Friedrich Lenz (entrepreneur)

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Theodor Friedrich Carl Lenz (born November 9, 1846 in Pflugrade , Naugard district ; † August 19, 1930 Meseritzer Mühle near Semerow , Schivelbein district ) was a German entrepreneur who made a name for himself with the construction and operation of railways.

Life

Friedrich Lenz, who came from a family of landowners, attended the Marienstiftsgymnasium in Stettin after stints in Carlshof and Gollnow , from whose time a friendship with the historian Hugo Lemcke remained, and later the provincial trade school in Stettin. He did military service as a one-year volunteer in Kolberg . At the age of 20 he came to the office of the Berlin-Szczecin Railway , where he stayed until the beginning of the war in 1870. After being injured, he was unable to return to the field service and was involved in various construction works in the Stettin area. For civil engineering contractor and later partner Feuerloh he took over work on the Saale railway , in addition, the joint venture has been involved in other railway buildings in Thuringia. In 1876 he founded his own civil engineering company and worked in railway construction. He built the Altdamm-Colberger Railway , completed in 1882, as a general contractor . Lenz then built several railways in Mecklenburg-Schwerin , for which he not only raised part of the construction costs, but also took on the operational management and the operational risk for the first few years. The Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft played a key role in the financing , through which he also got projects in Egypt at the end of the 1880s.

The passage of the Prussian Small Railroad Act led to increased involvement in Germany, especially in Pomerania. In 1892 he founded Lenz & Co. GmbH in Stettin and was its managing director . Other foundations were the Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in 1893, the Westdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in 1895 and the Badische Lokal-Eisenbahnen in 1898. On June 4, 1901, the holdings in the numerous, mostly small railway stock companies were combined in the AG for Transport . By 1914, this company had built around 100 railways throughout Prussia with a route length of almost 5000 km.

Since 1903 Lenz has also been involved in the construction of railways in the German colonies in Africa, initially in German East Africa (Korogwe-Mombo line, later extended to Moshi, known as the Usambarabahn ), and since 1904 in Togo ( Lomé-Atakpame and Lomé- Palime ), since 1905 in German South West Africa (Lüderitzbucht-Aus route as the southern part of the Windhoek – Nakop railway line ) and since 1907 in Cameroon ( Bonaberi – Nkongsamba line , also called Northern Railway). To this end, he founded the German Colonial Railway Construction and Operating Company (DKEBBG), which he headed as a subsidiary of the AG for Transport as its director. Altogether, under his leadership, rail lines of almost 2000 km in length were built in Africa, most of which (like other railways not built by the DKEBBG) were also operated by the latter.

Because the construction should be as cost-effective as possible, vehicles and buildings were created according to the same plans as possible. These were later referred to as Lenz's standards . After 1918, the company turned mainly to the operation of small railways and founded various management companies for this purpose.

Friedrich Lenz was also a city ​​councilor in Stettin and, among other things, campaigned for the establishment of a free port .

Honors

literature

  • In memory of Privy Councilor Friedrich Lenz. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 70, No. 45 (November 6, 1930), p. 1209.
  • Wolfram Bäumer: From old Mr. Lenz to the Pomeranian state railways. In: Wolfram Bäumer, Siegfried Bufe: Railways in Pomerania. Egglham / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-922138-34-9 , pp. 106-111.
  • Wolfram Bäumer, Wolf-Dietger Machel: Friedrich Lenz. A pioneer in regionalization. In: Die Museums-Eisenbahn ( ISSN  0936-4609 ), Issue 2/1987 and Issue 3/1987, pp. 24–33.
  • Wolfram Bäumer: small train pioneer. In: Eisenbahn Magazin , issue 12/1996, p. 43.
  • Rolf Löttgers:  Lenz, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 222 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Theodor Reh: Friedrich Lenz. In: Pommersche Lebensbilder , Volume I. Saunier, Stettin 1934, pp. 322–335.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Lenz from the online version of the German Biography, accessed on October 29, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Lenz, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lenz, Theodor Friedrich Carl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German railway pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Plow
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1930
Place of death Meseritzer mill near Semerow