Johann Georg Lohmann

Johann Georg Lohmann

Johann Georg Lohmann (born October 30, 1830 in Bremen , † February 9, 1892 in Bremen) was a German businessman who was director of the North German Lloyd from 1877 to 1892 and who promoted the politics of the express steamers .

biography

Gravestone of Johann Georg Lohmann in the Riensberg cemetery , designed by Johann Georg Poppe. The tombstone is no longer on the grave but in a different place in the Riensberg cemetery.

Lohmann was the son of a businessman. He was married to the Englishwoman Clarissa Lohmann, born Frost.

In 1861 he was elected deacon at the cathedral church, in 1870 in the presidium of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce , in 1871 in the Jacobsverein (sancti Jacobi minoris), in 1872 together with WH Wätjen and AG Nebelthau for the Schaffer at the Schaffermahlzeit of the House of Seefahrt .

He died of a heart attack while attending the General Assembly of the House of Seafaring , immediately after he had "cheered" on the newly elected Schaffer.

education and profession

At the age of 14 Lohmann joined the Johann Gottfried Schütte & Co. company as an apprentice . In 1848 he went to Bahia as a representative of two tobacco companies in Bremen and founded his own company there in 1851.

In his capacity as Austrian consul he received and looked after the future Emperor of Mexico Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria and is honored in his work From my life .

In 1861 Lohmann returned to Bremen. However, only a year later he had to return to Bahia due to a severe loss of assets, where he lived until 1865. He was only able to stay in Bremen permanently from 1866.

At the North German LLoyd

Lohmann became a member of the board of directors in 1868 and director of North German Lloyd (NDL) in 1877 .

At the NDL he had new express steamers built for North American traffic and thus initiated the “Schnelldampferpolitik” which later led to the NDL becoming the largest passenger shipping company in the world and between 1830 and 1974 7.2 million emigrants disembarking from Bremerhaven. For comparison: Around 5 million emigrants drove out of Hamburg into the world.

He set up the imperial post steamer lines to East Asia and Australia, which were opened on June 30, 1886 with the departure of the "Oder" to East Asia. The Mediterranean service of North German Lloyd and the special design of the Baltimore line can also be traced back to his work. The entire German shipbuilding industry experienced an upswing at that time, which is to a large extent due to the orders of the North German Lloyd.

The expansion of the port facilities in Bremerhaven , decided by the Bremen Senate and the citizenship in 1890, was initiated by Lohmann.

Conflict with HH Meier

On March 15, 1888, HH Meier resigned after a deep dispute with Lohmann about the future of North German Lloyd and at the same time resigned from the board of directors. The literature assesses this event very differently. What is certain is that there had often been differences of opinion between these "veterans" about the right course. A very detailed but of course not impartial description of the dispute of March 15, 1888 is contained in the memoirs from the life of Johann Georg Lohmann :

"As soon as Mr. Lohmann took up his new office [...] he was convinced that things couldn't go on like this. The institute had recently been heavily indebted, and what was worse, there was an obvious danger that it could be overtaken by powerful competitive lines. Preventing this was a matter of life and, as the new director soon saw, it could only be done by procuring high-speed steamers. He shared his opinion with Consul Meier, but the latter rejected the idea as an impossible project. He admitted that the state of affairs was not favorable, but went so far as to say that the purchase of express steamers would ruin the Lloyd, and with the obstinacy and tenacity of old age braced himself against the proposed innovations. […] One day in the office of Norddeutscher Lloyd in Papenstrasse, Consul Meier and Director Lohmann had a conversation in which the former went on blatantly to the point that he was the one who procured the express steamer and that it was his work; that he had striven for the Reichspostdampferlinie for Lloyd. This assertion, thrown in his face, surpassed everything that Herr Lohmann had thought possible. His patience was running out: 'That is the worst self-deception that has ever happened to me in my life,' he said with a raised voice, and now one word led to the other […] In February the board meeting took place, in which the matter had to be decided. Both Consul Meier and Mr. Lohmann presented their views on the construction of the new ship to be built and gave reasons for their opinion. The vote followed and was unanimously in favor of the director, whereupon H. H. Meier broke into the words 'Then I can see that I am no longer of any use here and have nothing more to say!' [...] He submitted a [...] bid to leave the board of directors. The same thing was accepted immediately, and the businessman Mr. F. Reck was elected chairman of the board of directors in his place. "

In the literature, most authors avoid making a clear statement about who was actually right. This reference gives a kind of summary:

Hermann Henrich Meier and Johann Georg Lohmann

"Johann Georg Lohmann, director of Norddeutscher Lloyd since 1877, was aware of the company's policy of offering steamers as fast as possible [...] So Lohmann, as the first shipowner on the continent, decided to offer several express steamers for a spectacular liner service [...] The company boss came across to unexpected and stubborn resistance. Hermann Heinrich Meyer, now seventy years old, decidedly refused to agree to such an innovation. Meier and Lohmann lived in increasing tension anyway. Lohmann was, as it is said rather cautiously in biographies, 'a ruler nature', with a self-confidence that 'surpassed Meier's by a ship's length' [...] Meier said conversely: 'I am Lloyd! and acted accordingly. Johann Georg Lohmann, however, was almost fifty years old, therefore no longer a young man, and, like Meier, was the offspring of a wealthy and highly respected Bremen family. He had given up an overseas post in his own trading house for Lloyd, was an energetic, combative, extremely ambitious man and was by no means willing to allow himself to be patronized by the company founder. The conflict was preprogrammed [...] "

Lohmann and Poppe

In his work Der Norddeutsche Lloyd. 50 years of development 1857 - 1907 Paul Neubaur describes how the North German Lloyd became groundbreaking for world shipping by changing the salon systems and their equipment. Lohmann found support for his ideas from the architect Johann Georg Poppe . Poppe had already distinguished himself as a designer of Bremen residential buildings and artistic citizens' residences and was one of the first German architects to transfer the customary luxury of their own home to the interior fittings of the ships. His work is described in various publications:

• "With its tons of putti, wrought-iron bars and the leather tassels designed by Johannes Poppe, the Bremen shipping company remained a leader in the field of ship interior decoration for three decades."
• “Poppe designed the rooms in the historical style of the time; every new steamer was more ornately decorated with carvings, decorated columns, plush upholstery and monumental splendid paintings than the previous one. "

Honors

Bust of Johann Georg Lohmann in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven

On December 28, 1887, Kaiser Wilhelm I awarded Lohmann the royal third class crown , probably because of his services in awarding steamship construction contracts in Germany to the Vulkan shipyard in Stettin . In 1889, after a Lloyd ship was launched in Stettin, he was awarded the Third Class Red Eagle Order . And during a visit by the emperor to Bremen in April 1890, Lohmann was also presented with the second-class crown medal.

Maximilian I , Emperor of Mexico, awarded him the Order of Guadalupe in recognition of the services he had rendered to him during his visit to Bahia.

1877, filed as Lohmann his dismissal as Austrian consul in Bahia, gave him the Emperor Franz Joseph I to the Order of Franz Joseph .

In 1886, when the Oder began its second voyage to East Asia as an imperial mail steamer, Lohmann received the Belgian Leopold Order in Antwerp on behalf of King Leopold II . Leopold II confirmed his interest in the Lloyd connection to East Asia.

In 1990, on the occasion of negotiations with the Oldenburg government about the expansion of the port of Nordenham, Lohmann received the Oldenburg House and Merit Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig from the Grand Duke of Oldenburg .

In Bremen, in the Findorff district , the street that connects Hemmstrasse with Winterstrasse was named after Lohmann. There is also a Lohmannstrasse named after him in Bremerhaven, between Wiegandstrasse and H.-H.-Meyer-Strasse. Wiegand was Lohmann's successor at Norddeutscher Lloyd.

A life-size marble bust of Lohmann, owned by the company Hapag-Lloyd AG , was given on permanent loan to the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven and, after having been in storage for a long time, has been in the public area since February 6, 2011, in the Meissen- Hall to see.

The Lohmann dike north of the Bremerhaven Zoo also owes its name to Johann Georg Lohmann.

Quotes

Below are some quotes that reflect Lohmann's achievements:

• "With his tremendous energy, L. was able to create a high-speed steamship fleet within a few years, which was initially built in English shipyards and allowed two = yes three-time handling ... in speed, safety, and convenience of transport, Lloyd gradually surpassed all other shipping companies in the world."

• "The second groundbreaking act in Lohmann's life is the establishment of the German Reichsdampferpostlinien to East Asia and Australia ... It was Lohmann's merit that this new task, initially not without financial losses, was mastered as happily as it was [...]"

• “[...] to have brought North German Lloyd to the top of all steamship companies in the world is thanks to the man who took over the management of Lloyd in 1877 after Stockmeyer's death. Johann G. Lohmann [...] whose far-sighted ideas fertilized the entire German shipping industry, but also German shipbuilding and made the German shipping company he managed into the first shipping company in the world. "

• “The undisputed first place went to Lloyd. After H. H. Meier, J. G. Lohmann became his guide, who with great energy laid out new paths for Lloyd. He had new express steamers built for the North American traffic, which was the actual basis for both Lloyd and Bremen. [...] Lohmann's second great decision led Lloyd to East Asia. In 1886 he signed a subsidy contract with the Reich, with which Lloyd took over the operation of two Reich post lines to East Asia and Australia for 4.4 million marks annually [...] "

literature

• R. Haack and C. Busley: The technical development of the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Aktiengesellschaft (HAPAG). Introduction by Lars V. Scholl. Reprint of the special print from the VDI magazine, 1893.
• Henry Fry: The History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation with some Account of early Ships and Shipowners. Sampson Low, Marston & Company Ltd., London 1896.
• Wilhelm Ehlers: Fifty Years of North German Lloyd - In memory of the 50th anniversary on February 20, 1907. Carl Schünemann Verlag, Bremen 1907.
• Paul Neubaur: The North German Lloyd. 50 years of development 1857–1907. Volume I, Ms. Wilh. Grunow, Leipzig 1907.
• Biography of Bremen in the nineteenth century . Published by the Historical Society of the Artists' Association, Gustav Winter, Bremen 1912, pages 283–285.
• Friedrich Hardegen: The foundation of the NDL. Gustav Winter, Bremen 1913.
• Georg Bessell: Bremen - The history of a German city. Insel Verlag , Leipzig 1935.
• Georg Bessell: 1857–1957 North German Lloyd, history of a Bremen shipping company. Carl Schünemann Verlag, Bremen 1957.
• Hans Jürgen Witthöft: North German Lloyd. Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford 1973, ISBN 3-7822-0088-8 .
• Arnold Kludas : The opening of the first Reichspost steamship line . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Volume 64, Bremen 1986.
• Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume I: The pioneering years from 1850 to 1890. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1986.
• Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume II: Expansion on all seas 1890 to 1900. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1987.
• Christine Reinke-Kunze: The history of the Reichs-Post-Dampfer. Connection between the continents 1886–1914. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbh, Herford 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0618-5 .
• Lars U. Scholl:  Lohmann, Johann Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 127 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen in five volumes. Vol. 2: From the French period to the First World War (1810–1918). Edition Temmen , Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-283-7 .
• Reinhold Thiel: The history of the North German Lloyd 1857-1970. Volume I: 1857-1883. Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2001.
• Hans Jürgen Witthöft: North German Lloyd, Bremen. Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 1997.

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg Lohmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Monument database of the LfD Bremen
2. ^ Information from the cemetery administration of the Riensberg cemetery.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Memories from the life of Johann Georg Lohmann. Printed as a manuscript and written on behalf of his wife with the participation of the Bremen writer Emilie Tegtmeyer (* 1827; † 1903), Bremen 1891. This private print can be viewed in the Bremen State Archives. The original of the award certificate is in the possession of his great-grandson Johann Georg Lohmann.
4. ↑ Bessell (1957)
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Historical Society of the Artists' Association (ed.): Bremische Biographie des Nineteenth Century . Publishing house by Gustav Winter, Bremen 1912.
6. ^ Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria : From my life. Travel sketches, aphorisms, poems. Sixth volume. Travel Sketches XI. Verlag von Duncke and Humblot, Leipzig 1867. See also: ( limited preview in the Google book search)
7. ^ Witthöft (1997)
8. ^ Neubaur (1907), page 44.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Knittermeyer and Steilen (1942)
10. ↑ Reinke-Kunze (1994)
11. ↑ Horst Adamietz: Tides of shipping. According to protocols and documents of the centenary Bremen Rhederverein. H. Saade, Bremen: 1984.
12. ↑ Susanne Wiborg and Klaus Wiborg: 1847 - 1997: Our field is the world - 150 years of Hapag-Lloyd. Festschrift published by Hapag-Lloyd AG, Hamburg 1997.
13. ↑ John Malcolm Brinnin and Kenneth Gaulin: Grand Hotels of the Seas: The Golden Age of Luxury Liners . (German by Marcus Wuermli. Editing by Peter Pedersen), Heyne-Verlag, Munich 1988, page 24.
14. ↑ Volker Plagemann (Ed.): Übersee. Seafaring and sea power in the German Empire . Verlag CH Beck, Munich: 1988, page 173.
15. ↑ commons: File: Order of the crown third class to Johann Georg Lohmann.JPG
16. ↑ New building (1907)