Hermann Pemsel

Karl Wilhelm Hermann Pemsel (1869)

Karl Wilhelm Hermann Pemsel (born December 7, 1841 in Naila , † November 20, 1916 in Munich ) was a German lawyer and entrepreneur . He was co-founder and supervisory board member of the Munich Reinsurance Company , Allianz Versicherungs-AG and the Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren and at the same time worked as a lawyer , initially in Nuremberg , and from 1878 in Munich.

Life

Pemsel studied law at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen and the Georg August University in Göttingen . In 1862 he passed the first state examination in Erlangen and the second in 1865, and in the same year received his doctorate summa cum laude on a commercial law thesis. Pemsel first became a trainee in his father's law firm in Erlangen and worked at various courts, including 1867–1869 in Munich, where he made a convincing liberal contribution in the campaign to clear the lawyer. In 1869 he returned to his father's office in Erlangen, and in 1870 he was appointed king. Appointed attorneys and took over the Nuremberg law firm Dr. Merck, until then legal representative of the Bavarian industrialist and financier, Reichsrat Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett .

In 1870, at Cramer-Klett's request, Merck went to Munich to build up the private banking house Merck, Christian & Co., later Merck Finck & Co , with his capital and in conjunction with the house bank, the Darmstädter Bank für Handel und Industrie . Cramer-Klett ordered Pemsel as successor to Merck and in 1872 granted him general power of attorney. He also sent him to the supervisory boards of several companies that belonged to his holding company, including the Süddeutsche Bodencreditbank and Maschinenbau-Actiengesellschaft Nürnberg, which merged with Augsburger Maschinenfabrik to form Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (MAN) in 1896 .

In May 1870 Pemsel married Sophie Helbig from Erlangen, daughter of the owner of the Henninger Brewery in Erlangen, Wilhelm Helbig, to whom he had been engaged since 1867. The son Hermann was born in 1872, a year later the second son Wilhelm and in 1880 the daughter Emmy.

In 1878 Pemsel followed Cramer-Klett to Munich, where he had moved his residence in order to be able to become more involved in the Chamber of Imperial Councils, and opened a law firm. In the same year the law firm in Bavaria was released and Pemsel co-founded the Munich Bar Association, of which he was a member of the first board of directors.

Together with Cramer-Klett, the banker and industrialist Wilhelm Finck , the banker and politician Friedrich von Schauß , the banker Philipp Schmidt-Polex and the insurance agent Carl von Thieme , he was one of the founders of the Munich Reinsurance Company in 1880 and took over until his death in 1916 deputy chairman of the supervisory board. After Cramer-Klett's death in 1884, Pemsel became one of the guardians of his son, who was born in 1874, and, along with the widow, Wilhelm Finck, Friedrich Hensolt, Jean Kempf and Gustav von Schlör, was the administrator of the Cramer-Klett property. Pemsel was primarily responsible for the values ​​in Munich and the Fideikommiss property, the Hohenaschau rule in Chiemgau. In 1885 he was appointed King. Council of Justice. From 1888 to 1916, Pemsel was also a member of the supervisory board of Bayerische Vereinsbank and in 1890 co-founder of Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft, on whose supervisory board he joined.

In 1895 the Bavarian government sent Pemsel to the "Commission for the Assessment of the Draft of a Commercial Code" in Berlin. On December 27, 1895, Pemsel was awarded the title of Royal Privy Councilor for services to the Kingdom of Bavaria . On April 2, 1903, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown and thus the elevation to the personal nobility.

In 1889 Pemsel acquired the property at Georgenstr. 2 in Schwabing, on which he had an Italian-style city villa built, which the Süddeutsche Bauzeitung presented in an article in 1891 and described as "one of the finest family houses in Munich". In 1900 he was one of the first to buy a 78,000 m² plot of land on the Höhenberg in Feldafing on Lake Starnberg , which Heilmann'sche Immobilien-Gesellschaft had been promoting since 1897, and had a representative summer villa built there. The villa can be considered a monument for the country house style of the fin de siècle . The property Georgenstr. 2 he sold in 1904 and moved into a 16-room, 800-square-meter apartment in the Art Nouveau building in Friedrichstrasse. 18 in Schwabing, which is now owned by Reuschelbank .

In 1900, Pemsel gave up his admission to the courts and thus withdrew from the day-to-day legal business. His wife Sophie died in 1911, at the age of 62, and in 1916 also Hermann Pemsel, of pneumonia.

Services

Pemsel's services initially consisted of his involvement as a general representative in the consolidation of Cramer-Klettschen's industrial and financial assets during the "founding crisis" of 1873–1879, as well as in the simultaneous expansion and legal and economic protection of the Hohenaschau Fideikommisses. He was also a consultant to the Bavarian Brewers' Association , was a member of the board of the German Lawyers' Association and was chairman of the Munich Lawyers' Association. For the German Bar Association, he wrote a "report on the admissibility of restrictions on the legal profession", the admissibility and proportionality of which he denied, on the occasion of the access restrictions to the legal profession issued by the Prussian Ministry of Justice in 1894.

In 1889, through a legal opinion and personal negotiations, Pemsel succeeded in bringing a conflict that had been smoldering for years between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen over the connection of the Bavarian state railways with the Saxon Werra Railway to a mutually satisfactory result. The Duchy awarded Pemsel the Commander's Cross II. Class of the Duke Saxe-Ernestine House Order of the ruling Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He participated in the draft for a new German commercial code in Berlin in autumn 1895 on behalf of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice.

Pemsel worked on the supervisory boards of the General Society for Diesel Engines, Allianz Versicherungs-AG, Bayerische Vereinsbank, Deutsche Lebens- und Pensions-Versicherungs-Anstalt Anker, Heilmannsche Immobilien-Gesellschaft AG, Maschinenbau-Actiengesellschaft Nürnberg, Munich Reinsurance Company and National Accident Insurance Company, Budapest; Pomotsch, St. Petersburg; Providentia, Vienna.

Pemsel was particularly committed to the two insurance companies, Münchener Rückversicherung and Allianz, in whose founding he was not only involved, but whose fate he played a key role in his role on the supervisory board. The basis for this was that the articles of association drawn up by Pemsel, in particular that of Munich Reinsurance, granted the Supervisory Board extensive approval reservations and decision-making powers, which it exercised intensively. Since, in the case of Munich Reinsurance, all the founders, including Pemsel, also made large contributions to the share capital, the distinction between ownership and management, which is typical for stock corporations, became blurred. Rather, the supervisory boards, here above all Wilhelm Finck as chairman and Pemsel as his deputy, participated to an unusual extent in day-to-day business. Significant impulses for the development of Munich Reinsurance also came from Pemsel in the case of the establishment of the Foreign Office in London in 1890 and its occupation by Carl Schreiner and the appointment of Pemsel's partner Wilhelm Kißkalt to the board in 1909 .

Pemsel's involvement in the Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren AG (hereinafter AGD) was less successful. From 1898, the year it was founded, the AGD wanted to economically exploit Rudolf Diesel's patents and licenses on his engine, which he had already distributed to companies and individuals on a large scale, internationally. At that time, the founders believed that the further development of the Diesel engine, which had been driven forward since 1892, primarily with the help of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg AG, but also to a certain extent by Friedrich Krupp AG , had progressed to production and delivery maturity. In 1897 Diesel was celebrated for its invention at the annual meeting of the Association of German Engineers in Kassel. On the other hand, there were serious technical setbacks and the licensees insisted on improvements.

There were also ongoing lawsuits for his patent. Diesel was nervously and physically no longer able to cope with the demands that hit him especially in 1898, he wanted to see his family financially secure and preferred to devote his energies exclusively to his development work. However, he was prevented from doing so by a physical and psychological breakdown that lasted from autumn 1898 to early summer 1899, the consequences of which he overcame only slowly. In addition, it was not certain that the improvements to the engine achieved by licensees and by Diesel itself could actually, as planned, be centrally bundled and made available to all licensees in the same way. That and the strongly diverging interests of the founders hindered the development of AGD from the beginning. B. Pemsel, only and in the short term hoped for a high return on their capital contribution; Others, especially the participating mechanical engineering companies, rely more on the long-term technical uses of the innovation; Diesel in turn wanted to be relieved on the one hand, without on the other hand having to forego the financial income from the exploitation of his inventions and their further development.

AGD was founded on September 17, 1898 with a share capital of 3.5 million M., consisting of 1.5 million M. priority shares and 2 million ordinary shares. The idea for this had only emerged a few months earlier. When it was founded, the Merck Finck & Co and the Bank für Handel und Industrie, Darmstadt u. Berlin, represented by its director Kaempf, each with 1 million ordinary shares, which Rudolf Diesel then took over in October. The priority shares to be repaid as quickly as possible and bearing 5% interest are distributed as follows: Rudolf Diesel 250,000 marks, Maschinenfabrik Augsburg AG 100,000 marks, Heinrich v. Buz (director of the machine works, here private) 200,000 marks, Friedrich Krupp AG 200,000 marks, Merck Finck & Co 275,000 marks, the Augsburg banking house PC Bonnet 100,000 marks, bank for trade and industry 325,000 marks, Berthold Bing 150,000 M., Martin Eduard Arendt (Rentier in Munich) 80,000 M., Hermann Pemsel 70,000 M. By far the largest part of the priority shares, i.e. the capital brought in from outside, the banks signed, whereby again the close, at the time by Cramer- Klett-sponsored cooperation between the Darmstädter Bank and its former limited partner Merck Finck & Co, which was completely independent at this point in time.

As with Munich Reinsurance, all founders were represented on the first supervisory board. Heinrich von Buz was elected chairman, Pemsel and Krupp director Klüpfel as deputies. However, due to Diesel's different interests and difficult personality, there were always serious disputes between Diesel and the supervisory board, and occasionally between the various members of the supervisory board. At the same time, the financial returns were by no means as convincing as the founders had hoped. This moved Pemsel to resign from the company's supervisory board towards the end of 1902, after he had previously sold his shares. On this occasion, Pemsel made his colleagues on the Supervisory Board, with whom he was on friendly terms, uncomfortable about Diesel and its behavior clear. This is the main beneficiary of all further developments, while the real credit for the development of the diesel engine to readiness for use should rather be due to Buz and the Augsburg machine factory or MAN. The company's dynamism still left a lot to be desired; therefore the Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren was liquidated in 1911. It took about a generation until permanent financial success was achieved with the exploitation of the diesel engine.

Pemsel wrote legal monographs and articles in specialist journals. In 1867 he translated the book of the leading French liberal and expert on international law Edouard Laboulaye, "Paris in America" ​​from the French and in 1898 the life of his master Michelangelo, depicted by Ascanio Condivi in ​​1553, from the Italian.

His estate is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , manuscript department, sign. Ana 586

Publications

• The version of the book oath. A contribution to the history of the civil process in Germany since the middle of the XVI. Century . Erlangen 1866.
• Lefebure, R. (pseudonym for Edouard Laboulaye): Paris in America . Translated and edited by H. Pemsel, 1st edition. Erlangen 1867, 2nd edition. Erlangen 1868.
• The German civil process order and its subsidiary laws in Bavaria (subhastation order and implementation law). Erlangen 1879.
• The life of Michelangelo , described by his student Ascanio Condivi . Translated from the Italian and explained by Hermann Pemsel. Munich 1898

literature

• Johannes Biensfeldt: Baron Dr. Th. Von Cramer-Klett, hereditary Imperial Councilor of the Crown of Bavaria. His life and work. A contribution to the Bavarian economic history of the 19th century . Leipzig u. Erlangen n.d. (1922).
• Dorle Gribl: Villa colonies in and around Munich. Jakob Heilmann's influence on urban development . Phil. Diss. University of Munich, Munich 1999.
• Martin Herzog: What documents can tell - On the history of Munich Re . (Typescript, undated, undated, Library of Munich Reinsurance), Volume 1.
• Bernhard Hoffmann: Wilhelm von Finck 1848-1924. Life picture of a German banker . Munich 1953.
• Wilhelm Kißkalt : Memories of Munich Re . Garmisch 1953 (copied from MS, library of the Munich Reinsurance).
• Harold Kluge: founder and heir. The history of the Munich Reinsurance Company 1880–2007 . Munich 2009 (unpublished MS).
• Harold Kluge: The Munich Reinsurance Company: The First 50 Years (1880-1930) . University of Munich, History Seminar 2005 (unpublished Master's thesis).
• Walther Meuschel: History of Munich Re . T. 1, p. 15 (extended transcript of a report, issued on May 21, 1963; copied machine script; library of the Munich Reinsurance Company).
• Reinhard Spree : Two Chapters on early history of the Munich Reinsurance Company: The Foundation / The San Francisco Earthquake . Department of Economics, University of Munich, Munich Discussion Paper No. 2010–2011 ( University of Munich ).
• Reinhard Spree: A bourgeois career in the German Empire. The rise of the lawyer Dr. jur. Hermann Ritter von Pemsel in the business elite and nobility of Bavaria . Aachen 2007.
• Gerhard Schober: Early villas and country houses on Lake Starnberg. In memory of a cultural landscape. 2nd Edition. Waaskirchen-Schaftlach 1999.
• Marc Siegl: The Cramer-Klett's, a family of industrialists and their importance for the Priental . (Chronik Aschau i. Ch., Source volume III), Aschau 1998.
• Hubert Ulber: Problems in implementing an innovation using the example of the “Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren AG” . University of Munich, Faculty of Economics 2005 (unpublished diploma thesis).

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ^ On June 1, 1872, the Reichsrat Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett issued the lawyer Dr. jur. Hermann Pemsel a general power of attorney. (Original in the Cramer-Klett family archive, Aschau, folder "Pemsel"; copy in the Pemsel estate, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, manuscript department, sign. Ana 586)
2. ↑ He held this position until his death in 1916.
3. ↑ Apparently, after Cramer-Klett's death in 1884, Pemsel handled his responsibilities for Hohenaschau, which stemmed from guardianship, in a very restrictive manner and occasionally struck a stern tone that appeared rude to the employees there. In any case, the years 1884–1895, when the "rule" was under guardianship, are described by the chronicler Siegl as the "lean years", in which there were multiple conflicts with the guardianship. [See. M. Siegl: The Cramer-Klett's, a family of industrialists and their importance for the Priental. (...) Aschau 1998, pp. 94–100 (Chronik Aschau i. Ch., Source volume III)].
4. ↑ He also carried out this mandate until his death.
5. ↑ Pemsel participated as one of the 19 “appointed members” in all 21 meetings of the “Commission for the Assessment of the Draft of a Commercial Code”, which met from November 21 to December 18, 1895 in Berlin. [See. Reprint of the protocols in: W. Schubert (Ed.): Sources for the Commercial Code of 1897. Volume II, 1st half-volume, Frankfurt am Main 1987, pp. 275-520.].
6. ↑ Cf. copy of the matrix extract from May 23, 1903 with the illustration of the coat of arms. [Pemsel estate, Bayer. State Library, Manuscript Department, Ana 586] Pemsel was also the bearer of other Bavarian orders.
7. ↑ See Süddeutsche Bauzeitung, 1st year, from October 8, 1891, No. 2, p. 16.
8. ↑ See the illustration with illustration in G. Schober: Early villas and country houses on Lake Starnberg. In memory of a cultural landscape. 2nd Edition. Waaskirchen-Schaftlach 1999, p. 222f. On the settlement of the Höhenberg in Feldafing D. Gribl: Villa colonies in Munich and the surrounding area. Jakob Heilmann's influence on urban development. Phil. Diss. University of Munich, Munich 1999, pp. 220-240.
9. ^ Bankhaus Reuschel (ed.): A house in Schwabing. Friedrichstrasse 18. Self-published, Munich 1990.
10. ↑ According to the document of the royal notary August Otto, Gesch. Reg. No. 118, on October 7, 1875 into the property of Cramer-Klett. [Siegl: The Cramer-Klett's. 1998, p. 55.] On November 10, 1877, the statute of the Family Fideikommiss was published in the Bavarian Law Gazette. [Siegl: The Cramer-Klett's. 1998, p. 63.] Pemsel's tasks included, among other things, the consolidation of the property, which was to be expanded into a "model property", on the one hand by expanding the entails, on the other hand by replacing numerous alpine and pasture rights; a task in which Pemsel was apparently supported by Gustav von Schlör. [See. Siegl: The Cramer-Klett's. 1998, pp. 79-83.].
11. ↑ On behalf of the board of directors of the German Bar Association for the XII. German Lawyers' Day. In: Legal weekly. (1894), supplement.
12. ↑ See the documents in the personal file Pemsel, BayHStA, MJu 21570, No. 51, from October 13, 1890.
13. ↑ The fact that Pemsel was a co-founder of Munich Reinsurance is often reduced to representing the interests of Cramer-Klett. The commitment went well beyond that, as a note in Wallmann's Versicherungs-Zeitschrift (1880) on the establishment of Munich Re shows. Accordingly, Pemsel was the applicant for the establishment together with the Merck Finck & Co bank. In addition, he subscribed for shares worth at least 100,000 marks for his own account. Pemsel's important position in the new company is also reflected in the fact that the first provisional service contract on March 29, 1880 and also the final one on June 13, 1880 between Carl Thieme (as a member of the management board) on the one hand, the Merck Finck & Co and Pemsel on the other hand was closed. (See M. Herzog: What documents can tell - On the history of Munich Re. Volume 1, fn. 123. Typescript, n.d., n.d., Library of the Munich Reinsurance).
14. ^ See H. Kluge: Founders and Heirs. The Munich Reinsurance Company (1880–2007). Munich 2009 (unpublished MS), p. 51. Examples also from R. Spree: Two Chapters on early history of the Munich Reinsurance Company: The Foundation / The San Francisco Earthquake. Department of Economics, University of Munich, Munich Discussion Papers No. 2010-11 ( http://epub.ub.uni-munchen.de/11336/  ( 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 it Note. ).  
15. ↑ In a letter from Carl Schreiner to his son Hermann Pemsels, Wilhelm Pemsel, from the year 1941. informed (Archive of Munich Re, wallet Pemsel). Schreiner informs Wilhelm Pemsel that his father was crucial for his, Schreiner's, entry into Munich Re. Even more important, however, was Pemsel's later involvement with Schreiner and the building up of the so rapidly important business in England and America. It was not a matter of course that Pemsel suggested Schreiner for this, because after the first successful years with Munich Re, he left in 1886 and went to Frankonia Versicherungs AG. Pemsel brought the important insurance man back from the competition for Munich Re.
16. ↑ See the articles of association of the AGD from 1898 and 1900 in: Historisches Archiv der MAN, K 116, Allg. Correspondence. Overall on this section H. Ulber: Problems with the implementation of an innovation using the example of the “Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren AG”. University of Munich, Faculty of Economics 2005 (unpublished diploma thesis).
17. ↑ See H.-J. Braun: Life picture of Rudolf Diesel. In: Rudolf Diesel. The origin of the diesel engine. Reprint of the first edition from 1913 with an introduction and a picture of life. Moers 1984, p. III.
18. ↑ See Ulber: Problems in implementing an innovation ... 2005, p. 43f.
19. ↑ Max Schwarz, who was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of MAN AG from 1900 to 1917, was a partner in this Buz and the private bank that has long been associated with Maschinenfabrik Augsburg.
20. ↑ Member of the supervisory boards of numerous companies.
21. ↑ See Ulber: Problems in implementing an innovation ... 2005, p. 47, tab. 1.
22. ↑ See Ulber: Problems in the implementation of an innovation ... 2005, p. 66f.