Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse

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Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse

Johann Nikolaus Dreyse , (in personal reports always Johann Nicolaus Dreyse ), from 1864 von Dreyse , (born November 20, 1787 in Sömmerda ; † December 9, 1867 there ) was a German entrepreneur , designer and inventor of the needle gun .

origin

His parents were the master locksmith Johann Christian Dreyse († August 1, 1815) and his wife Susanne Katharina Fleischmann († May 8, 1843).

Life

He learned his father's craft and worked in Altenburg and Dresden from 1806 . From 1809 he worked in the rifle factory of Samuel Johann Pauli in Paris , who was commissioned by Napoléon Bonaparte to improve the rifle (details are very controversial in research). Pauli (also Pauly) had developed a breech loader with internal ignition and flap lock, but it was too complicated and fragile. An important suggestion for Dreyses later work must be seen here.

The Dreyse mill in Sömmerda
Memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Sömmerda

In 1814 he returned to Sömmerda and founded a factory ( Dreyse & Collenbusch ) with the merchant Kronbiegel for the production of iron goods, but turned his interest particularly to improving rifles. In 1824 he succeeded in redesigning copper percussion caps for percussion rifles , which gained a good reputation in Germany due to their excellent quality. His efforts to move the ignition of rifles from the outside to the inside and to construct a single cartridge that should contain all the parts required for shooting led to the invention of the needle gun in 1827 . It was still a sleek muzzle-loading needle rifle. Frequent accidents with this weapon (Dreyse was also affected) led to the further development of the breech loader .

In 1830 a Prussian war ministerial commission experimented with this repeatedly improved rifle . In 1836 Dreyse then used the rear loading. This weapon was introduced into the Prussian army in 1840, initially with the fusilier battalions , and its establishment was treated as a secret. At the same time, the Dreyse government approved the funds to set up a rifle and rifle ammunition factory, which began production in Sömmerda in 1841. By 1863, 300,000 rifles and the associated cartridge parts had been delivered. In 1846 Dreyse was appointed to the commission council and in 1854 to the secret commission council.

The full value of the needle gun had by no means been shown in the German-Danish War of 1864. The effect of the breech-loader in the German War of 1866 therefore appeared surprising. In association with the rifled cannons, the needle gun brought about a formal revolution in the field of warfare, and it was of considerable importance for this campaign (research is today of the alleged decisive role in the war somewhat more critical of).

Dreyse also invented a grenade rifle with an explosive projectile, which, however, was of no practical importance as a result of the resolutions of the Petersburg Conference of 1868. The needle stand rifle (an attempt to revive amusement ) and the Dreyse mitrailleuse designed as an organ gun proved to be of little use from a military point of view .

In 1864 he was raised to hereditary nobility .

Dreyse's son Franz (1822–1894) initially successfully continued his father's entrepreneurial and inventive work. Equipped with his father's passion for weapons technology, he perfected the weapons of war and set up a machine factory and an iron foundry in which machine tools and railway supplies were manufactured. His hunting rifles were characterized by their easy handling. The invention of the firing pin was a major improvement on the firing needle rifle , with which the slime on the lock parts from powder smoke was reduced. Later he lost the connection in the military field (from then on Mauser was leading). The family sold the rifle factory in 1901 to Rheinmetall , the founder of which had learned from Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse. The life's work of the von Dreyse family made the previously rather insignificant town of Sömmerda into a very important location for the arms industry.

Honors

Dreysedenkmal

In 1909 a Dreyse memorial combined with a war memorial for the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870/71 was unveiled in Sömmerda. It is a work by the sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider . The monument fell victim to political censorship in 1948, only the granite base and the bronze head of Dreyses are preserved.

In Berlin-Moabit , in 1875, a street that was newly laid out near the former powder mills was named after him, which led to the guard barracks.

family

He married Dorothea Luise Raman on February 11, 1821 in Sömmerda (August 4, 1801 - August 6, 1849). The couple had several children:

  • Franz Karl Rudolf (* March 2, 1822) ⚭ Renate Salzmann (* December 16, 1846)
  • Emilie Luise (born February 26, 1828) ⚭ 1850 Hugo von Besser , Colonel
  • Julie Nathalie Wilhelmine (born October 4, 1832)
⚭ 1853 Rudolf von Garczynski († July 3, 1866), favored by Königgrätz
⚭ 1873 NN Hankwitz, senior staff doctor

Trivia

Johann Nikolaus Dreyse is not to be confused with Karl Drais , the inventor of the draisine .

literature

  • Siegfried Huebschmann, Werner Eckardt: Johann Nikolaus Dreyse . In: Central German Life Pictures. 1. Volume Pictures of Life in the 19th Century. Magdeburg 1926, pp. 95-116.
  • Karl Karmarsch :  Dreyse, Johann Nikolaus von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 409.
  • Paul Adolf Kirchvogel:  Dreyse, Nikolaus von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 124 ( digitized version ).
  • Rolf Wirtgen, Elmar W. Caspar (ed.): The needle gun - a military-technical revolution in the 19th century . Mittler, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-8132-0380-8 . (scientific monograph on Dreyse and his work with strong evaluation of original documents and real pieces)
  • Frank Boblenz : “ Today we finished the preparation.” - The primer production started in Sömmerda 175 years ago. In: Sömmerdaer Heimatheft. 11 (1999), pp. 65-70.
  • Frank Boblenz: Franke. [...] would make it pretty clean and cheap . On the relationship between the engraver Johann Volkmar Franke (1781–1847) in Erfurt and the Dreyse & Collenbusch company in Sömmerda. In: Sömmerdaer Heimatheft. 9 (1997), pp. 40-54.
  • Frank Boblenz: "Pray and work for the king and fatherland". On the biography of the industrialist Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse . In: Hans-Werner Hahn , Werner Greiling , Klaus Ries (eds.): Citizenship in Thuringia. Life world and life paths in the early 19th century . Rudolstadt / Jena 2001, ISBN 3-89807-005-0 , pp. 201-229.
  • Frank Boblenz: Neumair von Ramsla and von Dreyse. Case studies on ennobling in the 16th and 19th centuries. In: Home Thuringia. 14 (2007) H. 3, pp. 18-21.
  • Marcelli Janecki : Handbook of the Prussian Nobility . Volume 1. p. 115 .
  • Prussia's military Luther . In: The Gazebo . Issue 40 and 41, 1866, pp. 628–631 and 640–643 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Dreyse, 1) Johann Nikolaus von . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 5, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 150.

Web links

Commons : Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DNB 102461643 , data set at the German National Library (last accessed on June 7, 2019).
  2. ↑ Ulrich Völkel: Hospitable Thuringia - Central Thuringia. Arnstadt 1993, ISBN 3-929662-00-0 . (The brief explanations given there represent the state of knowledge from the end of the 19th century and are based on: O. Hesse: From Sömmerdas past and present. Attempt to compile the historical events. Erfurt 1898, OCLC 163088776. )
  3. ↑ Dreysestrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert ).
personal data
SURNAME Dreyse, Johann Nikolaus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dreyse, Johann Nikolaus; Dreyse, Johann Nicolaus; Dreyse, Johann Nicolaus von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German designer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Sömmerda
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1867
Place of death Sömmerda