Jean Berlit
Jean Berlit (born June 12, 1848 in Kassel ; † October 9, 1937 there ; actually Johannes Berlit ) was a German spa entrepreneur and the founder of the climatic health resort Hochwaldhausen .
Life
Berlit was born in Kassel. His father was a sexton at the local St. Martin's Church . After attending secondary school, he learned in a silk and fashion store. In 1866 Berlit emigrated to the USA , where he first worked as a translator for a newspaper and later as a businessman. From 1868 to 1872 he was based in Nebraska , where he worked as an editor of a German-American newspaper and also supported the Republican Party politically by founding electoral associations.
Sick of malaria , he returned to Kassel in autumn 1872. For now, he was a partner in a bank, but went soon with a grocer - and delicatessen independently. He developed the patent for the Kassel oat cocoa . Berlit was also active in politics for the liberal Progressive Party . After a death in his own family, he gave up his business and switched to the spa industry in 1879. His specialty was the use of calcium in diets, with particular emphasis on hardening of the arteries and cardiac activity . Together with some Rhenish industrialists, he founded the Bad Salzschlirf public limited company in 1899 and became the bathing director there (as was later also in Bad Orb ). In this capacity he was looking for a place for the follow-up treatment for Bad Salzschlirfer patients in one of the neighboring low mountain ranges . His son Georg (1878–1946) was the spa director for many years (1907–1945) (later also an extreme co-owner) and the creator of the heyday of the Altheide Bad spa in the County of Glatz .
In the summer of 1902 he got to know the village of Ilbeshausen in the Vogelsberg during an orientation hike . He decided to create a spa district in the vicinity and in 1903 acquired a site directly on the Oberwald . The place Hochwaldhausen arose on this , whose construction and further development should become his life's work. After the First World War , he tried unsuccessfully to build a settlement for war veterans in Hochwaldhausen. In 1927/28 the establishment of a spacious rest home run by the AOK Kassel , on whose board Berlit was a member, was more successful . He also sold his house in Kassel in 1925 to the AOK, which has its administrative headquarters in the same location to this day.
In 1918 Berlit joined the SPD as a confidante of Philipp Scheidemann and was a city councilor in Kassel until 1922 . Even in old age, the convinced social democrat was active in 1931 with a leaflet in Ilbeshausen and Hochwaldhausen against the growing National Socialism .
literature
- Gerhard Kalkhof: The history of the climatic health resort Ilbeshausen-Hochwaldhausen . Grebenhain 1993
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berlit, Jean |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Berlit, Johannes |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German pool entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1848 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | kassel |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 9, 1937 |
| Place of death | kassel |