Heinrich Schulte-Altenroxel
Heinrich Schulte-Altenroxel (born December 4, 1867 in Altenroxel , † February 17, 1947 in Garstedt ) was a German farmer , colonist and entrepreneur .
Life
He grew up on a Schulzenhof surrounded by a moat in Altenroxel near Münster as the second son of eight children of a farmer. After school and one year of military service , he first trained in agriculture with his father.
In August 1889 he emigrated to the South African Republic alone and with only a ticket, in order to build up an existence there as a farmer and “ German cultural pioneer ”. He came to the northern Transvaal via Cape Town , Kimberley and Pretoria . The area east of what was then Pietersburg seemed to him to be particularly suitable for his agricultural goals due to the subtropical climate and the indigenous Sotho who lived there and who he wanted to use as workers. At first he worked as a businessman in order to build up capital. In 1891 he built a farm with overnight accommodation and a shop in Neu-Agatha, south of Tzaneen , with the ideational support of the then President Paul Kruger . A little later, together with Konrad Plange , a businessman from Attendorn , he founded further farms around Tzaneen, including the Westfalia Tobacco Plantation , shops and small hotels.
In order to expand the company, the Thabena Farming Association Ltd. was founded on December 15, 1893 on a home leave in Münster . founded with a share capital of 200,000 Reichsmarks. There were 14 partners, including his father and the Münster mill owner Wilhelm Kiesekamp and the general director of the Westphalian landscape, Wilhelm von Laer. Schulte-Altenroxel and von Laer were hired as managing directors. He was also able to persuade two of his brothers and four other farmers to move to the Transvaal. The company acquired over 40,000 acres of land from the Boers , which were cultivated by eleven farms together, and named their territory Westfalia . Were created especially fruit plantations for the production of oranges , lemons , tangerines , grapefruit , grapefruit , peaches , apricots , mango , avocado , loquat , guava , almond , quince , papaya , pineapple , bananas , wine , apples , etc. Other products were cotton , sisal , Coffee and tobacco . The management took place with the help of the local population, approx. 800 families in 6 tribes, of the area. Most of the products were exported to Europe via Delagoa Bay . The first commercial cultivation of fast-growing Australian eucalyptus trees for sale as pit wood for the gold and copper mines took place on the less fertile soils .
In 1911, after the Second Boer War and the subsequent incorporation of the Transvaal into the South African Union , Heinrich Schulte-Altenroxel returned to Münster. There he tried to grow tobacco together with the landowner Wilhelm Zimmermann. From November 1911, the alleged " First German cigarette tobacco plantation " was established in the Uppenberg district . Wide fields were laid out and drying sheds and processing plants were built. The brand of cigarettes was named after Friedrich-Wilhelm Weber's heroic epic Dreizehnlinden . There were two types: Siegeward and Irmintrud . However, due to quality problems, production was stopped at the beginning of the First World War.
Then Schulte-Altenroxel worked as a tobacco entrepreneur and expert and went on some world trips. In 1942, one year after the appearance of the film Ohm Krüger , the Leipzig publisher EA Seemann published his memoirs under the title I was looking for land in Africa .
Aftermath
- The geologist and farmer Hans Merensky (1871–1952), who was active in the Transvaal from 1904, named his internationally active Westfalia Fruit Company , which he founded in Johannesburg in 1949, after the farm he had acquired from Schulte-Altenroxel.
- In 1983, in Neu-Agatha, near the first hotel founded by Schulte-Altenroxel, a new tourist hotel was opened under the name The Coach House Hotel and Spa , which explicitly refers to the hotel tradition of the location.
Scientific commitment
- Schulte-Altenroxel worked with the British botanist Joseph Burtt Davy , among other things, on researching the bread palm fern species Encephalartos transvenosus .
- He collected and prepared around 100,000 insects from the Transvaal region.
- He published his findings in agriculture and forestry in the Transvaal Agricultural Journal in Pretoria in the 1900s .
Fonts
- The culture and curing of tobacco in the Transvaal. In: Transvaal Agricultural Journal 4, Pretoria 1905, pp. 37-46.
- Report about eucalyptus planting in the Tzaneen Estate. In: Transvaal Agricultural Journal 4, Pretoria 1905.
- Notes on cotton planting: experiments on the Tzaneen Estate. In: Transvaal Agricultural Journal, Pretoria 1906, pp. 296-298.
- Tobacco growing at home and processing of the harvest. Self-published, Münster 1919.
- I was looking for a country in Africa: memories of a colonial pioneer in the northern Transvaal , with 95 drawings by Karl Stratil , EA Seemann Verlag , Leipzig 1942.
literature
- Menno Klapwijk: Westfalia Estate Before 1929: The biography of Heinrich Schulte Altenroxel and Conrad Plange on their farms in Magoebaskloof. approx. 1980 (34 pages)
- Brett Bennett, Fred Kruger: Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa: History, Science and Policy. ANU Press, November 11, 2015 (269 pages)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Münsterscher Anzeiger No. 513 of May 22, 1927 ( Memento of the original of March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Schulte-Altenroxel 1942, p. 233
- ↑ Münsterscher Anzeiger No. 513 of May 22, 1927 ( Memento of the original of March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Schulte-Altenroxel 1942, p. 270
- ↑ Bennet / Kruger p. 34
- ↑ Time signals from the na then series. 212 pages, Oktober-Verlag
- ^ Website Westfalia Fruit Company, accessed on September 23, 2017
- ↑ The Coach House Hotel and Spa website, accessed on September 23, 2017 ( memento of the original from September 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Mary Gunn, LEW Codd: Botanical Exploration Southern Africa , CRC Press , June 1, 1981
- ↑ Schulte-Altenroxel 1942, p. 300
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schulte-Altenroxel, Heinrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Farmer, colonist and entrepreneur in South Africa and Münster |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th December 1867 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Munster , Westphalia |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 17, 1947 |
| Place of death | Garstedt |