Gustav Ernst Leube

Bust of Gustav Ernst Leube in the Leube Sculpture Path

Gustav Ernst Leube (born May 23, 1808 in Ulm , † November 15, 1881 in Ulm) was a pharmacist at the Kronenapotheke in Ulm, who also dealt with experimental chemistry and mineralogy . From 1835 he rediscovered the art of making cement . This knowledge had been forgotten since late antiquity. He achieved this by extracting marl lime and in 1838, together with his brothers, founded Germany's first cement factory.

Career

In 1822, Ernst Gustav began an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Heidelberg at the age of 14 . From the third year of his apprenticeship he attended lectures on chemistry and pharmacy at the university . In 1828, after passing his exams , he returned to Ulm as a pharmacist's assistant in his uncle Christoph Jakob Faulhaber's pharmacy .

In 1829 Ernst Gustav went to Tübingen to take his "state examination in the art of pharmacy" . After more than two semesters , he passed his state examination in pharmacy here and, as a certified pharmacist, was now authorized to run a pharmacy. However, in 1830 he continued his studies at the Freiberg Bergakademie in Saxony in the fields of chemistry and mineralogy. In 1832 he then took over his uncle's Kron pharmacy in Ulm.

At that time, the manufacturing process of "cement" was already known in Germany , but not the extraction of the necessary lime marl . Ernst Gustav went on many excursions in his Swabian homeland and soon recognized the use of Albgestein for the extraction of limestone marl. He initially extracted the limestone marl from the Blautal valley on the Swabian Alb , later from marl quarries in Gartenau (today's St. Leonhard) near Salzburg .

In 1839 he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy and a master's degree in arts from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Tübingen because of his " contributions to the knowledge of Jura and freshwater lime, especially the youngest freshwater chalk " . This made him the first pharmacist in Baden-Württemberg to be awarded a doctorate. As early as 1838 he founded the first cement factory in Germany with his brothers Wilhelm Leube and Julius Leube, the "Gebrüder Leube" in Ulm and developed the factory-made production of "hydraulic lime". Just one year later, in 1839, the plant with a kiln and a tamper with two grinding aisles was put into operation.

Initially, the new product cement had to be launched on the market, but the advantages of this building material quickly convinced. As early as 1843, the "Leube brothers" delivered Ulm cement to Vienna , and later to Prague . In 1854 the company was awarded the Golden Medal for Art and Science by the King of Württemberg. In 1855, the Leube brothers received a gold medal at the trade fair in Paris.

In 1860, Leube bought Klingenstein Castle , high above the Blautal , where his wife Auguste and the couple's five children liked to stay in the summer months. The building is still owned by the family to this day.

In 1864 the company expanded to Austria and took over an existing cement factory with marl quarries in Gartenau. Leube also acquired the Gartenau Palace . Over the years the domestic competition increased so strongly that at the beginning of the 1980s the company headquarters was relocated to Gartenau. Here the company still exists today under the name Leube Baustoffe GmbH as the oldest existing family-owned cement works company in the world. In 2014 the company became a stock corporation.

In June 2013, on the occasion of the company's 175th anniversary, the “ Leube Sculpture Path ”, designed by Salzburg architects Christine and Horst Lechner , was opened in St. Leonhard near Salzburg. The sculpture path serves as a memorial for the company's founder. In the city of Blaustein , a special school was named after Gustav Leube.

Fonts (selection)

• with Wilhelm Leube : Investigations into the mineral material of the area around Ulm with regard to its usability for building purposes and especially its importance for the fortress construction. Kübling, Ulm 1843 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Geraldine Buchenau: Concrete and its growing role in the preservation of monuments. Early concrete buildings in Baden-Württemberg: tamped to filled. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , Volume 46 (2017) Issue 1, pp. 29–35.
• Thomas Köberle: Württemberg - an early center of European roman cement production. Via an exceptionally versatile binding agent . In: Preservation of Monuments in Baden-Württemberg , 41st year 2012, issue 4, pp. 237–241 ( PDF )
• Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 235-237 .

swell

• Leube Baustoffe KG
• Family sheets of the Leube family
• Southwest Press Ulm

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Salzburg News .