Jacob Aloys Friederichs

Jacob Aloys Friderichs

Jacob Aloys Friederichs , alternatively also Friedrich or Friedrichs (born February 3, 1868 in Merl (Zell) , † June 14, 1950 in Porto Alegre ), was a German-Brazilian sculptor and stonemason .

Live and act

Jacob Aloys Friederichs' parents were Vinzenz Friederich and Catharine Griebeler, who had a total of six children, a daughter and five sons. At the age of 16 Jacob Aloys Friederichs emigrated from Merl on the Moselle to Brazil in August 1884 and reached the Brazilian port city of Rio de Janeiro on October 29, 1884 . He arrived at his destination Porto Alegre on November 13, 1884. He followed his brothers Josef and Michel, who had previously emigrated to Brazil. Josef Friederichs emigrated to Rio de Janeiro in 1872, but developed yellow fever and died a short time later of his illness. Michel Friederichs, who was a stonemason by trade and had already worked on Cologne Cathedral, was the second to emigrate to Porto Alegre three years later in 1875. Once there, he founded a stone carving workshop. Mathias, the third brother, stayed with his mother and ran the winery at home. The Friederichs brothers in Brazil had added an "s" to their surname, as this sounded better because of the Portuguese pronunciation.

Jacob Aloys Friederichs began an apprenticeship as a stonemason with his brother Michel, whose craft business had previously moved to Caminho Novo 62 in Porto Alegre to a larger workshop. A few years later he enrolled in the school of the engineer João Pünder, where he was taught art, drawing, design and mathematics. His trainers were the engineer Goldammer, the architect Gustavo Koch and the sculptor Franz Schubert, from whom he received training in working on marble . In 1889 Jacob Aloys Friederichs was able to create his first own tomb for the family of Henrique Ritter from São Sebastião do Caí. Michel Friederichs, like Aloys, had the fourth brother Jacob, who was a trained woodworker, come to Porto Alegre. Jacob Friederichs first opened a cooperage, later, with the help of his brother Michel, a board trade, for which he bought a sawmill. Michel Friederichs initially founded a construction company with Gustavo Koch in 1884 called Friederichs & Koch and later, after a good economic situation, together with his nephew Alberto Binz, another company called Binz & Friederichs . In addition to the processing of construction materials, the processing of pig iron was taken up, and the existing stonemasonry workshop was expanded to include a marble workshop. Due to the large increase in contract work, the existing company was expanded to include two more companies in the same industry and Michel Friederichs founds the company Unia de Ferros . In 1891 he sold the part of the business that contained the stone and marble workshop to his brother Jacob Aloys Friederichs.

Jacob Aloys Friederichs quickly expanded his stonemasonry by starting the processing of new materials such as bronze and granite . The workshop quickly became known under the name Casa Aloys and soon developed into one of the most important stone carving companies in Porto Alegre. His commissioned work includes the construction of a large number of tombs and chapels for important people. After a fire in the workshop, he moved into a building next to the Campani brewery in 1894. Now he started to expand his business and offered jobs. The locally well-known sculptor André Arjonas (1885–1970), who called his employer Jacob Aloys Friederichs mestre , was one of his employees . In 1903 and 1914 he traveled to Portugal, Spain and Italy to look for the best artists and sculptors for his workshop in Porto Alegre. In Italy he personally procured marble blocks in Carrara and then had them exported to Brazil by ship. The Casa Aloys eventually became one of the most important sculpture and decoration companies in the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. In 1901 he was awarded a "gold medal" for this at the great state exhibition in Porto Alegre. In addition to his actual work in the company as a sculptor and stonemason, Jacob Aloys Friederichs also ran a wine tavern for wines from the Moselle in order to support his brother Mathias back home. To this end, Jacob Aloys Friederichs built a wine cellar on the company premises in 1903, in which many festivities took place. When more and more wines from the Rhine were requested, these were also delivered by the brother from Germany. The Casa Aloys was closed in 1949, a year before the death of Jacob Aloys Friederichs, who was married to a likewise German immigrant but had no children.

"Riograndenser gymnastics father"

On November 6, 1867, the German businessman Alfred Schütt founded the "German Gymnastics Club" in Porto Alegre together with C. Pohlmann and other German emigrants. Jacob Aloys Friederichs joined the German Gymnastics Federation when he joined the gymnastics club in 1888, which is also known as the beginning of his so-called "German work". On April 11, 1892, the German Gymnastics Association and the “Gymnastics Club” of the Gymnastics Federation were merged and Jacob Aloys Friederichs became the first president of SOGIPA ( Sociedade de Ginástica Porto Alegre ). In 1893, at his instigation, work began on building a gym in the local city center. In addition to the gym, he also had a sports facility built on the Guahybastrom in Porto Alegre. In 1895 he initiated the establishment of the German Gymnastics Association of Rio Grande do Sul . He held the office of club president for over 30 years in three terms and used this time to build up the club. This is where the term “Riograndenser Turnvater” ( Pai da Ginástica from Rio Grande do Sul) comes from. Sometimes he is also referred to as " Jahn Brasiliens". In 1913 he donated the challenge prize for German gymnasts in Brazil in memory of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig . At the 14th German Gymnastics Festival in Cologne in 1928 he was appointed honorary chairman.

Personal

From 1898 to 1900 Jacob Aloys Friederichs set up a local library while working as a librarian . In his private life he may have taken care of promoting the German language in terms such as “Deutschtum” and “Vaterland”, but he did not see himself as politically active. He always confessed to being a supporter of Bismarck . Personally, he was against the rise of the Nazis in the German population in Rio Grande do Sul, so he spoke out against the settlement of German National Socialists there. In 1937, together with Englert and Bercht, he published Fundamental Considerations on the Follow- Up Question , arguing that “the Teuto-Brazilians were not Germans abroad, but Brazilians of German blood. They therefore do not admit that their demonstration of loyalty to the German character and ethnicity is confused with loyalty to National Socialism ”. For years of collecting war bonds in World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II awarded him the Iron Cross.

Structural designs

• Funerary monuments in the capital's cemeteries for the following personalities: João Pünder, Augusto Brochier, Caldas Júnior, Augusto Pestana , Fernando Abbott and the Baron von Santo Ângelo
• Decorating work in chapels of prominent families
• Manufacture of an obelisk in Ponto Verde
• Execution of the altar in the matrix of Santa Cruz do Sul
• Making the altar in the Church of St. Joseph
• Manufacture of the baptistery in the Church of the Evangelical Community in Porto Algre

Awards and honors

• 1901: "Golden Medal" at the State Exhibition in Porto Alegre
• 1916: Iron Cross, awarded by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
• 1928: Honorary chairman at the 14th German Gymnastics Festival in Cologne

Publications

• For clarification and justification. Porto Alegre 1916.
• The Bismarck Round in Porto Alegre. Their creation and development. Typographia Mercantil, Porto Alegre 1929.

literature

• Alfons Friderichs (Ed.): Friederichs, Jacob Aloys . In: Personalities of the Cochem-Zell district, Kliomedia, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-89890-084-3 , pp. 114–115.
• 65 years of Jacob Aloys Friederichs. In: ANACOA, German Brazilian weekly newspaper, November 16, 1949.
• Friederichs, Jacob Aloys. In: Family magazine for the genders Fri (e) derichs. Frankfurt 1935, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 16/8.
• Scholl: The German gymnastics father of Brazil. In: Heimatjahrbuch Zell 1967, 126/8.
• Gallery, 386
• Ewald Friederich: Emigration from Merl to Brazil. In: Kreisjahrbuch Cochem-Zell 1987, pp. 77-79.
• Reinhold Schommers : Successful emigrants from the Cochem-Zell district. In: Heimat supplement of the Rhein-Zeitung for school and parental home from January 4, 1996.
• Lothar Wieser: "Loyalty to our Germanness" and "Loyalty to our patriotic love for Brazil". J. Aloys Friederichs and German gymnastics in Brazil. In: Annette R. Hofmann, Michael Krüger (Eds.): Southwest German gymnasts in emigration. Hofmann, 2004, pp. 203-218. ( Summary )

Web links

• Entry on Jacob Aloys Friederichs in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
• Advertisement for the wine trading company J. Aloys Friederichs