JW Klawitter
The Danzig shipyard J. W. Klawitter existed from 1823 to 1931. At its heyday around the turn of the century, the company employed around 600 people and was one of the larger German shipbuilding companies.
history
prehistory
The origins of the shipyard go back to George Klawitter, who in 1712 is listed as the first shipbuilder in the Gdańsk Ship Carpenters Guild. Johann Jacob Klawitter (born 1767) was named as the elder of this guild in 1804. From 1823 he built ships with his son Johann Wilhelm Klawitter in Danzig.
Johann Wilhelm Klawitter
In 1827 Johann Wilhelm Klawitter (1801–1863) founded his own shipyard on the Brabank. The Brabank has been named in documents as a shipbuilding site since 1350. Between 1827 and 1877, the Klawitter shipyard built 117 sailing ships with a total of 34,237 normal loads of 2000 kg each from oak. After that ships were made of steel. In 1892 the shipyard delivered the last sailing ship: the 60 meter long Atlantic for the Brake an der Weser. After that, only steamships were produced. In addition, they repaired wooden sailors.
The first steamship was built in 1840 by the Klawitter shipyard. The machinery came from England. In 1841 the shipyard built the side paddle steamer Pfeil with a length of 32.6 meters and the sister ship Blitz on their own account. These two ships formed the basis of the company "Alex Gibsone & JW Klawitter", which was founded in 1841 and later became the "Weichsel Danziger Dampfschiffahrts- und Seebad AG". The company operated tug shipping between Danzig, the port of Neufahrwasser and the roadstead, as well as shipping on the Vistula. It was the largest company of its kind in Gdansk and in 1926 operated 16 passenger steamers and 9 tugs,
In addition to the founder, his brother, Gustav D. Klawitter (died 1838) is particularly important for the history of the shipyard. He was a master shipbuilder and teacher at the Royal Shipbuilding School in Szczecin. His textbook “Vorlege-Blätter für Schiff-Bauer” was the standard work of its time. In 1833 he was a member of the commission to advise on the Prussian fleet plans. He made the plans for the Amazone , the Prussian navy's first training corvette, completed in 1834.
Although Johann Wilhelm Klawitter owned his own shipyard, as a master shipbuilder he was also responsible for the construction of the first Prussian warship that was operated with steam and was built at the Royal Shipyard in Danzig . This Radkorvette Danzig was launched on November 13, 1851 in the presence of the King at the Royal Prussian Navy Shipyard.
The Klawitter shipyard built two more warships, the two gunboats Fuchs and Hai .
In 1852/54 the shipyard built the first German floating dock . It was the only dock in Gdansk for over 60 years.
Julius Wilhelm Klawitter
After the company's founder died in 1863, his son Julius Wilhelm Klawitter (1830–1910) continued the shipyard. He modernized the company fundamentally and expanded the shipyard from 1886 to include an iron foundry in Danzig-Strohteich and in 1888 to include a factory for marine machinery and a boiler shop. Julius Wilhelm Klawitter died in 1910 and left his two sons Carl William and Friedrich Wilhelm an efficient shipyard for all types of ships. Icebreakers were a specialty of the shipyard .
Carl William Klawitter (1856–1929) and Friedrich Wilhelm Klawitter (1866–1942)
After an initially unrelated career, Carl William Klawitter enjoyed an apprenticeship at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel from 1882 to 1885 before taking over the commercial management of the family company. His brother, the engineer Friedrich Wilhelm Klawitter , was the technical director of "JW Klawitter GmbH" (both were equally owners).
At the beginning of the First World War, the shipyard's 400th ship was launched. The company now employed 350 people. Foreign business ended with the war. Many workers were laid off. After the war, Danzig was separated from the German Reich as a " Free City " and the new customs barriers (Danzig was a customs area with Poland) hampered reconstruction. Both brothers were also politically active for the DNVP . Willi Klawitter became President of the Gdańsk Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Port Committee and was appointed to the State Council. Fritz was a member of the People's Day for one electoral term .
In the 1920s, Willi Klawitter's children joined the company. But this was about to end. From 1927 the shipyard operating company Klawitter & Co. took over the operation, but got into difficulties in the course of the global economic crisis and because of the separation of Danzig from the German Reich. After almost only coastal sailors had been repaired in recent years, operations closed in 1931. The last ship was the Vologda steamer , which was delivered to the client, the Russian commercial agency, on June 14, 1930. During its lifetime, the shipyard had built 500 ships.
Important ships
- Hull of the steam corvette Danzig ( Prussian Navy )
- Steam gunboat Fuchs
- Steam gunboat Hay
- Hull of the gunboat Cyclop ( Imperial Navy )
Web links
literature
- Gert Uwe Detlefsen: From the ewer to the container ship . The development of the German coasters. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1983, ISBN 3-7822-0321-6 .
- Rüdiger Ruhnau: Shipbuilding in Gdansk and the development of the shipyard industry; Danziger reports, No. 3, 1983, pp. 24-37