Ernst Benary

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Ernst Benary (born November 10, 1819 in Kassel , † February 19, 1893 in Erfurt ) was a Hessian horticultural entrepreneur in Erfurt.

Ernst Benary

Life

Origin and education

Benary came from a Jewish family whose paternal side can be traced back to the middle of the 18th century in Witzenhausen in northern Hesse . His father Salomon Levy, who moved to Kassel, was a banker and, as part of the Jewish emancipation implemented under Jérôme Bonaparte, had adopted the name Benary (" son of Löw ") in 1807 . His mother also came from a banking family, her father Michael Simon Meilert was a senior war pay office agent for Landgrave Wilhelm IX. , later Elector Wilhelm I.

Due to forced loans to finance King Jérôme Bonaparte's lavish lifestyle, his father lost all of his fortune and, after the restoration of the Electorate of Hesse, decided to leave Kassel and move to Erfurt in Prussia . He enrolled his two eldest sons Ferdinand and Agathon at the Evangelical Ratsgymnasium there and tried to gain citizenship, which was finally granted to him in 1824 after lengthy quarrels in the city council by cabinet order of the King of Prussia. Ernst was the youngest son and the penultimate of a total of nine children.

In 1835 he graduated from the Erfurt high school to devote himself to "art gardening". Suggestions from his classmates Ernst Biltz , who later became an important botanist and chemist , and Friedrich Carl Heinemann , who also founded an important horticultural company in 1848, may have played a role. He began his training with the then most respected Erfurt gardener Friedrich Adolph Haage Jr., who gave him a good apprenticeship certificate. After his training he went on a journey that took him to Frankfurt am Main , France ( Metz , Paris ) and, after a stopover at Haage in 1842, to England ( London ) in 1843 .

Establishment and development of the Ernst Benary Samenzucht company since 1843

In 1843 he founded an independent art and commercial gardening company in Erfurt. In the same year he published the first price lists for flower bulbs as well as for flower and vegetable seeds. At first he lived in a rented apartment on Eichengasse. A year later he moved into the house on the corner of Schlösserstrasse and Barfüßerstrasse and leased a small garden on Martinsgasse.

In 1845 he married Bella Jonassohn, who came from a respected Hamburg merchant family. Your dowry enabled him to purchase his first piece of land. It was the house "Zur Kröte" in the Brühlervorstadt , which later became Brühler Strasse 40. At that time it stood alone, was one floor lower and served as an apartment for the family above and as an office and warehouse below . He was happily married to Bella Benary for 48 years. The marriage had seven children, one of whom died early. Five of his children converted to Christianity .

On February 14, 1847 he was granted citizenship by the Erfurt Council. This enabled him to start expanding the business now. He specialized more and more in the cultivation and distribution of flower and vegetable seeds and in 1849 he became internationally active with the publication of foreign language catalogs. His business dealings were determined by the will never to disappoint his customers and to win their blind trust. “Like the seed - like the harvest” became his motto, which was later immortalized on the new store building on Gorkistraße.

In 1863 he had over 1,500 hotbed windows and 13 greenhouses in operation on around 20 hectares . In 1878 he built the still existing Villa Ernst Benary in Gorkistraße, the rooms of which were lavishly decorated with paintings. In 1879 a new office building with large storage facilities was built opposite. In 1893 there were around 6,000 hotbed windows and 20 greenhouses on 50 hectares. About 100 growers in all parts of the world worked with the Benary company, 14 independent companies worked for Benary in Erfurt alone. In the almost 50 years of his management, he was able to develop the company into a leading global supplier of garden seeds and contributed to Erfurt being nicknamed the city of flowers and Germany becoming a cradle of commercial seed production and systematic plant breeding.

His book The cultivation of plants from seeds in horticulture . A handbook for gardening enthusiasts, gardeners and seed dealers. (Berlin: Parey 1887) was published in its third edition in 1923 and was published as a reprint in 2017.

Social and political engagement

Even before the introduction of Bismarck's social legislation , he created his own company health insurance fund . His wife, like the wives of his successors, took care of sick employees and young mothers with their newborns. The company took care of its elderly - an aid fund with not inconsiderable resources formed the forerunner of the company pension scheme . The working atmosphere was good, and long years of service and the resulting employee anniversaries at Benary became proverbial in Erfurt.

Benary also got involved beyond the operation. He belonged to the bourgeois class of dignitaries , was a city councilor and brought his knowledge and support to the organization and staging of numerous specialist congresses and exhibitions.

In his will, he disposed of substantial amounts of money for charitable purposes. He bequeathed several pieces of land to the city of Erfurt, which were located between Gothaer Strasse and today's Strasse des Friedens and covered around 5,700 m². For this purpose he had previously acquired it from the city as building land. He determined that a recreational area for his fellow citizens should be created on this and that it should be preserved forever.

Ernst Benary died on February 19, 1893 after being ill for four days.

Aftermath

After his death, the business was continued as a GmbH by his sons and grandchildren. In 1929 the company JC Schmidt ("Blumenschmidt", → Christoph Schmidt ) was bought. In 1946 his great-grandson Friedrich Ernst Benary left Erfurt and built the company in Hann. Münden , southern Lower Saxony , anew. He specialized in ornamental plants. Another location with twenty greenhouses and forty hectares of open land was built in Wiesmoor , East Frisia . In 1952 the family in Thuringia was expropriated.

Awards

  • The Benaryplatz in Erfurt is named after him. After the name had been removed during National Socialism and the GDR era, it was reintroduced after the fall of the Wall.
  • In August 2000, the city of Erfurt erected and inaugurated a memorial stone on Benaryplatz.
  • On January 23, 2009 the State Vocational School 5 in Erfurt was given the name "Ernst-Benary-Schule" during a ceremony.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Benary, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gardener and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1893
Place of death Erfurt