Gustav von Gülich

Ludwig Gustav von Gülich (born June 1, 1791 in Osnabrück , † August 4, 1847 in Linden ) was a German farmer , economist and entrepreneur .

family

His grandparents were the tobacco manufacturer Gerhard Friedrich von Gülich and Margr. Gertrud Gosling, who donated the Waterloo Gate . Friedrich's partner, Johann Anton Tenge (1717–1791), the son of Margarethe Gösling (1694–1771) and father of Friedrich Ludwig Tenge , had dissolved the partnership in 1781.

His parents were the banker and cloth manufacturer Johann Kaspar von Gülich (1756–1794) and Regina Katharina Charlotte (1769–1834), the daughter of Johann Erich Dürfeld. His father had founded a cloth factory at the Haster mill outside the city gates.

His older brother Wilhelm von Gülich (1788–1865) brought his cloth factory, which had been relocated to Bramsche during the French period, back to Osnabrück in 1818. As early as 1824 Gülich was producing cloth goods worth 40,000 Reichstalers with 55 men and 35 women, girls and children. Wilhelm married Bernhardine Schmidtmann, who died in November 1825 giving birth to her seventh child at the age of 33. Their daughter Charlotte (1814–1874) married Eduard Christian von Lütcken in April 1850 .

Live and act

Gustav von Gülich attended high school in Bremen until his confirmation. He first worked as a businessman, then in agriculture and studied as a trainee with the Helmstedt economist Friedrich Carl Gustav Gericke as well as camera science from 1810 to 1812 in Göttingen . As a result, he bought the Steinbrück domain near Peine from the government of the Kingdom of Westphalia , but soon had to give it up again for legal reasons.

During the wars of freedom he recruited volunteers for a hussar regiment of the Duke of Cumberland in Osnabrück and the surrounding area and took part in the fight against France himself. After the end of the war, he leased the Rethmar estate and from 1817 continued his studies at the new Humboldt University in Berlin . In 1819 he married Wilhelmine Henrici (1799–1855) from Osnabrück. He had about five children with her in the following decades. His friend Johann Carl Bertram Stüve took over the sponsorship of the last ones. One of the sons was the Prussian diplomat Friedrich von Gülich .

In 1826, Gülich first distinguished himself as an author of economic works with a paper on trade, industry and agriculture. In addition, he wanted to put his theoretical knowledge into practice. As early as 1827 he tried in vain to acquire the state brass works (later Theresienthal ) Reher near Aerzen . In the same year he went to study agriculture, trade and commerce on trips to the Netherlands, France, England and Ireland. On the basis of this experience, his “Historical account of trade, industry and agriculture in the most important trading states of our time” appeared in two volumes in 1830.

In the period that followed, von Gülich acquired several commercial operations. He produced clay pipes for drainage purposes with English machines. In September 1828 he acquired the paper mill in Polle, founded in 1649 . Since his plan to move it to the Humme estuary was thwarted, he founded the new Wertheim paper mill there . In 1831 he founded coal mines in the Süntel and Nesselberg . In 1833 he still leased the Zur Lust paper mill .

From 1830, however, his paper business declined due to the poor economic situation and unrest. Soon afterwards, machines were also introduced in the paper production, something Gülich was reluctant to do. However, in order to remain competitive with England and France, he was forced to leave England a. a. a paper machine without end , the first in Germany, was introduced. Contrary to his fears, this change gave not fewer but more workers employment. But the negative consequences soon became apparent: as a result of the increased production, the prices of raw materials rose, while the price of finished goods fell.

In 1842 the Wertheim paper mill passed to his brother. He had to sell his mines to the state. His wife moved to Kassel with the children. Nevertheless, von Gülich took part in the United Weser Steamship Company as a shareholder in May 1843 .

In 1844 he had the idea to reclaim desolate lands. He bought a large wasteland near Levern in the Lübbecke district for an inheritance . The farmers there laughed at first, but admired him when, after a few years, he had turned this wasteland into fields and also provided Gut Steinbrink with a lime kiln and sheep farm.

During a trip, he died of an infection in the Black Bear in Linden . He was buried in the cemetery of the local Martinskirche behind the crypt chapel of the Johann Egestorff family .

Gülich was important not least because of the effect his economic writings had on his contemporaries. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in his diary in 1830: “ Afterwards began Gustav von Gülich's historical account of trade [...] I praised [Meyer to] Gustav von Gülich, history of trade, pp., Shared a lot from it. “He also exerted influence on the young Karl Marx . The excerpts from Gülich's works are among the most extensive by an economist that Marx had made.

Works

• Historical representation of trade, industry and agriculture in the most important trading states . Vol. 1–5, Jena 1830–1845. ( Digital text of the text volume and the associated tables )
• About the urbanization of desolate lands as a means of employing many unemployed . 1844.

literature

• Max Bär :  Gülich, Gustav von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 622 f.
• Heinzpeter Thümmler: Gustav von Gülich and the development of the Gülich excerpts by Karl Marx . In: Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 7, Berlin 1984, pp. 201-225.
• Heinzpeter Thümmler: Some problems and experiences in processing the excerpts from Karl Marx from Gustav von Gülich: "Historical representation of trade, industry and agriculture in the most important trading states of our time", Vol. 1–5, Jena 1830–1845, for volume 6 of the fourth division of MEGA . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research, No. 6, Berlin 1980, pp. 159-164.
• Reinhard Krollage: Gustav von Gülich from Osnabrück. Idealist, paper manufacturer, agrarian .
• FA Schmid, BF Voigt: New Nekrolog der Deutschen , part 2, p. 538
• Hermann Struckmann : History of the Gülich family from Osnabrück with an appendix. The von Gülich family in Speyer and Wetzlar ; 1927
• Hermann Struckmann: History of the Struckmann family from Osnabrück ; 1909

Web links

• Works in the Göttingen University Library

Remarks

1. ↑ Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch, Volume 7, p. 201
2. ↑ https://gw.geneanet.org/pmlhennings?lang=de&pz=peter&nz=hennings&ocz=0&p=johann+kaspar&n=von+gulich
3. ↑ https://www.noz.de/lokales/osnabrueck/artikel/657672/haster-muhle-nach-dem-getreide-kam-der-wein#gallery&0&0&657672
4. ^ Description of the Kingdom of Hanover, Volume 5, p. 654
5. ^ Gerd Steinwascher: History of the City of Osnabrück ; 2006; P. 420
6. ↑ Preview of the book: Staats und schehre zeitung des hamburgischen impartial correspondents. 1825, p. 28 ( limited preview in Google book search).
7. ↑ http://www.geschichte-polle.de/html/von_der_papiermuhle_zur_muhlen.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Economy around 1800 in the context of Goethe
9. ↑ Notes in MEGA Vol. 32 ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ http://gso.gbv.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=839240651
11. ↑ http://gso.gbv.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=134246403