Gustav Dresel

Gustav Dresel

Gustav Dresel (born January 26, 1818 in Geisenheim , Rheingau , † September 14, 1848 in Galveston , Texas , United States ) was a German writer , businessman and the first German consul general in Texas.

Life

Gustav Dresel was the son of the winemaker Johann Dietrich Dresel in Geisenheim and Maria Morrien. After attending grammar school in Weilburg , Dresel did a commercial apprenticeship. He then traveled through Europe.

In 1837 he came to the USA and worked briefly in the east, but wanted to run a flour mill or distillery in the west . So he moved to Houston , where he worked as an accountant and salesman in a larger shop. Later he ran a warehouse on Buffalo Bayou , where he traded in storable goods, but also with grain and farmland.

In the years 1838 to 1841 he traveled to Texas, mainly the region around Houston, and recorded his experiences in his later published diary. But he also made trips to Louisiana and Mississippi . At the same time he was a partner in a cotton export trade in New Orleans .

In 1841, Dresel founded the " Teutonia Order " with Friedrich Ernst (1796–1848) and other German residents of Industry and Catspring .

In 1842 Dresel returned to Germany and helped in his parents' viticulture until 1846. After his return to Texas he worked in Galveston (Texas) as a general agent of the “ Mainz Adelsverein ”. For this purpose he was officially appointed Consul General in Texas on May 5, 1847 by Duke Adolph von Nassau .

While exercising these duties, Dresel died of yellow fever in 1848 at the age of 30 .

His “ Texan Diary ”, in which he had written down his personal experiences and travel experiences about the country and its people in the years 1837 to 1841, was published in German in the yearbook of the “ German-American Historical Society of Illinois ” in 1920 and translated into English in 1954 . In it, Dresel describes his personal opinion on the subject of German immigration to Texas (translation: Max Freund): “ It is, therefore, a fine and noble task to guide the sixty to seventy thousand people who leave Germany every year, to concentrate them as much as possible, to preserve thereby the German element, and to make up for the loss of working capacity and capital by suitable connections with the mother country. "

Dresel is also said to have inspired his contemporary August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874), the poet of the German national anthem , for his “ Texan songs ”.

bibliography

• Texan diary , German-American Historical Society of Illinois, 1920. - Translation by Max Freund (ed.): Gustav Dresel's Houston Journal, Adventures in North America and Texas 1837–1841 , University of Texas Press, Austin 1954.

Web links

• biography
• Literature by and about Gustav Dresel in the catalog of the German National Library