Ernst Geßner

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Gessner family burial site in the St. Nicolai cemetery in Aue

Heinrich Ernst Geßner (often also spelled Gessner ) (born June 18, 1826 in Lößnitz ; † April 28, 1897 in Aue ), trained cloth maker, founded his own textile machine factory in Aue in 1872 , after initially producing textiles himself. Geßner is considered one of the pioneers in the mechanical engineering industry in the Auer Valley.

Life

Ernst Gessner was the son of Lößnitz cloth maker Christian Traugott Gessner and after graduating from school learned the trade of cloth maker in his father's company in Lößnitz , which was one of 132 cloth makers in this city. After completing his apprenticeship, Ernst Gessner went on a hike in 1843 and completed his knowledge in renowned textile factories in the Saxony area (including in Crimmitschau and Grossenhain ) and in Reichenberg (since 1945 Liberec ) in Bohemia . When he returned, the 23-year-old bought the Holbergsche bleaching and finishing plant in the center of Aue for 9,710 thalers on December 1, 1849, and began producing his own textiles here from 1850. The size of the lot and the waterfront location were ideal for the expansion of the business.

Nearby was the cotton mill of the Lauckner brothers, who manufactured their own machines for processing their materials. Gessner found out about this and transferred the idea to his cloth-making business, that is, he developed and built the necessary machines himself. The friendly contacts with the Lauckner factory resulted in a relationship with the manufacturer's daughter Marie Clementine Lauckner (1833-1902), whom he soon married.

In order to continuously improve production and make the work of his workers easier, Geßner was constantly working on improvements. In 1853, for example, he succeeded in manufacturing a device called a double roughening machine , which greatly accelerated the manufacturing process of surface-finished textiles. According to tradition, this novelty was inspired by a walk through a cornfield, in which the purple thistle heads in bloom are said to have roughened his trousers.

After Geßner exhibited his machines at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and received a diploma from Napoleon III. his machine shop became known all over the world. Within a few years he was able to export 300 machines, mainly to England and the USA , financial bottlenecks resulted from unpaid invoices for machine deliveries to Russia . - Because of its proximity to the river Mulde, a flood devastated large parts of his factory in July 1858 . Nevertheless, the manufacturer survived all of these events largely unscathed. From 1872 Geßner concentrated only on machine production and had a foundry built on the site for this purpose . To make better use of this, he tried his hand with the production of railroad cars for the Saxon State Railways . However, this branch of production soon had to be stopped due to a devastating fire in a hall.

In the following years Geßner developed further technical innovations with which he was finally able to obtain an engineering degree and a doctorate. A compilation made later names a total of 155 patents granted to Geßner.

From 1897 his son Ernst Geßner took over the management of the factory, later the husband of the granddaughter Franz Josef Brunner continued to run the company. The textile machine factory Ernst Geßner experienced highs and lows in its development. After the founding of the GDR , the private company became the VEB Textima Aue and after the fall of the Wall , the Kannegießer Aue GmbH and the company Xetma Vollenweider GmbH emerged .

He had a son (Ernst, 1851–1920) and a daughter (Marie married Lincke, 1857–1913). - All members of the Geßner family are buried in the Auer Friedhof St. Nicolai (see introductory photo).

Honors

The former sand court , which was built with a post office building, a school and a few houses from the middle of the 19th century, was named after the mechanical engineering manufacturer in Ernst-Geßner-Platz . He kept this name until 1953, when the city officials renamed the complex Generalissimus-Stalin-Platz . When the name Stalin disappeared from German cities around 1960 , the square was initially called Karl-Marx-Platz , but from 1962 onwards it was called Postplatz .

In Lößnitz, the birthplace of Ernst Geßner, a street bears his name.

In a description published later, Geßner's commitment to Aue is recognized as follows:

" The machine factory and iron foundry Ernst Gessner gives a pleasant picture of genuine Erzgebirge perseverance, ambition and work, which emerged from the epoch-making inventions of its founder, it testifies to the creative power of the human spirit when it devotes itself seriously and devotion to the fruitful ideas of industry. "

- Press release, April 2017.

literature

Sources and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Press release of the Aue city administration from April 19, 2017: Ernst Gessner - a pioneer of textile machine construction - died 120 years ago .
  2. ^ Aue, Mosaiksteine ​​der Geschichte , published by Stadtverwaltung Aue, Mike Rockstroh printing and publishing house, Aue 1997, p. 83.
  3. ↑ some residents in Ernst-Geßner-Straße In: DasÖrtliche.de (as of early 2016).
personal data
SURNAME Geßner, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Geßner, Heinrich Ernst (full name); Gessner, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur (mechanical engineering)
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Loessnitz
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1897
Place of death Aue