Johannes Nill

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Johannes Nill.

The master carpenter Johannes Nill (born February 21, 1825 in Bodelshausen ; † May 20, 1894 in Stuttgart ) was the founder of Nills Zoo , which existed in Stuttgart from 1871 to 1906. The zoo was not only one of the main popular attractions of the Württemberg capital, but also enjoyed nationwide appreciation. After the founder's death, the zoo was continued by his son Adolf Nill until he had to close it in 1906 for financial reasons.

Life

childhood

Johannes Nill was born on February 21, 1825 in Bodelshausen in southern Württemberg, the fourth of eleven children. His parents were Johannes Nill (1793–1834) and Anna Barbara Eberhard (1791–1872). They ran the Gasthaus zur Linde in Bodelshausen. The son attended the village school, but then decided not to go with his father's job, but for carpentry.

education

Johannes Nill probably learned his trade from the carpenter Johann Jakob Layh, who also came from Bodelshausen and had married in Stuttgart in 1832 and settled there. When Johannes Nill began his apprenticeship with him around 1839, he must have lived in his teacher's house in Military Street (today Breitscheidstrasse). After taking the master craftsman's examination, he married Christiane Friederike Layh (1831–1897), his master’s daughter, in 1853. His father-in-law died between 1850 and 1853, his mother-in-law had died in 1851. Presumably Johannes Nill took over the business of his father-in-law.

Working life

Johannes and Friederike Nill settled at Kriegsbergstraße 19 at the latest in 1855 near today's main train station, where they lived until 1861 and where Johannes Nill kept his room. In 1862 he bought the buildings at Jägerstrasse 51 and 53 in Parallelstrasse as a residential and commercial building. As early as 1863, the family moved half a kilometer to the north-west, where Johannes Nill had acquired a property on the lower Herdweg. It was on the edge of the built-up area of ​​the city, in an area north of the Katharinenhospital where only a few houses had previously stood. A restaurant and a zoo, which were officially opened in 1871, were gradually built here. His successes in breeding Somali ostriches and hybrids of brown bears and polar bears attracted international attention among zoologists.

Note: For Johannes Nill's work as zoo director and the development of the zoo, see Nills zoo .

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  • The residence and business of the Johannes and Adolf Nill families.

  • Service and residential buildings in Nills Zoo (label e).

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  • Office and residential building in Nills Tiergarten, main building.

Retirement

Grave of the Johannes Nill family.

In 1892 Johannes Nill handed the management of the zoo into the hands of his son Adolf Nill, thereby ensuring the continuation of his life's work even after his death. “Unfortunately, the founder, Joh. Nill, was no longer able to see his work in its completion”, he died two years later at the age of 69 on May 20, 1894 in Stuttgart, “a simple man with a right eye for the practical and restlessly active for his creation, which was dear to him until the end of his life ”. He was buried in the Prague cemetery. His wife Friederike died three years later in 1897 at the age of 66. The Nill couple, four of their children with their spouses and Adolf Nill's son Hans and his wife are buried in the family grave in the Prague cemetery (section 16).

family

Between 1853 and 1867 Friederike Nill gave birth to 9 children, 2 of whom died in the first few years. The only male descendant was Adolf Nill, who later succeeded the management of the zoo. His 6 sisters, including two twins, worked like their brother in the family business of the zoo, mainly running the restaurant and raising the baby animals. Four of the sisters left the business after their marriage, two remained single and kept their apartment in their parents' house. Adolf Nill and his wife had a son, Hans Nill, who became an architect.

Publications

  • Johannes Nill: Breeding results of African ostriches in the Nill'schen Tiergarten in Stuttgart. In: The zoological garden , year 26, 1885, 321-324, pdf .
  • Johannes Nill: Breeding results of African ostriches in the Nill'schen Tiergarten in Stuttgart. In: The zoological garden , volume 29, 1888, pages 74-77.

literature

  • Uwe Albrecht: pleasure and teachings. The history of the bourgeois Stuttgart zoo in the 19th century. Part 2: Nills Zoo (1871–1906). In: The zoological garden , volume 71, 2001, pages 15–56. - With literature list.
  • Hermann Griebel: Ortsfamilienbuch von Bodelshausen: 1570 - 1910. Plaidt 2014, number 1520, 1999 and 2014.
  • Carl Benjamin Klunzinger : History of the Stuttgart zoo. In: Annual Books of the Association for Fatherland Natural History , Volume 66, 1910, Pages 167–217, online . - With literature list.
  • Jörg Kurz: From Affenwerner to Wilhelma - Stuttgart's legendary animal shows . Belser-Verlag , Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7630-2701-9 , pages 24-57.

Web links

Commons : Tiergarten Nill  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ #Griebel 2014 .
  2. ↑ #Griebel 2014 , Stuttgart address books 1833–1853.
  3. ^ Stuttgart address books, from 1853.
  4. ↑ #Klunzinger 1910 , pages 30–31, #Nill, Johannes 1885 , #Nill, Johannes 1888 .
  5. ↑ # Klunzinger 1910 , page 26.
  6. ↑ #Griebel 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Nill, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoo founder
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Bodelshausen
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1894
Place of death Stuttgart