Karl Goldschmidt

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Karl Goldschmidt
obituary

Karl Bernhard Goldschmidt (born October 11, 1857 in Berlin ; † January 5, 1926 in Seeheim ) was a German chemist and entrepreneur , he was a co-owner of the Goldschmidt chemical factory founded by his father Theodor Goldschmidt .

Live and act

Karl Goldschmidt studied chemistry and mineralogy at the universities of Berlin , Leipzig and Göttingen . This was followed in 1881 with a doctorate at the University of Heidelberg with Robert Wilhelm Bunsen . In 1882 he took on the management of his father's factory in Berlin with a doctorate in chemistry and ran it together with his brother Hans Goldschmidt from 1888 . The company headquarters were relocated from Berlin to Essen in 1889 . In 1898 Karl Goldschmidt became a member of the Essen Chamber of Commerce.

In 1905, together with the chemist Josef Weber , he developed a tinplate detinning process . In a memorandum of February 15, 1907, he suggested the introduction of the Essen Academic Courses as well as the impetus for the establishment of the Higher Commercial School. He was seen as a socially minded entrepreneur to whom the concerns of his employees were important. So he founded his own company health and pension fund and built a rest home for his workforce. He gave the workforce benefits, but in return expected them to refrain from union activity. He also set up foundations for charitable purposes.

In 1922, after more than thirty years of joint management of the company with his brother Hans Goldschmidt, Karl Goldschmidt handed over management to one of his two sons, Theo Goldschmidt , and retired to his retirement home in Seeheim, where he died in 1926 and was buried in the family grave.

Goldschmidt was a patron of the Essen Museum Folkwang . The city owes him and his brother Hans the two villas on Bismarckstrasse in Essen, in which the city collections and later the Folkwang Museum were located.

On May 13, 1910, Karl Goldschmidt was awarded the title of Prussian Commerce Council.

literature

  • Walter Däbritz, Barbara Gerstein:  Goldschmidt, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 609 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ludwig Schertel: Karl (1857-1926) and Hans Goldschmidt (1861-1923), In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien, Volume 8 . Aschendorff, Münster 1962, p. 94-122 .
  • Wolf von Niebelschütz: Karl Goldschmidt - Life picture of a German entrepreneur . Ed .: Goldschmidt AG Essen 1957.
  • Thomas Rother: Founders & Heirs: The big families in the Ruhr area . 2nd Edition. Pomp, Essen 1957, ISBN 978-3-89355-160-6 , pp. 145-150 .
  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads . Ed .: City of Essen - Historical Association for City and Monastery of Essen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1231-1 , p. 120 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the obituary in Angewandte Chemie 39 , 625 (1926), he was buried in the family grave in Seeheim; in general In contrast, encyclopedias can be found in Stuttgart as the place of death.
personal data
SURNAME Goldschmidt, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goldschmidt, Karl Bernhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1926
Place of death Seeheim-Jugenheim