Friedrich Strange

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Invoice letterhead from the company "Friedrich Strange Successor". The picture of the factory area is from the time of Friedrich Seltsam, as you can see his villa in the lower right corner, which was actually in a different part of town.

Friedrich Seltsam (born June 3, 1844 in Grünstadt , Rheinpfalz , Kingdom of Bavaria ; † November 12, 1887 in Forchheim , Upper Franconia) was a German entrepreneur. He developed new production processes for bone degreasing and for the production of bone glue , which were patented and spread worldwide.

Life

origin

Friedrich Seltsam was born as the son of the Grünstadt brewery owner and innkeeper Michael Seltsam (later Malzfabrik Schlichting) and his wife Katharina, b. Man born. The family is long established there. The boy grew up in the small town, attended the local Latin school and initially learned the craft of brewing. Then he went to Bavaria on the right bank of the Rhine to run a small brewery himself . The father's company in Grünstadt also had an agricultural business. a. the family grew their own hops . She was also one of the initiators of the local gas works.

Entrepreneurs and inventors in Franconia

Postcard, 1878, addressed to Friedrich Seltsam in Forchheim

At the age of 26, Seltsam turned to the gas industry and in 1870 acquired the gas works in Forchheim / Upper Franconia. He rose to become one of the richest men in town. With his worldview - he was non-denominational and avowed vegetarian  - he aroused offense in the conservative Forchheim.

From 1871, Seltsam also ran a bone distillery, in which charcoal , fertilizers, fats and glues were made. The bone glue developed into the company's main product. As an alternative to inefficiently degreasing bones by boiling them, Friedrich Seltsam invented a process for degreasing bones with high-pressure petrol vapors. In 1879 he was granted the imperial patent No. 10196. This innovation changed the industry permanently. The man from Grünstadt became the "father of modern bone glue production". For about 100 years all over the world the bone glue production was based exclusively on the Seltsam method.

In 1881 he and his industrial chemist Dr. Richard Hagen received another patent (No. 16222) for a new process for the production of bone glue . The glue produced in this way had a higher binding power than conventional products and became famous throughout Europe as “Forchheim glue”.

Friedrich Seltsam processed up to 25 tons of bones a day that were delivered to Forchheim from slaughterhouses in Germany and the surrounding countries. The factory made an annual net profit of 60,000 marks. The manufacturer was one of the richest men in Franconia . In Forchheim he had a splendid villa built that had not been seen in the city until then. In 1882 even the daily Forchheimer Tageblatt referred to it as the “newest urban attraction”.

In a letter to the government of Upper Franconia on July 20, 1884, the entrepreneur stated:

“Without being immodest, I can say of myself that I have brought the bone industry to a level never imagined a few years ago, that my system has been introduced in all European countries and that my latest process has made this industry one of the cleanest will count. "

- Friedrich Strange : Letter from 1884

Another patent for drying in the degreasing of bones and other fatty materials was registered by Seltsam with the number S. 2427 on December 29, 1884. Between 1883 and 1885 he expanded and modernized the company, but took over financially. In addition, after the early death of his brother Michael, his father's economically poor brewery in Grünstadt fell to him, and he probably spent large sums of money to save it. In a report by the Mayor of Forchheim from 1887 it says:

"Attempts by the manufacturer to help the threatened decline in his business with new inventions and improvements were associated with great costs and did not lead to any results."

- Official report on the suicide, 1887

In view of the impending ruin, mentally worn down by his social outsider role and the fights with parts of the population because of the pungent smell of his "stink factory", Friedrich Seltsam committed suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun on the morning of November 12, 1887 . His wife and children left Forchheim and moved to Upper Bavaria.

Development of the company after death

The company was sold, but the well-established brand name "Seltsam" was retained. The company operated under the name “F. Strange Successor ", later as" Strange AG "and won prizes at the Antwerp World Exhibition in 1885 and at the Bavarian State Exhibitions in Nuremberg in 1896 and 1906 . The most famous products were the “Forchheimer glue platelets” developed in the company and patented in 1928; small pre-formed pieces of glue that you only had to soak for about an hour to use. Conventional glue boards had to be shredded; they took 12 to 24 hours to soak in water before the glue could be used. At times the demand for the glue pads was so great that the factory even bought bones from India and South America. It wasn't until 1970 that the business declined due to the increasing use of artificial glue. Nevertheless, Seltsam AG held up for a few years and, in addition to glue, also produced fertilizers, animal feed and high-quality fats. In 1984 the chemical part of the business was deregistered from the trade office, in 1985 the bone meal, feed and fertilizer production was closed. After the company buildings were demolished, the 17,000 m² site was converted into a residential area. A square located there was named after Friedrich Seltsam.

Because of its origins in the municipal gas works and probably also because of the smell that the factory spread, it was simply called "Die Gas" in Forchheim; a term that is still used there today.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report on the Königl. Bavarian Latin School in Grünstadt , Frankenthal, 1855, p. 5; (Digital scan)
  2. ^ Fritz Ullmann: Encyclopedia of Technical Chemistry . 1923, p. 39, books.google.de about Strange's first patent No. 10196
  3. ↑ Heimatjahrbuch Landkreis Bad Dürkheim , 2003, p. 278
  4. ↑ Chemikerzeitung , Cöthen, Volume 9, No. 3, of January 8, 1885, p. 12,  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) (PDF)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / ebipol.p.lodz.pl
personal data
SURNAME Strange, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Grünstadt
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1887
Place of death Forchheim , Upper Franconia