Julius Berger (building contractor)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Julius (Juda) Berger (born September 22, 1862 in Zempelburg , West Prussia; † July 13, 1943 in Theresienstadt ) was a German building contractor .

Life

His parents were the haulier Baruch Berger (1808-1884) and his third wife Dora Berger, nee. Werner (1827-1917). Most of his 14 siblings emigrated to America to escape poverty.

Julius went to the Jewish private school in his home town and began his commercial training at the age of 12 ½ years in the Berlin leather goods wholesaler Brohn & Naphtali . At the same time he attended evening school in the Merchants' Association, where he studied Schiller, Goethe and Lessing. After his father fell ill, he broke off his apprenticeship in 1878 and worked in his father's trucking company, where he transported gravel and stones to maintain the district roads .

A year after his father's death, he received the first construction contract for a 2.5 km long road.

Share of RM 100 in Julius Berger Tiefbau-AG from May 1926 with facsimile signature of Julius Berger

In 1891 he married Flora Meyer, with whom he had the children Bruno (1893–1899), Margarete (1894–1990; used Wolffenstein, married. Laufer), Herta (1896–1999; married. Kahn), Betty (1900; married. Dewald, widowed Meier), Judith (1902–1941; divorced Remde, divorced singers).

In 1893 he carried out transports during the construction of the Nakel – Zempelburg – Konitz and Vandsburg – Zempelburg – Cammin railway lines. Two years later he moved from Zempelburg to Bromberg , where he became a city councilor for the German National People's Party . In 1905, after a stroke of fate, he converted his company to Julius Berger Tiefbau Aktiengesellschaft (JBTAG) and became its chairman. In 1908 the company opened a construction office in Berlin's Rankestrasse . At the end of March 1910, he moved with the family and the company entirely from Bromberg to Berlin. In 1914 he was appointed to the Prussian Kommerzienrat .

Grave plaque for Berger and his wife Flora in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee

In 1919 he took part in the peace negotiations in Versailles as an industrial representative . 1928–1929 he had the family's hereditary burial built at the Weißensee cemetery , which is still empty today.

Julius Berger's company was involved in numerous important national and international construction projects of its time. Among other things, she participated in the construction of railway lines in Serbia , Turkey , Persia for the Trans-Iranian Railway , in Pomerania, Posen, East and West Prussia , and built a Nile bridge in Egypt and the Hauenstein base tunnel (length 8.3 km) in Switzerland. Furthermore, the company u. a. numerous train stations, piers, viaducts, canals and harbors. In Berlin, too, Julius Berger carried out the construction or expansion of railway lines: Berlin – Bernau, Berlin – Frohnau – Oranienburg, Reinickendorf – Tegel. From 1913 to 1930 his company was involved in the expansion of the Berlin underground lines U 2, U 5 and U 6 and built a. a. the train stations Vinetastraße, Tempelhof and Friedrichsfelde.

In 1933 he had to leave his company under pressure from the National Socialists . When some of his children emigrated to Uruguay penniless in 1938 , he did not yet believe in the "terrible plans against the Jews that were whispered about" . Fearing deportation, his youngest daughter Judith committed suicide in 1942 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. On September 14, 1942, he and his wife were deported on the second large elderly transport from Berlin-Grunewald to Theresienstadt, where Flora died of starvation and exhaustion a month later, as did Julius in the summer of 1943. Julius Berger and his family are remembered in Berlin a stumbling block in front of the Bergers' former home in Meinekestr. 7th

In Berger's company JBTAG, leading Nazis took over the most important positions on the supervisory board.

In 1969 Julius Berger Tiefbau AG merged with the Berlin flooring company BAUBOAG to form Berger - BAUBOAG and in 1975 to form Bilfinger Berger . The company has been trading as Bilfinger since autumn 2012 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.berger-reloaded.de/vita/julius-juda-berger/
  2. ^ Matthias Hambrock: The establishment of the outsiders: the Association of national German Jews 1921-1935 ; P. 123
  3. ↑ Tagesspiegel.de : Back in your own story
personal data
SURNAME Berger, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berger, Judah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish German building contractor, victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Zempelburg
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1943
Place of death Theresienstadt