Kurt Meißner (entrepreneur)

Kurt Meißner (born March 9, 1885 in Hamburg ; † August 13, 1976 in Locarno ) was a German entrepreneur , Japan specialist , author , translator and editor of a wide range of Japanese documents.

Life and professional development

Kurt Meißner was born in Hamburg on March 9th as the son of the bookseller Otto Meißner and his wife Agnes née Pfeiffer. He grew up in Hamburg and attended general school here. He completed this in 1902 with the upper secondary qualification . He then completed vocational training as a businessman in the Hamburg trading house Simon, Evers & Co. until 1905 .

In 1923 he married Johanna Dippmann (born 1903) in Frankenberg. The marriage resulted in 4 children. His son, born in 1926, later became president of the Tokyo trading company Leybold.

Effects and results of his work in Japan

In February 1906 Kurt Meißner traveled to Yokohama on behalf of Simon, Evers & Co. and worked here on behalf of the Hamburg branch. In the summer of the following year, he already became the independent managing director of Leybold KK, which was founded in 1905 and is based in Tokyo . The company had specialized in the import of machines to Japan. It was a subsidiary of Simon, Evers & Co.

During his stay, Kurt Meißner was enthusiastic about the new world that surrounded him, the language, the culture and the Japanese customs. He dealt very intensively with Japanese traditions, the thinking and value system in which the Japanese lived. In addition to his professional duties, this occupied him so intensely that as early as 1912 he published a popular story under the title "The Yose". At about the same time, the translation of the Japanese story "Rakugo" appeared under the title "The Holy Sutra".

With the outbreak of the First World War , everything broke off. The trade relations with "goods of peace" were discontinued, the thoughts and actions of the people were suddenly directed towards completely different goals. He himself reported as a war volunteer in the German colony of Tsingtau . Here he was in August 1914 as a reserve reservist of the 6th Company of III. Assigned to sea battalions. After brief fighting, he was captured by Japan. He was detained as inmate No. 3025 at the Matsuyama POW Camp. While in detention, he continued to improve his Japanese language skills and translate Japanese literature. On April 9, 1919, he was transferred to the Brando camp and in December 1919 released from captivity in Tokyo.

Here Kurt Meißner initially took up a job at Mayakwa & Co. in Tokyo. During this time he began to rebuild his own company Leybold together with Heinrich Steinfeld (1886–1966), a former inmate. In 1920 he founded the company under the name Ludwig Leybold Shogan, headquartered in Tokyo, with a branch in Osaka. In addition, from 1921 to 1922 he headed the German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia (OAG). But he also continued the scientific work that had already started during his imprisonment by issuing a collection of publications and scientific texts by his fellow prisoners from 1914 to 1922 in 1922.

In 1923 Kurt Meißner published the story “Tanaba das Sternenfest” in his own work. Since he was also concerned with improving the acquisition of the Japanese language, in 1927 he published the "Textbook of the grammar of the written Japanese language". A short time later he wrote a new story with the background of bringing Japanese folk stories to life and in 1932 published the book "The War of the Old Badgers". A few years later he achieved a masterpiece. He had researched this for a long time in advance and activated his networks in the individual regional organizational forms of Japanese society. In 1940 the work "Germans in Japan" was published. A wonderful, factual publication, depicting the work of Germans in Japanese society over several decades. It reflects in a special way the active action, the knowledge transfer and the networks that have been created for the benefit of both countries. The publication met with such a positive response that it was reprinted in 1961. The only shortcoming of this work, however, which was not remedied by the new edition by H. Schwabe, is that it almost completely ignores the actions of German Jews in shaping German-Japanese relations.

In the years from 1932 to 1945 Kurt Meißner again chaired the "Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia (OAG)". However, with the end of World War II a difficult time began for Kurt Meißner and his family. In 1945 his company was forcibly liquidated, followed by expropriation, in 1947 repatriation and after a brief internment in Bleckrede near Lüneburg, he had to return to Germany with his family. In order to still retain a certain amount of room for maneuver from here, in 1950 he proposed the establishment of the sister organization of the OAG, based in Hamburg. In both organizations he became an honorary member because of his services. But in 1952 he was to be found again in Japan. From 1953 he built his company Leybold, as part of Leybold Shogan, for a third time. And it was only in 1964 that he gradually withdrew from the business and was living in Hamburg again.

In recognition of his scientific work, Kurt Meißner received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hamburg in 1955. Up to this point he worked as the author, editor and translator of over 30 fonts with a Japanese profile. Starting with folk tales, dealing with folkloric topics, taking up Japanese legends and traditions, through to language textbooks, scientific presentations on literature, Japanese handicrafts, Japanese history, especially cultural history, the range of his work now ranged. In 1969 he was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun for his achievements in this area. Already withdrawn from public life, living in the town of Orselino near Locarno, he published a few more special works in the early 1970s. This included the books: “Japanese Woodblock Prints in Minature. The Genre of Surimone ”, appeared in 1970, one year later“ Japan - colored woodcuts with hidden calendar dates ”, in the same year“ The most beautiful Japanese ceramic decorations - Kokutani ”and, so to speak, as a conclusion in 1973, together with his wife Hanni Meißner, the memory book“ 60 Years of Japan. Memories ”in private printing.

For many years he was an honorary member of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Tokyo and honorary chairman of the Evangelical German Language Congregation in Tokyo and Yokohama. Kurt Meißner died on August 13, 1976 after a fulfilling and varied life in Locarno focused on different areas of business and science.

Works and publications

• The Holy Sutra (translation of the Japanese story Rakugo), published without any date or place of publication
• The Yose in: Communications of the OAG born in 1912, Tokyo
• Tanabata the Star Festival, 1923
• Textbook of the grammar of the written Japanese language, 1927
• The War of the Old Badgers, 1932
• Introduction to Colloquial Japanese, 1961
• 100 years of German-Japanese relations, 1961
• Japanese Woodblock Prints in Miniature. the Genre of Surimono, 1970
• Japan, colored woodcuts with hidden calendar dates, 1971
• The most beautiful Japanese ceramic decorations "Kokutani", 1971
• 60 years of Japan. Memoirs of Kurt and Hanni Meißner, 1973

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SECO GmbH in: http://www.simonevers.com/de/index.php
2. ↑ Eberhard Friese, Kurt Meißner, Neue Deutsche Biographie, Volume 16 from 1990, p. 107f. in: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd120994372.html
3. ↑ Short biography of Kurt Meißner in: www.tsingtau.info/index.html
4. ↑ Information about Kurt Meißner (short portrait) in: https://oag.jp/people/
5. ^ Kurt Meißner, Germans in Japan, Deutsche Verlagsanstalten Stuttgart / Berlin, 1940
6. ↑ Information about Kurt Meißner (short portrait) in information about people of the OAG in: https://oag.jp/people/
7. ↑ Eberhard Friese, Kurt Meißner, Neue Deutsche Biographie, Volume 16 from 1990, p. 107f. in: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd120994372.html