Carl Brainbone

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Brainbone portrait (1848) by David Heinemann

Carl Hirnbein , also Karl Hirnbein (born January 27, 1807 in Wilhams , † April 13, 1871 in Weitnau ) was a major German farmer, agricultural reformer and politician in southern Germany. He lived mainly in Wilhams and Weitnau.

Life

Carl Hirnbein was the oldest child of Johann Hirnbein († March 23, 1840) and his wife Franziska, geb. Eldracher († March 1837). He first attended the elementary school in Wilhams and from 1819 to 1821 the high school in Kempten . He also received private lessons in architectural drawing and Italian. He then worked in his parents' business and attended school in Wilhams from time to time until 1825.

After a commercial apprenticeship in Rovereto , where he also attended school, Hirnbein first returned to his homeland and worked for his father. As early as 1824, as the shepherd in charge, he accompanied one of the large cattle transports that were common at the time to Northern Italy; He continued this activity in the following years and drove herds three to four times a year across the Alps. His admiration for the economy in Switzerland is likely to come from this time.

In 1827 his father began building the Maienhof on the road between Sibratshofen and Missen. Two years later he granted Carl Hirnbein extensive business powers. During this time, Carl Hirnbein worked as a carter and trader and negotiated cheese for grain in Nördlingen . At that time he met Alois Rädler, who belonged to the oldest cheese merchant dynasty in the Allgäu, the Franz Xavery Stadler et Compagnie . He hired the talented salesman and sent him to Franconia and Saxony as a cheese seller . In 1830 Johann Hirnbein took Rädler into his business, which was now called Hirnbein & Rädler . However, the quality of the cheeses that the company was able to offer left a lot to be desired. It was only after Josef Aurel Stadler hired the Swiss Johann Althaus in 1827 that Emmentaler was produced in a satisfactory quality.

However, since this cheese was very complex to manufacture, Carl Hirnbein first looked for an alternative to Emmentaler. In 1829 he studied soft cheese production in the area around the small town of Limburg , now in the Belgian province of Liège . Among other things, he found out about the production of Herver cheese . He brought the two brothers Grosjean (or: Großjean) with him from this trip and tried his hand at the production of Limburg cheese in an outbuilding of the Eldracher estate in Oberwilhams . This experiment was not very satisfactory, and so he sent several boys from the Allgäu to Limburg to learn the appropriate technique. The accountant Wilhelm Ditt from Miltenberg am Main , who has been employed by Hirnbein & Rädler since 1830, was apparently also helpful . In 1837, Ditt wrote down ten points for making Limburg cheese; Among other things, he introduced the use of ovens in the pickling cellars, which guaranteed the cheese to rise correctly in every season. With Ditt's instructions, it was possible to produce soft cheese of consistently high quality. The traditional brick cheese was almost completely replaced by Limburger and Romadur within a few years . Ditt left the Hirnbein & Rädler company in 1837 and returned to his hometown. From there he sold Hirnbein's cheese on a commission basis as far as Kurhessen. Hirnbein & Rädler had other mainstays in Stuttgart and Mannheim .

During this time, Hirnbein concluded numerous milk supply contracts with farmers and produced a large part of the cheese he sold in around 20 to 30 of his own farms. In the course of time, more and more Galtalpen were converted into Sennberge , which increased their value considerably. In 1836 the cheese trade had already expanded so successfully that the Kempten magistrate demanded that it be restricted for the general good, as it polluted the air and annoyed people.

After Carl Hirnbein had already received the estate in Weitnau from his grandfather Eldracher, his father Johann also gave him a large part of his property in February 1837. In a preliminary contract, he expressed the hope that his son would find a suitable “marriage item” in the foreseeable future before the final handover took place. But Carl Hirnbein only married on February 25, 1840, a few weeks before his father's death. A friend recommended Anna Maria Heim, daughter of the Kronenwirt, from Weiler. The daughter Josepha was born on December 11th of the same year. She received quite a comprehensive education in Kempten and later married the Oberstdorf doctor Dr. Julius Lingg and after his death Josef Widmann . Daughters emerged from both connections; However, Hedwig Lingg died at a young age. Carla Widmann married a son of Julius Kollmann . Besides Josepha, of the six children of the Hirnbein couple, only their son Johann Baptist reached adulthood. But even this died relatively young; he never took over his father's business. His widow married again, the daughters received only a small part of the brainbone inheritance.

Hirnbein's successor in the agricultural reform of the Allgäu was rather his second son-in-law Josef Widmann (1833–1899), who by then had made it to the construction council in his actual job as civil engineering and railway engineer as well as river builder.

Tourism and politics

The Grüntenhaus with pavilion shortly before its completion

In 1852 Carl Hirnbein built the Grüntenhaus, the first hotel in the Allgäu Alps, thereby laying the foundation for another important economic factor, the tourist development of the Allgäu (first tourist brochure for the Allgäu). Later he belonged to the second chamber of the Bavarian state parliament .

Last years

Carl Hirnbein grave in Weitnau

Hirnbein bought the Immler brewery in Weitnau around the middle of the 19th century and, after modernization, turned it into the Hirnbein brewery. The Munich architect Professor Daumiller designed a residential building for the Hirnbein family that was attached to the brewery. Hirnbein moved there in the late 1860s. He passed the property in Wilhams on to his son. In 1871 the old Eldracherhof in Wilhams burned down. That same year, in April, Carl Hirnbein fell ill with a typhoid fever, of which he died after a few days.

Aftermath

"Alpkönig", observation tower near Weitnau, named after the so-called Alpkönig Carl Hirnbein

As a cheese merchant, Carl Hirnbein had no business successor because his son Johann Baptist, who died at the age of 36, was neither ready nor able to take over the business. The extensive property, as far as it had passed to Johann Baptist, was sold piece by piece by the heirs.

The daughter Josepha and her second husband apparently had a happier hand. The family archive is maintained by his descendant Horst Kollmann. Maly Lingg wrote in her brainbone biography: "We can close with the saying: 'The legacy of Brainbone is in happy hands.'"

Streets in Kempten (Allgäu) , Sonthofen , Immenstadt and Wangen are named after Carl Hirnbein . In Missen-Wilhams a museum and a hiking trail with many information stations leading to Weitnau are dedicated to him. The dairy farm is also located in Kempten.

A magnificent tomb of the Hirnbein family has been preserved in the Weitnau cemetery; The grave was probably designed in this way only many years after Carl Hirnbein's death.

The former hotel on the Grünten still exists, but is only operated as a hut with simple accommodation for hikers.

Detail from Maximilian Bentele's cranial bone portrait

Hirnbein had his wife and himself portrayed several times. Two portrait paintings by David Heinemann date from 1848 ; In an exhibition catalog, Hirnbein's strikingly long sideburns in the picture from the year of the revolution are interpreted as “a sign of a free-spirited political attitude”. About twenty years later, the Hirnbones had themselves painted again. This time Maximilian Bentele was commissioned. Although he no longer depicted Brainbone with long-haired sideburns, he decorated the table on which the sitter rests his hand with a serving of Munich punch . The Bentele painting is owned by the Kollmann family in Weitnau.

In a trilogy about Hirnbein's life published between 1934 and 1936, the priest- poet Peter Dörfler calls him the patriarch of the Allgäu, the necessity, the master of the command and the king of the Alps .

In 2011 Leo Hiemer produced the documentary Hirnbein - on the trail of the Allgäu pioneer . Hiemer also published a biography of Carl Hirnbein.

Family tribe list

  1. Johann Hirnbein († 1840) ⚭ Franziska Eldracher († 1837)
    1. Carl Hirnbein (* 1807 in Unterwilhams, † 1871 in Weitnau); Large farmers, agrarian reformers and politicians;
      ⚭ 1840 Anna Maria Heim, daughter of the Kronenwirt in Weiler i. A .; 6 children, only two of whom reached adulthood.
      1. Josepha (* 1840)
        1 ⚭ Julius Lingg (* 1831 in Lindau), doctor in Oberstdorf, relative of the poet Hermann Lingg ;
        2 ⚭ Josef Widmann (* 1833 in Cham; † 1899), royal Bavarian building officer and founder of the dairy association and the Allgäu herd book society.
        1. Hedwig Lingg (died young)
        2. Carla (or Carola) Widmann ⚭ 1902 Emil Kollmann († 1928), farmer with study visits to French-speaking Switzerland, East Prussia and South Africa; Son of Julius Kollmann (* in Holzheim (Bavaria); † 1918 in Basel); German zoologist, anthropologist and anatomist
          1. Werner Kollmann († 1972), brewery owner; ⚭ Annemarie Kennerknecht (from Immenstadt)
            1. Ernst Kollmann, agricultural and forestry manager, brewery owner
      2. Johann Baptist Hirnbein, ailing, died at the age of 36 without being able to take on the historical role of his father.

literature

Movies

  • Brain bone - on the trail of the Allgäu pioneer. Documentary by Leo Hiemer on behalf of Bayerischer Rundfunk , 2011

Web links

Commons : Carl Hirnbein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 12.
  2. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 23.
  3. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 24.
  4. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, pp. 26-29.
  5. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 30.
  6. ↑ So the spelling in Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012.
  7. ^ A b Wagner: Structural change in agriculture. 1994.
  8. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 31.
  9. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 33.
  10. ^ Civil doctors in the administrative district of Schwaben and Neuburg in 1860. In: Ahnenforschung.Net, accessed on April 12, 2017 (data on Julius Lingg).
  11. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, pp. 35 and 130.
  12. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 99 f.
  13. ↑ Quoted in Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 103.
  14. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 98.
  15. ↑ Quoted in Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 52.
  16. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 94 f.
  17. ↑ Hiemer: Carl Hirnbein. 2012, p. 136.
personal data
SURNAME Brainbone, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brainbone, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION large German farmer, agricultural reformer and politician in southern Germany
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilhams
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1871
Place of death Weitnau