Karl von Offermann (textile entrepreneur, 1792)

Karl Offermann , also Carl Offermann , from 1863 Ritter von Offermann (born November 26, 1792 in Brno , Moravia , † September 28, 1869 in Gattendorf , Hungary ) was an Austrian textile entrepreneur.

Life

Offermann is the youngest of three sons of the Brno textile manufacturer Johann Heinrich Offermann . Karl Offermann's father died a year after his birth. The guardianship of the underage children was exercised by the cloth merchant Abraham Greisinger, who also took over the management of the company and trained Karl Offermann in his trading house. The continental block led to an upswing in the factory. When he came of age, Karl Offermann took over his father's cloth manufacture in 1819, which had since grown to become the largest in Brno. In 1835 the factory employed 450 workers, at that time it had 120 looms with 4,320 spindles.

Order of the Iron Crown III. Class that Offermann received in 1863

Offermann founded a health and support fund for his workers in the 1840s. In the middle of the 19th century, Offermann had his factory equipped with gas lighting. At this time Offermann expanded the sales markets for his cloths to South America. In 1851 he began to set up the first mechanical looms for processing sheep's wool in Moravia, which achieved an output of 70 hp. After the Battle of Solferino in 1859 Offermann donated 30,000 guilders for the wounded.

On February 10, 1863, Offermann was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown III by Emperor Franz Joseph for his services . Excellent class and due to the statutes of the order as "Ritter von Offermann" raised to the Austrian hereditary knighthood .

In the second half of the 19th century Offermann acquired the Gattendorf rule in Hungary. Offermann was also a board member of the Protestant parish in Brno.

Karl von Offermann was married to Caroline Freiin von Fries. The sons Karl and Theodor came from the marriage , both of whom (Karl 1874 and Theodor 1892) were finally raised to the Austrian hereditary baron status.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Offermann, Karl Ritter von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 21st part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1870, pp. 42–44 ( digitized version ).
• P. Schmidtbauer:  Offermann, Karl von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 7, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 215 f. (Direct links on p. 215 , p. 216 ).
• Josef Mentschl:  Offermann, from. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 484 f. ( Digitized version ).