Johann Philipp Holzmann

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Johann Philipp Holzmann (born April 22, 1805 in the Kreuzmühle in Dreieichenhain , now Dreieich , Hessen ; † February 15, 1870 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German building contractor and founded a construction business in 1849, which later became the Frankfurt construction company Philipp Holzmann AG .

Holzmann was initially a miller in a sawmill. He ran it with his mother after his father died when he was twelve years old. He expanded the Kreuzmühle into a steam sawmill and later relocated the company to Frankfurt am Main .

He once proved his business acumen when he built a footbridge over the Mühlenbach from the wood of the disused gallows from Offenbach. When the gallows was broken off, he found a lead plate underneath, which he was able to sell at a profit for 500 guilders.

Holzmann initially worked primarily in railway construction and later in hydraulic engineering. He participated in the construction of the railway in southern Hesse (Taunusbahn, Main-Neckar-Bahn), in the Spessart (1852), on the Hanau-Aschaffenburg line (1855), built the Homburg Railway (1859) and the port in Oberlahnstein (1860) .

The construction company grew rapidly with industrialization. To expand production, Holzmann was already working closely with Deutsche Bank just a few years after it was founded. According to the historian Manfred Pohl, the relationship between the company and the bank was "in the company's history of seldom durability".

In 1865 he handed over the management of the company to his sons Philipp and Johann Wilhelm . At that time the name Philipp Holzmann was already a big name in the region. The construction company achieved international renown under his son Philipp. It had been a GmbH since 1895 , and it was one of the most important construction companies in the world even before the First World War. Philipp Holzmann & Cie. GmbH was merged with the Internationale Baugesellschaft AG on October 30, 1917 , so that the Philipp Holzmann AG emerged. Until its insolvency in 2002, it was a globally active German construction company based in Frankfurt am Main.

Honors

In Dreieichenhain the street by the steam mill is named after him as Philipp-Holzmann-Straße .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kreuzmühle, Offenbach district. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ In 1805 and 1849 the Kreuzmühle belonged to the Götzenhain district

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personal data
SURNAME Holzmann, Johann Philipp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Building contractor and founder of the construction company Philipp Holzmann AG
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Dreieich -Sprendlingen, Hesse
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1870
Place of death Frankfurt am Main