Julius Caesar Stülcken

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Julius Caesar Stülcken , pseudonyms: Peter Werth , Julius C. Saar , W. Peters , (born April 4, 1867 in Hamburg , † January 21, 1925 in Hochkamp ) was a German shipyard owner and playwright .

Life and work as an entrepreneur

Julius Caesar Stülcken was the youngest of nine children of Heinrich Christopher Stülcken (1821–1873) and his wife Anna Dorothea, née Breckwoldt (1828–1892). His grandfather Johann Hinrich Friedrich Stülcken (1790–1866) had founded a ship carpentry shop on the Neuer Deich in Billwerder in 1937, where he had previously worked in shipbuilding. His father had also taken up the craft of shipbuilding and founded the Stülcken shipyard in 1846 . When Heinrich Christopher Stülcken died, his son Heinrich was six years old. His mother managed the shipyard from then on.

Julius Caesar Stülcken received a school education at the higher middle school from Dr. Wichard Lange at the Hohen Bleichen . He then completed an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer with master blacksmith Friedrich Götze. Then Stülcken went to England for several years , where he learned modern methods of shipbuilding. In 1885 he traveled with the barque "Willy" of the Stülcken fleet through Chinese waters and survived a shipwreck. Stülcken returned to Hamburg and at the beginning of 1891 took over a position as authorized signatory in the family company. His two older brothers had died shortly before. A year later, the mother Anna Dorothea Stülcken also died. Julius Cäsar Stülcken then took over the management of the shipyard as sole owner, which from then on bore the name "HC Stülcken Sohn".

Under his leadership, the shipyard was able to expand the production area and increase productivity. Stülcken had new factory buildings built and acquired modern machinery, docks and cranes. He stopped running his own shipping company in 1902. In 1892 the company employed around 270 people, in 1913 750 people and in the heyday between 1918 and 1923 over 1000 people. The shipyard offered repairs and smaller steamships and specialized in tugboats for Hamburg merchants and wooden surf steam barges that operated in colonial service. From 1904 HC Stülcken Sohn produced fish steamers, which developed into an important part of the product portfolio. In 1913, the shipyard first manufactured smaller freight steamers that could operate overseas. In addition, there were various types of ships for military purposes that were used during the war against the Herero in German South West Africa and in the First World War .

In 1919 the company was converted into a limited partnership. Stülcken was thus no longer the sole owner, but as the main limited partner and general agent, de facto continued to be the head of the shipyard. From the beginning of the 1920s, the entrepreneur tried to promote the fishing industry. In addition to conversions of existing fishing trawlers, the shipyard also offered motor fishing tractors from 1923. Stülcken, who avoided public appearances, also began operating its own fishing flotilla, which in 1924 comprised two steamers and ten motor cutters. In addition, he played a decisive role in the establishment of fish frying kitchens in Germany, which at that time had already gained a foothold in England.

In addition to his business activities, Stülcken also volunteered. In 1912 he donated around 150,000 Reichsmarks to the Hamburg Research Institute for Cancer and Tuberculosis. With this money, a pavilion was built at the Eppendorf General Hospital . In addition, from 1922 he was a member of the supervisory board of the Bauverein zu Hamburg, which discussed aspects of residential construction.

Julius Caesar Stülcken remained unmarried and childless. From 1910 he lived in a secluded house with his youngest sister on Hochkamp. There he died after a long illness due to a heart attack in early 1925. The management of the Stülcken shipyard passed to his nephew Heinrich von Dierlein.

Playwright

Julius Caesar Stülcken wrote numerous plays, most of which appeared under the pseudonym Peter Werth. Stülcken tried not to create pure entertainment comedies. For this reason, he combined cheerful elements with initial themes and showed people who were in fragile situations. Since Stülcken often presented the social situation of his time, the textbooks, some of which are still in printed form, are an important historical source. The pieces, which were played on various stages in northern Germany, received both positive and derogatory reviews from critics.

Stülcken's first work was probably the one-act play Mann über Bord from 1899. Stülcken wrote it under the pseudonym Julius C. Saar . The play was shown at the Carl-Schultze-Theater. Another one-act play entitled Die Schwarzen, ein Seestück , this time written as Peter Werth, premiered in February 1903 at the Altona City Theater. In it, Stülcken addressed the inhumane conditions under which stokers and coal trimmers perform their duties on transatlantic passenger ships. The Hamburger Echo described the dialogues, mostly written in Low German, as “a magnificent work”. In another one-act play called Im Schatten. Volksstück from Hamburg's Abruzzo region , Stülcken again dealt with social grievances. This piece deals with scenes from a cellar bar on Niederstrasse in Hamburg's Gängeviertel . The last two pieces from 1905 can be found in the anthology Kleine Menschen (Lütte Lüd) .

In 1906 Stülcken criticized the death penalty in Die Atonement - A Hamburg Drama . He then wrote full-length works, mostly in High German. The Altona City Theater showed the Sankt Elms fire for three years from March 6, 1908 . The scenes of this four-act play took place on a Hamburg barque . In It is an old story the author dealt with the German war against the Herero in south-west Africa in 1911 . The author wrote of two lovers who were friends and whose partners were doing military service and were separated for this reason. In it, Stülcken distanced himself from euphoric and patriotic currents, but did not reveal any doubts about the German warfare itself.

In 1914 Stülcken wrote once under the pseudonym W. Peters. The work Overdue was performed at the Altona City Theater. In 1915 he worked again as Peter Wert Die Hanseatin Anna Lühring . The play in three acts takes place at the time of the Wars of Liberation. One can recognize anti-French currents, which were also to be found in the time before the First World War. In 1913 Stülcken wrote Mudder Gräun. Was sick datt Moor . From this he developed the play Osterfüer . The work describes a farmer in the Esinger Moor near Tornesch . Characterized by Christian charity, it offers wandering and homeless people work and accommodation. The Low German Stage with the participation of Richard Ohnsorg played the first performance of the play on November 7, 1920 in Lübeck .

In 1922 the comedy Duwenhe made its debut at the Schauspielhaus Kiel . Buddhist ideas can also be found in Stülcken's last work, De Spelmann . The Oldenburger Landestheater showed this work for the first time on April 17, 1924.

Radio plays

Speaker among others
Hermann Möller , Käthe Alving , Walther Bullerdiek , Otto Lüthje and Richard Ohnsorg

literature

personal data
SURNAME Stülcken, Julius Caesar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German shipyard owner and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1925
Place of death Hochkamp