Johann Heinrich Volkmann (businessman)

Johann Heinrich Volkmann (born January 25, 1842 in Bremen ; †  May 13, 1916 in Bremen) was a Bremen merchant. He was a partner and for many years chairman of the supervisory board of the North German wool combing & worsted spinning mill ( north wool ) in Delmenhorst .

biography

family

Volkmann was the third son of the theologian and teacher at the illustrious high school in Bremen, Johann Heinrich Volkmann (1804–1865) and his wife Amalie (1813–1842), the daughter of Bremen's mayor Diederich Meier (1787–1857).

Both his father and his brother, the private banker Daniel Georg Volkmann (1812-1892) were members of the Bremen citizenship .

Volkmann's older brothers are the classical philologist and long-time rector of the Fürstenschule Schulpforta Diederich Volkmann (1838–1903), the merchant and American consul in Odessa Johann Hermann Volkmann (1840–1896), and his twin brother, the Bremen pastor Gustav Volkmann (1842–1917) .

Even as a made man, as a 31-year-old partner in the globally operating company CFLahusen, Volkmann married Alwine Kommallein (1854–1930) in Wernigerode in 1873, the 19-year-old daughter of the Reich judge Friedrich Kommallein and his wife Hermine, née. v.Hoff.

Like her husband, Alwine Volkmann was very committed to social issues. From 1918 she sat on the women's committee of the Evangelical Diakonissenhaus, from 1920 until her death in 1930 on the board of this institution. From 1912 to 1930 she worked on the board of directors of the Ellener Hof, to which her husband was a member from 1872 to 1916.

Ten children were born to the couple, including the businessman and later President of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce Johannes Daniel Volkmann , the daughter Magdalene, married to the shipowner Adolf Vinnen , who gave his name to the tallest ship still in service today, Sedov (ex Magdalene Vinnen ) and the Bremen manufacturer and Temporary chairwoman of the Club zu Bremen Wilhelm Volkmann.

education and profession

After attending the old grammar school, Volkmann completed a commercial apprenticeship from 1858 to 1862 at the Bremen trading company Ed. Meyer & Co . and then joined the company of his uncle Christian Lahusen , who was married to his mother's sister. Shortly afterwards, the CF Lahusen company sent him to South America with difficult assignments, which he evidently mastered with success, so that in 1867 he first became an authorized signatory and the following year a partner in the Lahusen company.

The Lahusen company initially engaged in general trade and shipping, but from the 1860s onwards, wool imports from South America became more important. The Lahusen company operated its own sheep farms in South America, had its own ships for transport to Europe and in 1873 bought a large wool laundry and combing shop in Neudek, Bohemia.

The spinning mill in Neudek played a special role for Volkmann. When he just got back from Argentina there was a risk that the spinning mill in Neudek would go bankrupt and that CFLahusen would lose a lot of money as a supplier. Volkmann looked at the documents and said to his uncle and boss Christian Lahusen that it wasn't the company that was bad, only the management. Lahusen then sent his nephew Volkmann there to manage and renovate the spinning mill. When he succeeded in doing this, he made his nephew a partner.

With the acquisition of the spinning mill, the change of the company from pure trade to industry was completed, which was continued with the founding of Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei AG (North Wool) in Delmenhorst in 1884 . Volkmann was a member of the board of directors until 1893 and then from 1893 until his 70th birthday in 1912 chairman of the supervisory board of Nordwolle. His cousin Caspar Gottlieb Kulenkampff took over this post after him.

The company developed rapidly. While it had 26 workers when it was founded in 1884, six years later there were already more than 1,600 employees. When Volkmann retired in 1912 for reasons of age, more than 8,000 workers were employed who worked on a constantly growing area of ​​over 80 hectares of industrial space in Delmenhorst.

With the acquisition of numerous factories throughout Germany, Nordwolle became one of the largest wool processing groups in Europe. The balance sheet total rose from 7.3 million marks in 1885 to over 74 million marks in 1912, the share capital rose in the same period from 1.5 million to 22.5 million marks.

In addition to his work at Nordwolle, Volkmann was also chairman of the supervisory board of Compania Rural and the glass factories of the Stoevesandt brothers, his cousins. At the shipping company J.Tidemann & Co., he held the position of deputy chairman of the supervisory board.

Volkmann has become a very rich man through his successful entrepreneurial activity. In the yearbook of millionaires in the Hanseatic cities of 1912 he is listed with a cash fortune of 1.6 million gold marks. He and his wife were great patrons in his hometown. For example, when over 1000 people gathered in the casino in 1912 on the occasion of his and his brother's 70th birthday, his wife anonymously donated 20,000 gold marks for a rectory of the Inner Mission.

Honorary positions

Volkmann showed particular commitment in the church sector. In 1871 he was a member of the Diakonie of the church community Our Dear Women in Bremen, from 1872 until his death in 1916 he was a member of the board of directors of the Ellener Hof, an institution that looked after neglected young people. He was also a board member for the Hartmannshof, the Evangelical Emigration Mission and the Bremen Main Association of the Gustav Adolf Foundation. For years he headed the Evangelical Association, the Bremen Bible Society and the Diakonissenhaus.

He was particularly interested in the Association for Inner Mission , which he served as accounting officer from 1898 to 1903 and then headed it as chairman from 1903 until his death. He also organized the Congresses for Inner Mission that took place in Bremen in 1881 and 1897.

Furthermore, from 1879 onwards, Volkmann gave his brother Gustav Volkmann's St. Jakobi congregation in Bremen Neustadt several very generous support, which had to work in a difficult environment.

He served his family as a long-time administrator of the "Sander-Meiersche Family Foundation from 1842", which still exists today and continues to support needy descendants of the family.

In 1889 he was elected a member of the foundation Verein der Lehrerfreunde von 1822 , a foundation in Bremen that still exists today, which is dedicated to promoting young and destitute teachers or their needy survivors.

literature

• Rudolf Martin: Yearbook of the millionaires in the Hanseatic cities. Berlin 1912
• Dietmar von Reeken : Lahusen - A Bremen entrepreneurial dynasty. Temmen 1996