Fritz Selve

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Fritz Selve

Fritz Selve (born January 20, 1849 in Lüdenscheid- Peddensiepen, † May 1, 1916 in Zurich ) was a German-Italian entrepreneur.

Life

Fritz Selve was born in Lüdenscheid in 1849 as the son of the farmer and mill owner Hermann Dietrich Selve (* 1813, † 1881) and his wife Anna Katharina (née Selve) (* 1813; † 1868) on their estate Peddensiepen near Honsel . He had two brothers and two sisters.

Fritz Selve's father founded the company Basse & Selve , a metal rolling mill and wire drawing shop , together with Carl Basse from Lüdenscheid in 1861 . The eldest son Gustav Selve first joined the company as an employee in 1862.

In 1870, Basse & Selve acquired an insolvent metal works in Donnas in northern Italy's Aosta Valley in order to strengthen trade relations with Italy. After brother Gustav became a partner and managing director in 1872, the two younger brothers Fritz and August (* 1845) were transferred to the Italian factory on July 1, 1874, which from then on operated under the name Selve Fratelli . The factory soon flourished under the direction of the Selve brothers and up to 500 tons of brass and copper were processed into wires, rods and sheet metal annually.

Fritz Selve lived in Turin and became an Italian citizen in 1874.

In addition to the Donnaser Metallwerk, he was also a co-owner of Società Metallurgica in Brescia and a member of the supervisory board of the Milanese Banca Commerciale .

On May 19, 1900 he married Matha Gerdtzen (* 1884) (widowed Schmid).

In 1908 the two brothers sold the company to Società Metallurgica Italiana . Over the next decade, however, the company's sales deteriorated, which is why the plant was eventually closed.

Fritz Selve died on May 1, 1916 in Zurich.

Foundations

The Selve fountain in Lüdenscheid

Fritz Selve, who had achieved considerable wealth as an entrepreneur, made generous charitable foundations.

He donated a primary school and a kindergarten to the city of Donnas, the location of his company. In honor of his mother, he named the kindergarten Asilo infantile Anna Caterina Selve, which opened in 1897 . This was nationalized in 1922 and only closed in 1985. Today the wine-growing museum Museo del Vino e della Viticoltura is located in the basement of the building .

He also made a generous donation to build a school in Perloz.

He also remained connected to his native town of Lüdenscheid. He donated the Selve fountain , which was inaugurated on November 12, 1910, to the Lüdenscheid office . The fountain designed by the Turin sculptor Luigi Calderini stands in front of the then newly built Lüdenscheider office building on Sauerfelder Straße. The sculpture depicts Fritz Selve's father Hermann Dietrich Selve as a blacksmith who is supposed to embody an allegory of industry. The Selve fountain has been a listed building since 2003.

His widow Martha Selve-Gerdtzen set up a study foundation to support particularly talented, needy Swiss and German students at the University of Zurich.

Honors

In recognition of his services to the Italian economy, the Italian state awarded him the Order of the Crown of Italy 3rd class (Commander) in 1894.

In gratitude for the foundation of the Selve fountain, the local council of the Lüdenscheid-Land community appointed Fritz Selve an honorary citizen of the Lüdenscheid rural community. The honorary citizen's letter was given to him on the occasion of the inauguration of the fountain on November 12, 1910.

The city of Donnas dedicated a bust to Fritz Selve, which was placed in 1931 in the city's Piazza del Municipio. In Perloz, a memorial plaque from 1895 on the Piazza del Municipio commemorates Fritz Selve and his contribution to the establishment of a school.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Horst Rinke: Coin Regarding .... - A journey through the times of the coin business between the two currency unions from 1871 and 1999. Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-8316-0310-3 , pp. 7–9 .
  2. ↑ a b Gaetano De Gattis: Donnas-Bard. Nuovi ritrovamenti archeologici di un tratto di strada romana per le Gallie sito a confine tra i due comuni. In: Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta (ed.): Bollettino (5) 2008, pp. 79–82.
  3. ↑ a b Monuments in Lüdenscheid: 149. Selve fountain. on the homepage of the city of Lüdenscheid
  4. ↑ a b Ralf Stremmel:  Selve, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 231 f. ( Digitized version ).
  5. ↑ Irene Hueck : What the young Peter Wilhelm Selve should learn about world history around 1820. In: The Reidemeister. History sheets for Lüdenscheid town and country . No. 180, November 3, 2009, pp. 1487-1491.
  6. ^ Asilo infantile Anna Caterina Selve di Donnas. on the homepage of the Gli Archive del Piemonte e della Valle d'Aosta
  7. ↑ Homepage of the Museo del Vino e della Viticoltura
  8. ^ City of Lüdenscheid: Fritz Selve
personal data
SURNAME Selve, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH Lüdenscheid- Peddensiepen
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1916
Place of death Zurich