Katharina Loth

Katharina Loth (born around 1700 as Katharina Gottbill in Saarland ; died on December 12, 1762 in St. Ingbert ) was an entrepreneur from the Electorate of Trier .

Life

Katharina Gottbill was the granddaughter of the hammer smith and smith Bartholomäus Godtbisle , presumably of Walloon origin ; her father was Johann Baptist Gottbill . The family produced numerous iron smelters who served in changing leases and had given the economy in the Electorate of Trier new impetus after the Thirty Years' War . In addition to Katharina's father, these entrepreneurs also included her uncle Karl Gottbill (1659–1733), who left the children of his brother, who died in 1729, a small fortune when he died in 1733. Her nephew Karl Gottbill (1731–1799) was also the owner of the hut and several times mayor of Trier .

In 1729 Katharina married the Blieskastel master armorer Joseph Loth, with whom she had five children. About the family of Karl Gottbill († 1755), Katharina's brother, a family consortium came into being around 1732, which had three board members who agreed together and made purchases: Joseph Loth, Karl Gottbill and Konrad Lehnen, Karl's brother-in-law through the other Sister Anna Maria Gottbill and like Gottbill a hut operator from Nunkirchen . The Gottbill-Lehnen-Loth consortium jointly leased the site for the new smelter near St. Ingbert from Count Caspar von der Leyen in Blieskastel in 1743 and erected the industrial building in the course of the year. The lease ran for eight years. Furthermore, the consortium consisted of further hammer mills and ironworks, especially in Nunkirchen and Münchweiler.

In December 1743, however, her husband died, so that Katharina Loth was forced to continue the company under the name Wittib Loth in order to support over 20 families who were dependent on her. A few difficult years for Loth followed: St. Ingbert was outside of the usual distribution channels for industrial products, so there was only an insufficient supply of firewood and iron ore, as well as sales problems. Anna Maria Lehnen had already died in 1734; their children were in Loth's care, while their father Konrad Lehnen stayed in Nunkirchen. The ownership of the hut was unclear because the building site was only leased. To continue the smelter in St. Ingbert, Loth secured a smelter concession near Illingen to ensure the raw ore supply from there. Raw materials were purchased jointly through the still existing family consortium.

In 1751 there was a dispute with the Nunkirchen family about the inheritance when the lease for St. Ingbert was to be renewed. Loth emerged successfully from this and was confirmed as sole entrepreneur for St. Ingbert. This enabled it to grow into a flourishing company and the leaseholder von der Leyen demanded a higher rent in 1759 after the first renovation in 1751. Loth did not want to accept the conditions and handed over the work in St. Ingbert to the higher bidder Peter Lauer.

Instead, Loth and her dependent families settled a new hammer mill near Rentrisch in the Nassau-Saarbrücken area in 1759 , the so-called “Lottenhammer” after her; She took her existing supply chains, including the ore supply via Illingen, with her. It leased the Fischbacher Schmelze from the neighboring Saarbrücken works. When she died in 1762, she left her sons Karl and Johann Georg a considerable legacy and was widely respected as an entrepreneur.

The Loth family's work group only existed for a few years after their death: The lease rights for Fischbach were unilaterally terminated in 1766; In 1779 there was a modest legal settlement after trials against the princely government in Saarbrücken. The Loths operated the Lottenhammer - due to the war with France with high financial losses - until around 1800, then the Kraemer family, who meanwhile also ran the St. Ingbert smelter, took over the business there. The Loths were still involved in the works of the Gottbills in Nunkirchen until 1836, when they too fell to new owners.

The industrial plants that Katharina Loth helped to build were partly shut down and dismantled as early as the 18th and 19th centuries; some survived into the early 20th century.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ as the year of birth are mentioned "before 1700" or "around 1705"; Nunkirchen is considered a possible place of birth
2. ^ Gisela Meyer-Franck: Loud little people. Iron smelters and hammer smiths wander through Europe . Norderstedt 2012. Digitized
3. ↑ Ursula Köhler-Lutterbeck; Monika Siedentopf: Lexicon of 1000 women , Bonn 2000, p. 244. ISBN 3-8012-0276-3
4. ^ Fritz Hellwig:  Loth, Katharina. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , pp. 208 f. ( Digitized version ).