Ernst Burmester

Ernst Burmester (born June 16, 1893 in Bremen , † December 17, 1965 ) was a German shipyard owner and founder of the Burmester shipyard .

biography

Burmester was the son of a plumber. After primary school, he completed an apprenticeship in his father's company in Findorff and attended courses in technical drawing. After serving as a soldier in World War I , he passed the master's examination in 1919. In 1920 he founded an agency and commission business and moved the headquarters of the Burmester brothers to Bremen- Burg . A yacht and boat yard was also built . Due to the considerable demand for yachts in the 1920s, the company - from 1925 Yacht- und Bootswerft Burmester GmbH - grew considerably. In 1935, after a liquidation, Burmester became the sole owner of the boatyard.

In the 1930s the shipyard mainly built lifeboats and small boats, including a. Clearance boats and outpost boats (including so-called war fish cutters ) for the navy . In 1941 a branch was set up in Świnoujście , the Ernst Burmester Schiffswerft KG Świnoujście-Ost . During the Second World War , the Burmester shipyard also employed Dutch, French and Polish slave labor as an armaments factory .

Aschanti IV , built in 1954, the largest German sailing yacht

After the end of the war, Burmester was classified as a "fellow traveler" in a denazification process . His shipyard survived the war and then carried out repair and clearing work under his direction. Around 200 employees also built fishing cutters from 1945 to 1948 . From 1948 the shipyard started building yachts and motor boats again for various business purposes. Navy boats were also rebuilt and partly exported.

The focus of the shipyard, however, remained the construction of private sailing and motor yachts , especially of "international class ocean-going yachts" as they did before the war. The number of employees rose to 750 by 1959; it then fell to around 220 by the beginning of 1970.

Burmester was considered an "idiosyncratic original"; a man who often “got out of his skin”, endowed with “a passionate will to succeed”. For him, “the day still had 24 hours”. But he was also seen as a “ Baas with a heart”, whom “his workforce saw as one of their own” and who “was able to promote talents from their own stable”. Burmester was a passionate sailor . His famous ocean- going yacht Aschanti IV , which he had built in his own shipyard in 1954, was the largest German sailing yacht at the time.

After Burmester's death, family members took over the shipyard.

literature

• Klaus in the garden: Burmester yacht and boat yard, Bremen: 1920–1979. An important chapter in German boat building and sailing history . Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-89757-141-2 .
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Helmut Dachale: When the day still had 24 hours . Article in the Weser-Kurier of March 29, 2009, p. 31.