Johann Georg Kranzler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johann Georg Kranzler (born April 25, 1794 in Tautendorf , Lower Austria , † December 21, 1866 in Berlin ) was a pastry chef from Austria and founder of Café Kranzler in Berlin.

Life

Johann Georg Kranzler was born in Tautendorf , a village not far from Gars am Kamp in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel, as the son of the agricultural citizen Johann Georg Kranzler. In 1826 he married the forester's daughter Catherine Babette Freh (1804–1828) as his first marriage, shortly after her death her sister Johanne Freh, from whom he divorced in 1833. The son Martin (1830–1869) comes from this second marriage. In 1840 he married Caroline Lorenz (1813–1846), from which son Alfred (1841–1911) emerged. Both sons also learned the pastry profession. In 1825 he acquired citizenship in Berlin for 25 Reichstaler.

Lithograph Fashionable Eisesser by Ludwig Löffler , Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation, 1842

Kranzler trained as a confectioner in Vienna , probably met the then Prussian Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg (1750–1822) at the Congress of Vienna and came to Berlin in 1816 as his personal cook. Until his death he worked for him on his estate. In 1824 he acquired citizenship in Berlin and in 1825 opened his own confectionery on the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Behrenstrasse, which was successful despite competition from the Swiss confectioners based there . In 1833 Kranzler acquired the house “Unter den Linden No. 25”. After extensive renovation work, he opened the “Café Kranzler” the following year, whose particular attraction in summer was the sun terrace, the so-called “ramp” . At that time it was the first outdoor facility of a café in Berlin. In addition to Austrian confectionery specialties, he offered Russian ice cream. In 1852 Kranzler became a royal Prussian court confectioner and thus court purveyor.

The cafe animal was also an outstanding businessman who quickly spotted and implemented new trends. In 1833, the Kranzler not only had Berlin's first “smoking room”, but also the first café terrace, despite a police ban. The Kranzler thus offered optimal framework conditions for guests who, in keeping with the spirit of the times, wanted to "see and be seen". The interior of the first Café Kranzler in Berlin-Mitte was decorated by August Stüler. The cafe was also called " Walhalla des Gardeleutnants".

Grave of Alfred and Johann Georg Kranzler

Kranzler was appointed court confectioner in 1852 and died in great honor in 1866. He found his final resting place in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof II in field left wall G4. His son Alfred Kranzler was later buried there.

After his death, the Café Kranzler, valued by writers (including Theodor Fontane ), was continued by his sons, leased to the Berliner Hotelbetriebs Aktiengesellschaft in 1911 and taken over by them in 1923.

Rape allegations

In 1836, a resident of the slum outside the excise wall in front of the Hamburger Tor was reported to have been pummeling because she had brought several young women, including school-age girls, to Kranzler and who had "seduced her to fornication," that is, slept with them. Two girls also reported that he had forced them to have sex with them; the mother of one of the girls told the deputies for the poor that her daughter had "had bruises on her body for a long time". The police and court files on this matter are no longer available, so that the case can apparently only be reconstructed from the documents of the poor directorate. Accordingly, the matchmaker was sentenced to nine months' detention. No charges were brought against Kranzler, however, because the girls revoked their allegations during the judicial interrogation or the families allegedly waived prosecution (although at least one mother later denied this); However, according to § 1060 of the General Land Law - if no public nuisance was caused - rape was an application offense . The reason for the waiver of proceedings and punishment was that Kranzler had paid severance payments to the families, in varying and sometimes very substantial amounts, which led to envy and physical disputes among the residents of the slum.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ There are different information on the date of birth and death. The birth on April 25th is supported by the New German Biography (NDB) and the Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL), the year of birth differs between the NDB (1795) and the ÖBL and Gravestone (1794). The date of death on the tombstone is December 21, 1866, the NDB and ÖBL indicate December 12 of the year.
  2. ↑ Johann Friedrich Geist , Klaus Kürvers : 1740–1862 (=  Das Berliner Mietshaus . Volume  1 ). Prestel, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7913-0524-7 .
personal data
SURNAME Kranzler, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Berlin pastry chef
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Tautendorf (municipality of Gars am Kamp)
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1866
Place of death Berlin