Karl Godulla

Karl Godulla ( Polish Karol Godula ) (born November 8, 1781 in Makoschau (today a district of Zabrze ), Upper Silesia ; † July 6, 1848 in Breslau ) was a major German industrialist. The "Prussian zinc king", as he was also known, was one of the pioneers in the development of Upper Silesia into a German mining and industrial center.

Live and act

Schomberg-Orzegow Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

Godulla grew up as the son of a hunting warden in modest circumstances and entered the service of Count Carl Franz von Ballestrem , who promoted the intelligent, ambitious and enterprising young man. In 1807 Godulla was appointed administrator of the count's estates and operations, and in 1818 he was promoted to his agent. His entrepreneurial career began at the age of 28 when the Karlshütte in Ruda was freed , which Godulla received from Count von Ballestrem as thanks. Soon he had his own coal mines , calamine mines and huts. Karl Godulla introduced new processing methods and also began to mine refractory clay at Ruda. In 1826 Godulla also became the owner of the Schomberg-Orzegow manor in Upper Silesia.

With the introduction of the industrial extraction of zinc from the rich Galmeier ore deposits of Upper Silesia, he achieved a great fortune. Godulla had zinc works built and new mines opened. When he died, he owned 80 zinc mines, four zinc smelters and 48 coal mines . There was also a considerable amount of land.

Godulla was considered a thrifty person who preferred to live in his wooden house in Ruda than in his Schomberg Castle. He was very hardworking and did not allow himself much rest and also applied these standards to his employees and workers, in doing so he consistently took action against laziness and the drunkenness that was widespread among the Upper Silesian miners.

Karl Godulla remained childless and unmarried. He adopted the working-class child Johanna Gryzik instead. He died in 1848 and was buried in the church in Schomberg . His adopted daughter was raised to the nobility by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1858 and from then on bore the name Johanna Gryzik von Schomberg-Godulla. She later married Count Hans-Ulrich von Schaffgotsch . The Gräflich Schaffgot Mine Management finally emerged from the empire of Karl Godulla . The Ruda district of Godullahütten (now Ruda Śląska ) was named after him.

literature

• Hans Nowak, Georg Zivier: Zinc becomes gold . Breslau 1937 (reprint: Oberschlesischer Heimatverlag, Diedorf 1982) - Karl Godulla as a fictional character
• Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk : The great time of fire. The way of the German industry . Verlag Wunderlich, Tübingen 1957 (3 volumes, here especially volume 1)
• Alfons Perlick :  Godulla, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 499 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Godulla and the beginning of the Upper Silesian industry
• Excerpt from: Urbanek: "Carl Godulla and his work" . prosilesia.net
• Hans Nowak: How I went looking for Godulla . In: Die Zeit , No. 47/1949 (describes the genesis of Nowak's Godulla novel Zinc Becomes Gold )
• Godulla, Karl . In: Ostdeutsche Biographie (Kulturportal West-Ost) - with further references
• Karol Godula (film, 5 parts, Polish)