Friedrich Carl Witte

Friedrich Carl Julius Richard Wilhelm Witte (born July 6, 1864 in Rostock , † May 24, 1938 in Fürstenberg / Havel ) was a German chemist, manufacturer and politician.

Life

Friedrich Carl Witte was a son of the Rostock pharmacist, factory owner and parliamentarian Friedrich Witte and his wife Anna, née. Schacht (1834-1910). After attending the large city school in Rostock and the city high school in Stettin, from 1883 he studied chemistry at the University of Rostock. In 1885 he was at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic and at the University of Geneva . From 1886 to 1888 he completed an apprenticeship in his father's chemical factory, combined with further studies at Rostock University. In 1888/89 he stayed in Geneva again for two semesters, where he did his doctorate with Sigmund Levy on the subject of "Recherches sur le Diacétyle Tétrachloré". The further career path began with study trips to England and the USA.

Witte's chemical factory in Bramow near Rostock

In 1890 he joined his father's company as a chemist and after his death in 1893 he took over the management of the chemical factory and drug wholesaler Friedrich Witte . The chemical works were a. with the production of grape sugar , medicinal resins and the Witte peptone , with the extraction of araroba (has been processed into a remedy for skin diseases) and hurricane .

In addition to his work as a scientist and entrepreneur, Witte was very active in local and state politics. In 1893 he became chairman of the liberal electoral association of Rostock and in 1902 of the liberal state electoral association of both Mecklenburg. In 1897 he became a member of the Rostock citizens' council and in 1903 a member of the board of the Mecklenburg Chamber of Commerce. He was a board member of the Rostock corporation of merchants, in the trade, fishing and citizens' association as well as in the non-profit society and in the association for Rostock antiquities. In 1897 he became a member of the Association of Friends of Mecklenburg's Natural History. In 1919/20 he was a member of the constituent state parliament of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin for the DDP , of which he was a co-founder and Mecklenburg state chairman. In addition, he was also chairman of the Rostock Group of the German Peace Society . In 1933 he withdrew from public life with an appeal “To my fatherland”.

See also : List of members of the Landtag (Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin) (Constituent Assembly)

family

Friedrich Carl Witte had been married to the women's rights activist Laura (Elisabeth Theodore) Roth , daughter of the cotton merchant Johannes Roth (1837-1894) , since June 7, 1892 . The marriage had five children: Johanna (* 1893), Friedrich (* 1895), Siegfried (* 1897), Elisabeth (* 1903) and Carl August (* 1908). His brother-in-law was the sculptor Frederick Roth (1872–1944). The politician Annemarie von Harlem (1894–1983) was his niece, daughter of his sister Annemarie (1870–1947).

The Witte family maintained numerous friendships privately, so the connection to the family of Theodor Fontane continued even after the death of his father. There was also a friendship with the journalist and political scientist Theodor Heuss , who later became the first Federal President .

Honors

• Honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock, 1919

Fonts (selection)

• Birgit Jürgens (ed.): Experienced, told, listened to. Stories from old Rostock told by Friedrich Carl Witte. Edition Altstadt-Verlag, Rostock 2005. ISBN 978-3-930845-87-3
• Friedr. Witte, Rostock: 1856 - October 1st - 1931. On the history of the family and the company. Adler, Rostock [approx. 1931]
• Life memories. Two parts:

First part: childhood, youth, school. 1864-1883. Hinstorff, Rostock 1936 ( digitalized RosDok )

Second part: studies, traveling, first job, marriage 1883–1893.  Hinstorff, Rostock 1938 ( digitalized RosDok )

• "The acquisition of money alone is not the supreme law for merchants [...]". In: Thorsten Permien: Visions from the past. Traces of sustainable development in the life's work of well-known personalities from Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. (= University publications on sustainability; 32). Oekom-Verlag, Munich 2007. ISBN 978-3-86581-071-7
• Russian travel impressions with special consideration of commercial and economic life , Stiller, Rostock 1899 ( digital copy from the holdings of the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Research )

literature

• Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 10962 .
• Marianne Beese: Family, women's movement and society in Mecklenburg 1870–1920. Situation of women and female CVs; Laura Witte (1869–1939), Anna von Maltzahn (1856–1895). Neuer Hochschul-Schriften-Verlag, Rostock 1999, ISBN 3-929544-76-8

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Carl Witte in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Friedrich Carl Witte in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ^ Enrollment in 1883 in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ^ Matriculation in 1886 in the Rostock matriculation portal
3. ^ S. Levy and FC Witte: Phenylhydracin on tetrachloroacetone. In: Justus Liebig's Annals of Chemistry . Volume 251-252, CF Wintersche Verlagshandlung, Leipzig and Heidelberg 1889, p. 343ff.
4. ^ Family sheet Friedrich Carl Witte, Portal Genealogy.net
5. ↑ Family sheet ROTH Laura, Ahnenforschung - SCABELL ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Regina Dieterle (eds.): Theodor Fontane and Martha Fontane: a family letter network. (= Writings of the Theodor Fontane Society; Vol. 4), de Gruyter, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-11-015881-7 ( limited preview in Google book search) The link page shows a photo: Laura Witte-Roth and Friedrich Carl Witte, around 1891.
7. ↑ Elke Seefried (Ed.): Theodor Heuss, In der Defensive: Briefe 1933–1945. Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-25124-5 . P. 241 ( limited preview in Google Book search).