Johann Georg Michael Wieninger

Johann Georg Michael Wieninger , usually just called Georg Wieninger (born April 21, 1746 in Trautmannsdorf ; † January 31, 1827 in Vilshofen ) was a Bavarian entrepreneur, brewer and politician. A pioneering achievement was his contribution to the development of a Bavarian sugar beet industry.

Life and family

Wieninger was born as the son of the innkeeper Thomas Wieninger (1712–1788), the second of 16 children. The inn in Trautmannsdorf is guaranteed by the Wieninger family as early as 1500. His mother Euphrosina Hilz (1723–1753) came from a brewery in Zenting, a branch of the famous Hilz glassworks dynasty.

Many of his family members were politically active and were elected to the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies : three of his sons, Johann Georg , Franz Xaver and Gottlieb Wieninger , also his grandson Anton Pummerer , the husband of his granddaughter, Jakob Josef Ziegler , the half-brother Philipp and the Nephew Max Christian Wieninger . The son Felix was to take over the property in Schärding and Fürstenzell, the daughters married into well-known families in Vilshofen, Regensburg (Stadtamhof), Passau and Salzburg. Of his great-grandchildren, Georg Wieninger worked as an agronomist in Schärding , while Ludwig Boltzmann achieved particular fame as a physicist.

After the early death of his mother, Johann Georg learned the trade of hops trader from his step-grandfather Johann Adam Schönauer in Perlesreut. In 1773 he married his granddaughter Maria Katharina Krieger (1754-1824) and moved to Wartberg, where his father-in-law Matthias Krieger († around 1785) lived in the episcopal Passauische Schlössl and continued to operate the hop trade and allegedly even had a department store. A few years after the death of his father-in-law, he moved with his family to Vilshofen, where he first leased a brewery and later bought it, as well as the buildings of the former Capuchin monastery in Vilshofen . From Vilshofen he built up his various businesses and managed them.

In the parish church of Vilshofen there is a memorial plaque with the inscription: "Auspicie Deo, iussu et expensis Maximiliani Josephi IV., Electoris Bavariae sub directione Joannis Georgii Wieninger, braxatrois Vilshofensis, jam dissoluta Canonicali Capitulo haec ecclesia the Xeta suCIVis ex favillisl aeta resurrexit Anno MDCCCIV. " (Source: Donau-Zeitung, August 18, 1854)

Business expansion and pioneering work

Wartberg

A few years after the death of his father-in-law Matthias Krieger († around 1785), Georg sold the property in Wartberg.

Schärding

Wieninger had acquired property in Schärding from the abolished Suben monastery as early as 1786.

Vilshofen

In 1804 Wieninger acquired the buildings and part of the garden of the Capuchin monastery in Vilshofen, which was closed in 1802. The convent was "transported" to Wasserburg. The monastery and church were later partially destroyed. He ran in Vilshofen v. a. a brewery.

Fürstenzell

The Wieninger family acquired the monastery and farm buildings , gave the residents of the area work and allowed settlement in the area. In 1807 the monastery church became a parish church; a few years later the previous parish church in Unterirsham was demolished. Because of the poor economic situation, his great-grandson Franz Wieninger sold the building complex in November 1928 to the episcopal brewery Hacklberg , which, however, sold it to the German Province of the Society of Mary two years later .

Passau

Johann Georg acquired a tobacco shop in Passau and an oil stamp in the Schleiferhaus at Severinstor, with the right to manufacture snuff and smoking tobacco.

He now handed over the Passau operations to his eldest son Johann Georg. Johann Georg's widow Therese asked to continue the business in 1822 and sold it to her second husband, the tobacco manufacturer Josef Paur, that same year.

Sugar manufacturing

Wieninger left his son Felix in Augsburg with Utzschneider and v. Train Grauvogl for beet sugar production. In 1812 he applied for a concession to manufacture beet sugar in Fürstenzell. At the time, this was one of the first beet sugar factories in Germany, but it soon had to be closed for reasons of profitability.

Business strategy

Wieninger, who came from a large family and thus could hardly have acquired a noteworthy legacy, took every opportunity to enlarge his real estate. Here the secularization in Austria and Bavaria came to equip him, he was able to acquire property cheaply from the monasteries and from bankruptcies.

Management of property

Wieninger handed over the Passau business to his eldest son Johann Georg, the Schärdinger business to his son Felix and the Vilshofen business to his unmarried son Gottlieb. Felix presumably appointed administrators in Fürstenzell; family members did not live there until 1887.

Social achievements

Characterized as “an honest, capable, pious citizen”, Wieninger led the reconstruction of the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Vilshofen on the Danube “after the terrible fire on May 12, 1794, which burned the whole city to ashes”.

literature

• Alois Ebner: The Wieninger family. Handwritten manuscript, undated. Fürstenzell around the 1920s.
• Josef Zormaier and Rupprecht Haertl: Genealogy and family chronicle of the Pummerer and Haertl, Bocholt: Haertl 1993.
• Helmut Hilz: Reflections of history in the fate of Bavarian forest glassworks. Riedlhütte: Heimatverein d'Ohetaler Riedlhütte; Grafenau: Morsak 2001. ISBN 3-9804872-8-8 and ISBN 3-87553-550-2
• Rainer A. Roth, Josef Sagmeister: From crook to the Bavarian lion - 1803: the secularization of the Fürstenzell monastery. Ed. Volksbildungswerk Fürstenzell eV Fürstenzell: GraphX ​​advertising studio 2003.