Georg Peter Bruckmann

Georg Peter Bruckmann

Georg Peter Bruckmann (born June 10, 1778 in Heilbronn ; † December 4, 1850 there ) was a German entrepreneur and founder of the Peter Bruckmann & Sons silverware factory in Heilbronn. Since he was the first to manufacture large-scale silverware by machine, he is considered the founder of the German silverware industry.

Life

Bruckmann was born in 1778 as the son of the Heilbronn silversmith Johann Dietrich Bruckmann (1736–1807) and his wife Johanna Susanne Bruckmann née Drauz . He was a grandson of the merchant Hermann Dietrich Brockmann (1697–1745) from Hemer near Iserlohn in Westphalia , who was accepted into Heilbronn's civil rights in 1725 , and who founded the Heilbronn family Bruckmann, and a cousin of the town schoolmaster Johann Clemens Bruckmann .

Bruckmann first completed an apprenticeship in his parents' company and then went on a hike. In Vienna he attended the drawing course at the Academy of Fine Arts , which at that time was directed by Heinrich Friedrich Füger from Heilbronn . At the Académie Julienne in Paris he learned how to cut embossing dies . In Geneva he became familiar with the jewelry industry . Back in Heilbronn, he and Karl Seeger, who later retired, took over the father's business in 1805. Even before the onset of industrialization in the Kingdom of Württemberg, he transformed the company into a factory by producing all the individual parts for the silver goods made there himself in the future, instead of importing decorative parts from France as before. With his machine and large-scale silverware, mainly cutlery , he founded the German silverware industry.

Bruckmann's success was due in particular to his demands on the quality and design of the goods. From 1819 onwards, one of his closest collaborators was Conrad Weitbrecht, who later became a Stuttgart academy professor . In 1842 Bruckmann donated 10,000 guilders to build his own drawing and modeling school, which later became the Heilbronn vocational school.

A diverse cultural life took place in Bruckmann's house. Both Bruckmann and one of his wives and several daughters were considered musically gifted. Bruckmann was an admirer of the sculptor Johann Heinrich Dannecker and set up a room near his workshop with casts of his works. He also owned an extensive collection of old engravings, which he u. a. from the brothers Sulpiz and Melchior Boisserée , who were frequent guests in his house. Another frequent guest was the circle of friends around Justinus Kerner called the Gräßle Society .

Bruckmann's first marriage was from 1804 to the banker's daughter Adelaide Josephine Wencelius (1779-1813). This marriage resulted in a son and three daughters. After the death of his first wife, he married Johanna Henriette Friederike Madepohl (1794–1862), daughter of the port master of Riga, on September 11, 1815 in Zurich . This marriage had nine more sons and four daughters. The grave of Georg Peter Bruckmann is in the old cemetery in Heilbronn.

The company founded by Bruckmann gained supraregional importance and remained in family ownership for four generations before it was sold in 1968 and closed in 1973. One of Bruckmann's grandsons, Peter Bruckmann , was a co-founder and chairman of the Deutscher Werkbund twice between 1909 and 1932 .

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  Youth portraits of Bruckmann and his second wife Henriette

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  Bruckmann tomb

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedrich Dürr : Heilbronner Chronik. I. part. 2nd edition, Rembold, Heilbronn 1926, p. 272, p. 303.
   as reprint : Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1986. ( Publications of the archives of the city of Heilbronn , volume 27.)
2. ↑ Root list of the Bruckmann family . Bosheuyer, Cannstatt 1892, pp. 3, 4, 6.

literature

• Kurt Erhard von Marchtaler: Georg Peter Bruckmann (1778–1850) and his sons. In: Schwäbische Lebensbilder IV. Stuttgart 1948, pp. 15–31.
• Helmut Schmolz, Hubert Weckbach: Significant Heilbronn (III) . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 15th year, no. 1 . Heilbronner Voice publishing house, January 11, 1969, ZDB -ID 128017-X .
• Helmut Schmolz, Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn. History and life of a city . 2nd Edition. Konrad, Weißenhorn 1973, ISBN 3-87437-062-3 .
• JH:  Bruckmann, Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, p. 276.
• Paul Gehring:  Bruckmann, Georg Peter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 647 f. ( Digitized version ).