Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster (entrepreneur)

Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster

Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster (born November 22, 1847 in Berlin , † 1922 in Vienna) was a German entrepreneur . He was a co-founder of the Böhler-Werke , a member of the manor house and curator of the Evangelical HB parish in Vienna.

Life

Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster was born in Berlin, his father was a clothes maker. From 1865 he received a commercial training in England and France and recognized the economic opportunities that were in the steel business and mining. In contrast to England and Germany, industrialization in Austria had only just begun; in Lower Austria and in Styria there were many small " iron hammers " that gradually merged into larger units. German industrialists in particular bought up these smaller factories, such as the Böhler brothers in Kapfenberg , Schöller and Bleckmann in Ternitz , and the Konstanz brothers and Gustav Peipers had acquired small ironworks in Hirschwang and Bruckbach .

The brothers Albert and Emil Böhler founded the company Gebrüder Böhler & Co. in Vienna in 1870, "a shop for the exclusive sale of Steyermärkischen types of steel". In 1871, the then 24-year-old Foerster joined the company and in 1872 became an authorized signatory and partner with a third of the company's shares. The three of the young entrepreneurs managed to turn a small trading company with four employees into a group with branches, factories and mines in Europe within 25 years. It is noteworthy that both the Böhler and Foerster brothers were only around 25 years old when they were founded and used modern management and marketing methods in their company management .

In 1876 Foerster married Wilhelmine Auguste Peipers from Solingen , they had seven children together, two of whom died early of scarlet fever . Foerster became a member of the Austrian manor house and in 1893 took over the management of the Böhler mines, while the Böhler company increasingly turned to the production of war goods, which contradicted Foerster's distinctly Calvinist worldview ( ev. HB ). In 1899, when the Böhler & Co. company was converted into a stock corporation, Foerster withdrew from the company entirely and devoted himself increasingly to charitable tasks. Above all, the Evangelical Church HB and its institutions received a lot of attention. He supported the Red Cross, the Evangelical Hospital and the association he founded against poverty and begging. From 1914 to 1922 he held the office of curator in the evangelical community HB in Vienna. In 1919, under the influence of the atrocities of war, he donated 106,740 m² of land to the municipality of Vienna to build homes for those returning from the war. However, these dwellings were never built. Due to his services to the relatively small Protestant community of HB and due to his charitable commitment, the theological faculty of the University of Vienna awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1916 . Foerster had acquired a considerable fortune which, with the war bonds, completely melted away in the First World War.

literature

• Heidi Brunnbauer: In the cottage from Währing / Döbling: Interesting houses - interesting people II. Edition Weinviertel, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-901616-92-6 .
• 1870-1970. 100 years of Böhler Edelstahl. Festschrift Böhler.
• Otto Böhler: History of the Böhler & Co. AG brothers. Berlin 1841.
• The New Free Press. January 19, 1890 a. a.