Hermann Eckstein

Eckstein with his wife Minnie (ca.1880)

The second Corner House in Johannesburg (ca.1890)

Hermann Ludwig Eckstein (born January 3, 1847 in Hohenheim , Germany ; † January 16, 1893 ) was a German-South African mining magnate and banker.

Career

Hermann Eckstein was the son of a Protestant pastor and received a good education. In 1882 he went to the South African diamond and gold fields and quickly gained a good reputation as the resourceful managing director of the Phoenix Diamond Mining Company in Du Toits Pan near Kimberley . He caught the attention of entrepreneurs Julius Wernher and Alfred Beit and in 1884 became their business partner at Jules Porgès & Co (later Wernher, Beit & Co ).

In 1888 Eckstein founded the Corner House (referring to his name) his own company called Hermann Eckstein & Co. , as representative of Jules Porgès. He founded the South African Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg and was its first president until 1892. He significantly expanded the mines' infrastructure by employing skilled engineers, so that digging became an established industry. Eckstein was involved in the development of underground mining when the opencast mine was exhausted. At the end of 1888 he was responsible for practically all mining in the central Witwatersrand and controlled eleven of the most important syndicates . He played a pivotal role in establishing the National Bank of the South African Republic . Eckstein was a founding member of the Rand Club , an exclusive club for the Randlords , and the first president of the Wanderers' Club .

Eckstein was dismayed by the growing gap between the Uitlanders (foreigners, mainly British and Germans) and the Boers , especially because he was a close friend of the Boer leader Paul Kruger .

A year before his death, Eckstein traveled to England after being offered a partnership with Wernher and Beit in the Central Mining and Investment Corporation . He left Johannesburg with his wife, who was pregnant with their fourth child. He did not live to see the child's birth; he died of a heart attack on January 16, 1893.

The South African Dictionary of National Biography wrote about him: “Eckstein's skill in financial transactions and his unimpeachable integrity made him a respected man in a community where dishonesty was rife.” (German: Eckstein's ability in financial matters and his unimpeachable integrity shut him up a respected man in a community of dishonesty. )

Sachsenwald

Beit's company planted around three million trees on an area of ​​around five square kilometers, an area that Eckstein (according to other sources, Eduard Lippert ) named after the estate of Otto von Bismarck Sachsenwald . Today this area is known as Saxonwold , a suburb of Johannesburg that is also home to Forest Town as well as Zoo Lake and Johannesburg Zoo. The forest became a favorite recreation area for the wealthy fringe lords and their families.

Ten years after Eckstein's death, his former partners donated part of the Sachsenwald , later called Herman-Eckstein-Park , to the city of Johannesburg. The deed of gift was signed by Julius Wernher , Alfred Beit , Lionel Phillips , Ludwig Breitmeyer , Friedrich Eckstein (his brother), Charles Rube and Ludwig Wagner .

literature

• LONGLAND, Henry: The Golden Transvaal: an illustrated review, descriptive, historical, etc. , Simpkin & Marshall, London 1893 Digitalisat (pdf, 56 MB), with a description of the early days of Johannesburg and gold mining from the Witwatersrand.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Origins of Saxonwold & Parkwood on sapra.org.za ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2016 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.  

Web links

Commons : Hermann Eckstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• A Brief History of The Corner House on blueplaques.co.za
• Martin Meredith: Diamonds, Gold and War . 2007, p. 187