Josef Widmann

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Portrait of Josef Widmann on a memorial plaque at the Widmannhaus, Weiler iA.JPG

Josef Widmann (* 1833 in Cham (Upper Palatinate) ; † July 19, 1899 in Weitnau ; in some sources also Wiedmann ) was a civil engineer with the honorary title of "Royal Bavarian Building Councilor " who developed into a pioneer of the Allgäu dairy industry and the intellectual legacy continued by his father-in-law Carl Hirnbein . His name was retained as the initiator and (co-) founder of the dairy farming association , the training and research institute for Emmental cheese making and the Allgäu herd book society . The Kempten – Isny ​​railway line also owes its construction to Josef Widmann.

Civil engineering, hydraulic engineering and rail construction

Widmann came from the Upper Palatinate, was a civil engineer by training and came to the Allgäu through torrent barriers, water pipe construction and the installation of hydropower plants. He was also involved in the construction of the Bavarian Allgäu Railway , whose western section Kempten-Lindau went into operation in 1853.

Use for agriculture

Widmann married Josepha ("Sophie", "Sefele"), a daughter of Carl Hirnbein , the great pioneer of Allgäu agriculture and tourism. Sophie's first marriage was to the Oberstdorf doctor Julius Lingg, a relative of the poet Hermann Lingg . The marital relationship brought Widmann into contact with the issues and problems of agriculture. His trained, structured thinking and his imagination enabled him to develop quickly as an autodidact to become a specialist in agriculture, forestry, dairy farming and brewing. After the death of his father-in-law in 1871, the expert on agricultural issues emerged with Widmann, a great promoter of the Allgäu agriculture and dairy industry, who was qualified and called to continue his life's work. Hirnbein's own son Johann Baptist Hirnbein had to struggle with health problems all his life and was only 36 years old.

Carl Hirnbein had also acquired the Weitnau brewery in 1859 in order to round off his agricultural holdings with a commercial one. After Hirnbein's death in 1871, Widmann continued to run the brewery.

Dairy association in the Allgäu

The economic crisis of the 1870s and 1880s and the increasing competitive pressure from northern Germany led the Allgäu dairy farmers into a threatening economic situation. Forward-looking experts saw an organizational merger of all groups in the Allgäu dairy industry as an opportunity to improve the quality of the milk and dairy products, especially the cheese.

For this purpose, Josef Widmann founded the “Dairy Association in Allgäu” in July 1887 together with Hans Vogel and “Franz Josef Herz” (1855–1920) in Immenstadt im Allgäu . To this end, hiking instructors were initially engaged, who gave lectures for milk producers in winter.

In 1888, in the regular “Mitteilungen” of this association, he called for the disastrous price fluctuations on the milk and cheese market to be countered by experts quoting trade prices. However, it was not until the Allgäu Farmers' Association, founded in 1912, and later the German Butter and Cheese Exchange, that a practicable regulation for a collective price setting for milk succeeded.

First teaching dairy 1890–1930 in the Embacher house
Widmann Haus, administration and laboratory building of the teaching and research institute for Emmental cheese making in Weiler im Allgäu
Sennhof - training and research institute for Emmental dairy from 1930–1970

Training and research institute for Emmental cheese making

Widmann also saw an urgent need for knowledge about cheese production and the transfer of this knowledge to the dairymen's profession. To this end, in 1890 he set up the training and research institute for Emmental cheese dairy in Weiler im Allgäu .

He was convinced that the quantity and quality of hard cheese production that had previously been achieved with traveling teachers, training courses and training companies could only be increased through a permanent training and research facility. For this purpose, Josef Widmann founded the Emmental Cheese Dairy Training and Research Institute in Weiler im Allgäu , which was supposed to impart the necessary theoretical and practical specialist knowledge for hard cheese production in six-month courses. At the same time, the facility served for scientific research into the biological properties of milk. The institution, later called Dr. Anton Fehr School, was opened in 1890 in the building later called "Haus Embacher", was relocated to Sonthofen from 1902 to 1910 and in 1930 moved into the representative new building of the market builder Georg Bufler on Fridolin-Holzer-Straße around. On the nearby laboratory and office building, built in 1911, a plaque and the name of the Widmannplatz in front of it reminds of the great sponsor of the dairy industry.

Cattle show in Kempten 1896
Allgäu Braunvieh 2009

Allgäuer Herd Book Society

Widmann soon recognized the crucial importance of planned cattle breeding based on hereditary principles for the progress of the dairy industry and therefore promoted the establishment of cattle breeding cooperatives until 1892.

At the 7th DLG exhibition in June 1893 in Munich , however, the 38 animals sent to the exhibition from Allgäu did not convince. After the failure, in November of the same year, on Widmann's initiative, the Allgäu Herdbook Society was created as a merger of five Allgäu cattle breeding cooperatives. Baurat Widmann became the first chairman and remained so until his death. The hamlet veterinarian J. Brutscher was the first breeding inspector. Brutscher defined the goals to prevent the extinction of the native animal breed, which was severely decimated by rinderpest and neglect of rearing. So was z. B. to breed a high-quality cattle breed with beautiful body shapes as high-quality milk yield as possible with the greatest possible consideration of meat production . The latter happened mainly by crossing breeding bulls of heavier breed types from Switzerland and the Montafon into the herd of 11 to 12,000 cows. The first purchase of eleven bulls from Einsiedeln and Wädenswil took place in 1894. In 1899, the year Widmann died, 88 bulls were recorded in the herd book, most of which corresponded to the Swiss breed type. One year after it was founded, the herd book company began with milk performance tests. The first milking courses were held in 1904. The first successes were also evident in the export business. In 1898 and in the following years, bulls, oxen and cows were exported to Cameroon (then a German colony) in West Africa. The colonial era lasted for the German Empire from 1884 to 1918.

Use for the railroad

Josef Widmann was also committed to expanding the railway network in the Allgäu. He headed the local railway committee, which campaigned for the construction of the 38 kilometer long Kempten – Isny ​​railway line , and promoted the construction of the “Isny-Bähnles” both as a member of the state parliament and as an engineer. However, he did not live to see the maiden voyage in 1909. In front of his widow Josepha's apartment on Weitnau's market square, a serenade took place that day to celebrate the inauguration and to commemorate Widmann . The railway line no longer exists, operations ceased in September 1984; a memorial was erected on her in the film Waller's Last Walk .

literature

  • Karl Friedrich Roth: Carl Hirnbein, the Patriarch of the Allgäu - From the life of the necessity, tinder and king of the Alps . 1980 ( butterkaeseboerse.de [PDF; accessed on March 9, 2014]).
  • Georg Wagner, Gerd Zimmer: Heimatbuch Weiler im Allgäu, Simmerberg, Ellhofen . Holzer printing company, Weiler im Allgäu 1994, DNB  958243301 (Widmann on pages 306, 307, 313, 314).
  • Karl Linderer: History of the Allgäu Dairy Industry . Dr. Franz Josef Herz, pioneer of the Allgäu dairy industry ( butterkaeseboerse.de [PDF; accessed on March 15, 2014]).
  • Horst Kollmann: 150 years of Grüntenhaus - Karl Hirnbein - as a pioneer of tourism in the Allgäu. Memorandum. ( archive.org [PDF; accessed on March 16, 2014]).
  • Jonathan Osmond: Contributions to inflation and reconstruction in Germany and Europe 1914-1924, Volume I . In: Gerald D. Feldman (Ed.): Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin . tape 54 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-008721-9 , German Inflation - an interim balance sheet , p. 302 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

Commons : Josef Widmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see web link S. Hirzel: Research on German regional studies
  2. ↑ a b c d e f see literature Georg Wagner, Gerd Zimmer: Heimatbuch Weiler im Allgäu.
  3. ↑ see literature Karl Friedrich Roth: Carl Hirnbein
  4. ↑ see web link J. Widmann'sche Brewery
  5. ↑ see web link Forstwissenschaftliches Centralblatt: Reallehrer Dr. Hans Vogel, Memmingen and his Swabian Cheesemakers Association, 1886
  6. ↑ see literature Karl Linderer: Franz Josef Herz
  7. ↑ see literature Gerald D. Feldman: The German Inflation - an interim balance
  8. ↑ see web link history of the Allgäu herd book society on its own website
  9. ↑ see web link M. and H. Schaper: District veterinarian Josef Brutscher Breeding inspector of the Allgäu Herdbook Society
  10. ↑ see web link Allgäuer Herdebuchgesellschaft of the Original Braunvieh breeders' association
  11. ↑ see web link flares for maiden voyage article in the Augsburger Allgemeine about the Kempten-Isny railway line
personal data
SURNAME Widmann, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, farmer, politician and pioneer of the Allgäu dairy industry
DATE OF BIRTH 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Cham (Upper Palatinate)
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1899
Place of death Weitnau