Georg Borgfeldt

Georg Borgfeldt , also George Borgfeldt (born August 25, 1833 in Meldorf , † November 20, 1903 in Vienna ) was a German-American businessman and company founder.

Live and act

Georg Borgfeldt was a son of the Meldorfer coppersmith Johann Georg Borgfeldt (born August 3, 1786 in Meldorf; † July 13, 1861 ibid) and his wife Elsabe Katharina, née Peters (born March 18, 1800 in Meldorf; † June 11, 1843 ibid.) ). The mother was a daughter of the Meldorfer butcher Friedrich Peters. His brother Friedrich Borgfeldt (born November 1, 1826 in Meldorf; † January 4, 1884 in Meran ) worked as a lawyer, from 1856 to 1863 as steward of the Hemme parish and from 1868 to 1875 in Reinbek .

Borgfeldt spent childhood and youth in a family that had sided with the Germans in connection with the Schleswig-Holstein question . His brother fought as a declared democrat and republican in the Schleswig-Holstein uprising . Georg Borgfeldt attended school and completed a commercial training in Rendsburg . The political events of the 1830-40 years may have contributed to his emigration to the USA via Hamburg in August 1853 . He initially worked in New York as an accountant at the import department store Kohlsaat & Co.

In 1857 Borgfeldt moved from New York to Edgefield near Nashville . Together with a partner, he founded the company Borgfeldt & Gundrath here . Since the company was called “Borgfeldt & Thompson” in 1862, it can be assumed that its co-owner had changed a year earlier. During this time, Borgfeldt imported machines from England, among other things, and, according to the family's records, also traded in weapons. According to an 1860 census, the family household had a slave.

During the Civil War , Borgfeldt was part of the Army of the Southern States. In 1862 he moved to Indianapolis , where he started a haberdashery wholesaler. Three years later he went back to New York and started the hosiery business "Borgfeldt & Thompson's" with a partner. The entrepreneurs later traded in fashion items. In 1873 Borgfeldt acquired shares in the then leading toy wholesaler "Strasburger, Pfeiffer & Co." There he met the two executive employees Marcell and Joseph L. Kahle, who came from Württemberg. Together they founded their own wholesale company Geo in 1881 . Borgfeldt & Co. and mostly traded in imported goods. Borgfeldt stayed in Germany in 1876. The passenger list on the crossing from Bremen to New York names him as an American citizen.

Borgfeldt's nephew and brother-in-law Georg Semler (* 1861) joined the company as a partner in 1888. In 1891, the Parisian wholesale merchant Johann Emil Schüssel (1852–1901), born in Fürth, joined the company. In 1893 the company became a stock corporation without changing its name. Borgfeldt took over the chairmanship of the board of directors and carried the title "President".

Borgfeld died in 1903 and is buried in Kaltenleutgabe .

Business model

Borgfeldt's office building in New York

With what he called “The Borgfeldt Idea”, Borgfeld pursued the goal of establishing a kind of permanent fair in New York. He also sought exclusive distribution rights for popular imported products. Wholesalers customary at the time had warehouses that he wanted to do without. Instead, he exhibited a large number of products from various categories in his house that he did not have in stock. As a form of distance wholesale he asked instead to transport the goods from producer to retail safely and thus invented a new business model.

Borgfeldt secured the exclusive distribution rights of numerous manufacturers, whose products the retail trade could only obtain through him. At the beginning of 1881 he opened business premises in which he exhibited around 100,000 exhibits. In particular, there were dolls, toys, porcelain and glassware. In 1892 Borgfeldt supported President Grover Cleveland , who had been in favor of lowering import duties for a long time. In New York, the entrepreneur was involved as Vice President of the “United German Democracy”. This association of German-American voters mostly took part in local political discussions. Since Borgfeldt had German wives, hired almost exclusively German or German-born leaders and was so politically involved, it can be assumed that he remained internally connected to Germany.

In 1896 Borgfeldt moved to Kaltenleutzüge in the Vienna Woods . He lived here in the large "Villa Thuma" with around 75 hectares of land, which he had owned since 1894, and led an upper-class life. Most of the management was probably taken over by the “First Vice President” Marcell Kahle (1858–1909). In April he was forced to move to a private psychiatric clinic - the circumstances surrounding this leave a lot of space for negative speculations about his wife's reputation.

Borgfeldt bequeathed a large fortune to his wife, with which she put together a large art collection. This largely comprised paintings, sculptures and carpets. In 1935 she stated in her will that this "Albrecht-Hönigschmied Collection" should go to the picture gallery of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts after her death . According to the will of the second husband of Borgfeldt's second wife, the residence in Kaltenleuthaben became the property of the Vienna Deaf-Mute Institute. This set up a handicapped care.

family

Borgfeldt probably married Alice Lahey (* around 1838) in 1857, whose father was the Irish engineer and one-way entrepreneur James Lahey. Alice Lahey died before 1877. After that, Borgfeldt married Agnes Johanna (Nannie) Amalia Semler on October 15, 1877 in Potsdam (* July 6, 1855 in Berlin ; † April 9, 1935 in Vienna). Her father Adolph Semler (1825–1899) came from Glückstadt and traded wine in Potsdam. Her mother Elsabe Friederike, née Borgfeldt (1828–1904) was a niece of Borgfeld. After Borgfeldt's death in 1904, she married the Austrian diplomat August Albrecht (from 1902: Knight von Hönigschmied) (1859–1937). Both marriages remained childless.

literature

• Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 57–60

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 57.
2. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 57.
3. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 57.
4. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
5. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
6. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 59.
7. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 57.