred Stippich (editor): The postcard. Dr. Emanuel Herrmann - an Austrian invention conquers the world , exhibition catalog, Klagenfurt 1995, pp. 5–9; also published in: Carinthia I , 1939
  4. ^ Ordinance of the Ministry of Commerce
  5. ^ Innsbrucker Nachrichten, July 17, 1902
personal data
SURNAME Herrmann, Emanuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian economist
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Klagenfurt
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1902
Place of death Vienna