Johann Wilhelm Sondermann

Johann Wilhelm Sondermann (born September 30, 1770 in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ), † January 9, 1857 in Gummersbach ) was an industrial pioneer in Oberberg. He laid the foundation stone for the Gummersbach textile industry and for the mechanization of the Oberbergian industry.

Parentage and family

The Sondermanns were a Protestant, originally Reformed family. When it was first mentioned around 1630, the family settled in Metzmachersrath , which - belonging to the parish of Langenberg - is located on the border between Langenberg and Elberfeld. The Sondermann family is related to the Engels ( Friedrich Engels ), Harkort ( Friedrich Harkort ), Carus ( Paul Carus ) and Kersten ( Abraham Kersten ) families .

Johann Wilhelm Sondermann married Dorothea Katharina Wilhelmine Baltes (1776–1849) in 1801 into a long-established Gummersbach family. He and his descendants founded important companies in the Obergisches Land. In addition to Sondermann's silk and siamese manufacture in Gummersbach (founded in 1813), the knitting and hosiery factory , Emil Wilhelm Sondermann spinning mill in Mühlenseßmar (founded 1872) and the Zanella factory Sondermann & Co. GmbH in Nöckelseßmar (founded 1884), which later in the Hilden company Kampf & Spindler .

Descendants

The descendants of Johann Wilhelm Sondermann include:

• Friedrich Wilhelm Sondermann (1836–1874), pioneer of large-scale Gummersbach industry, set up the first steam locomotives ( Lokomobile ) in Oberbergischen ( Niederseßmar and Bergneustadt )
• Eduard Sondermann (1841–1898), long-time city councilor and promoter of Gummersbach's connection to the railway,
• Emil Wilhelm Sondermann (1843–1907), Gummersbacher (Mühlenseßmarer) major entrepreneur,
• Christian Sondermann (1863–1945), co-founder of Herdecker Idealspaten -Bredt GmbH & Co. KG,
• Medical Council Dr. med. Richard Sondermann (1871–1951), ophthalmologist, important sponsor of the Gummersbacher (Niederseßmarer) common good,
• Secret Counselor Dr. iur. et cam. Oscar Kayser (1874–1959), honorary citizen of the Marienheide community ,
• Professor Dr. med. Friedrich Wilhelm Erich Leschke (1887–1933), associate professor at the Berlin Charité, inventor of the pneumothorax apparatus and namesake of Leschke's syndrome (dystrophia pigmentosa),
• Dr. iur. Erich Sondermann (1888–1959), German bank manager,
• Dr. med. Hans-Dieter Ellenbeck (1912–1992), German SS doctor,
• Gert Paul Spindler (1914–1997), Hilden silk manufacturer, founder of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Partnerschaft in der Wirtschaft e. V. (AGP employee participation),
• Dr. Hanspeter Stabenau (* 1934), founder and long-time chairman of the Federal Logistics Association ,
• Dr. iur. Gert Hoffmann (* 1946), Lord Mayor of the City of Braunschweig from 2001 to 2014.

Entrepreneurial activity

Elberfeld time

As early as 1804, JW Sondermann was recorded as a manufacturer in Elberfeld. In his weaving mills he is said to have mainly made so-called Turkish Long Shawls. The economic blockades imposed by Napoleon Bonaparte , however, forced him no later than 1808 to stop his economic activities and to settle with his family in Gummersbach, the birthplace of his wife.

Sondermannsche silk and siamese manufacture

With the defeat of Napoleon in Russia in 1812 and before the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, JW Sondermann resumed his economic activities. In 1813, for example, he built a house in the Winterbecke with a production facility for the manufacture of silk and siamoses, more precisely for the manufacture of silk scarves, so-called Turkish Long Shawls .

The Gummersbach pastor Johann Friedrich Franz von Steinen reports: “Gantz up in the so-called Winterbecke (I have to note here that the Gummersbach, before it comes to the houses of the village, leads the name Winterbecke, better the Winterbach, and that well Therefore, because the water of the brook freezes over so easily) under the first meadow there used to be a wage mill on this brook, from which the moat can still be clearly seen. Now (a little higher up) in the same place where the Lohmühle used to be, Johann Wilh. Sondermann a house built in 1813, and in the same the same time a spin, scratch - and fulling machine , which are all three together only driven by one wheel of the water. "

With the construction of his factory in the Winterbecke, JW Sondermann not only laid the foundation stone for the textile industry in Gummersbach, which flourished there, but also gave the starting signal for the mechanization of the Gummersbach and Oberberg industries.

The economic development of Sondermann's silk and siamese manufacture is getting off to a good start, benefiting from the advantages of the Oberberg region - low wages, favorable property prices and the excellent hydropower that has become available through the decline of the hammer mills. Pastor Johann Friedrich Franz von Steinen wrote around 1817: "Recently, a Johann Wilhelm Sondermann has also set up a silk and siamese manufacture of some chairs , and many people are already finding their bread."

Soon afterwards, JW Sondermann erected a second building a little further up in the Winterbecke in order to use the water power for wool spinning, dyeing and cloth manufacturing . But apparently he overtook himself, because on February 24, 1820, according to the contract he received - now as a " cotton manufacturer " - he sold this "uppermost residential and factory building with back or outbuildings, ditches and ponds and everything between the bridge and the The uppermost pond […] is located […] including all machines and equipment in the buildings ”to Christian Pickhardt for 5400 Reichsthaler. Above all, Johann Wilhelm was indebted to Chr. Pickhardt, because two thirds of the purchase price were used to cover the accrued debts.

As a result, JW Sondermann worked with Christian Pickhardt in the "Pickhardt & Sondermann" cloth factory that was created, which was already classified as a large company in 1828. The collaboration ended before 1833.

Pipe hose factory Sondermann

After 1820, JW Sondermann switched to the production of pipe tips and hoses in what was left of him at the corner of Hohe Strasse and Kaiserstrasse. In his dissertation on economic history in the Gummersbach area, published in 1927, Burghart Baldus attributes to him that he even invented the pipe hoses. According to county statistics from 1836, JW Sondermann employed 20 workers on three machines in his “pipe hose factory”, making it one of the largest employers in the district. According to statistics, “pipe hoses of all kinds” are produced. The factory was relocated to Niederseßmar around 1857 and was continued by the descendants of JW Sondermann.

literature

• Johann Friedrich Frantz von Steinen: Description of the parishes of Gummersbach, Lieberhausen, Gimborn and Müllenbach as well as the Marienheÿde Monastery, (based on the original text and published by the Friends of Homburg Castle eV), Gummersbach 1983, ISBN 3-88265-107-5
• Jürgen Woelke: Alt Gummersbach in contemporary pictures and views, 2 vol., Ed. Ernst-Herbert Ullenboom, Verlag E. Gronenberg, Gummersbach 1975/1980
• Ingeborg Wittichen: Oberbergische painters of the 19th century from the Jügel / Heuser family, publisher: Museum des Oberbergisches Land at Homburg Castle on behalf of the Oberbergischer Kreis, Schweiger & Pick Verlag, Celle 1980
• Leuchs, C. & Comp .: Address book of merchants and manufacturers from all over Germany as well as the main, trading and manufacturing locations of the rest of Europe and other parts of the world, fourth edition, fifth part, containing the new addresses and the corrections of the earlier volumes , Nuremberg 1833.

Web links

• Johann Wilhelm Sondermann Senior in the Chronicle of the Sondermann family.
• Thiel - Sondermann. In: Archives for the civil and criminal law of the royal Prussian Rhine provinces. Vol. 12, 1828, p. 14ff (on Sondermann's debt process, 1816).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Johann Wilhelm Sondermann Senior. In: Christoph Thiesen: Chronicle of the Sondermann family. SondermannGenealogie.de, 2015–2017.