Ludwig Knoop

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Ludwig Knoop statue in bronze in Knoops Park

Ludwig Knoop (* 15. May 1821 in Bremen ; † 16th August 1894 in Bremen) was a major Bremen merchant . The textile industry has made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the 19th century .

Life

Childhood, school days, training

Knoop was the fourth of eight children in an impoverished Bremen merchant family. He attended the local parish school. After completing his commercial apprenticeship in 1835, he went to his uncle in 1838, who ran the De Jersey & Co. textile company in Manchester . England was a pioneer in the field of machine cotton spinning and weaving in Europe, and it was there that Knoop got to know industrial textile processing.

Engagement in Russia

Coat of arms Baron Knoop

When the company expanded to Russia , Knoop moved to the Moscow office . In the Russian Empire , he soon became one of the most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs.

In 1843 Ludwig Knoop and Louise Knoop (1824–1894), a daughter of the German Baltic businessman Johann Christoph Hoyer, married. The marriage had six children: Luise, Johann, Theodor, Adele, Andreas and Emilie.

With the import of English machines for the further processing of cotton, he set up the first machine spinning mill together with the Russian entrepreneur Sawwa W. Morosow from Moscow in Nikolskoje near Vladimir in 1849 , which was soon followed by others. In 1852 he went into business for himself and supported industrialization on a large scale: he founded well over a hundred weaving, dyeing and printing works and was involved in numerous banks, insurance companies and other textile factories. One of the largest cotton mills was established in 1857 on the Estonian island of Kreenholm near Narva , where 4,500 people were employed. The operation still exists today on a reduced scale. Although Knoop paid low wages, his social merits included the introduction of health insurance and providing workers with company apartments , kindergartens and schools.

On May 6, 1877, the Russian Tsar Alexander II awarded Ludwig Knoop the title of baron .

Around 1881 Knoop founded a company that undertook trading trips between the Weser and Yenisei for several years . It made it possible for the naturalist Karl Graf von Waldburg-Zeil to undertake his last great trip to Siberia in 1881 . Although the ride was successful, the results were sobering. Too often, ice barriers blocked the way. Knoop made his last trip to Russia in 1884. Based on the research results, he decided to discontinue commercial shipping to Western Siberia.

For a short time, Ludwig Knoop was also a member of the supervisory board of Norddeutscher Lloyd , from which he bought the fleet pro forma during the Franco-German War and had it sailed under the Russian flag in order to protect it from expropriation by the French.

Knoops Park and Mühlenthal Castle

Mühlenthal Castle around 1880

His sons still went to school in Bremen and Knoop's heart was still attached to his hometown. In 1859 he bought the Mühlenthal estate in St. Magnus in Bremen, Switzerland . Knoop expanded the old house and spent the summers there with his family from 1861 to 1868. In order to live there all year round, he commissioned the Bremen architect Gustav Runge to build him a larger house. In 1871 the Knoop family moved into Mühlenthal Castle. The landscape gardener Wilhelm Benque , who also previously designed the Bremen Bürgerpark, created an English landscape park for him around the castle, which is now open to the public as Knoops Park .

The country estate was a meeting point for many upscale guests (including the Prussian general Count von Moltke , the captain and researcher Eduard Dallmann ). To receive the guests, he expanded the station at St. Magnus and built a small port on the Lesum . With the purchase of additional lands, his estate expanded so that the families of his children also received their own country estates.

Honors

Knoop mausoleum in Waller Friedhof
  • Knoop was buried in the Knoop family mausoleum in the Waller Friedhof in Bremen.
  • The Knoops Park in St. Magnus is named after him.
  • The bronze Ludwig Knoop statue by the sculptor Claus Homfeld has been in Knoops Park since 1995 , which was created on the initiative of the Knoops Park e. V. was created on the 100th anniversary of the death of Ludwig Knoop last year. The monument was financed by the Waldemar Koch Foundation .
  • Ulf Fiedler : The north of Bremen: Living and working on the Weser and Lesum . Here Baron Knoop is at the center of the considerations.

family

The Knoop family includes some well-known personalities and old traditional companies:

  • The Knoop company was founded as a tobacco factory and spice shop by grandfather Daniel Diedrich Knoop in the Stephaniviertel in Bremen in the 18th century and was continued as Gebr. Knoop by grandsons Andreas Heinrich - brother of Ludwig Knoop - and Diedrich Daniel .
  • Kreyenhorst Castle around 1900
    Dietrich Daniel had the     "Kreyenhorst Castle" built in Horn-Lehe in 1873/75 according to plans by Johann Georg Poppe , which was later owned by the shipowner Willy Rickmers .
  • Johann Knoop (1846–1918), known as Wanja, the baron's eldest son, owned one of the most important collections of instruments in the world around 1900, including the Stradivari violin known as Lady Blunt .
  • Heinrich Wilhelm Kulenkampff, Ludwig Knoop's son-in-law, took over the Knoop Brothers company in 1883. and became sole owner in 1888. The company existed until 1952, most recently with its headquarters at Kohlhökerstraße 53 in Bremen.
  • Ernst Albrecht , former Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, was a great-great-grandson of Knoop.
  • Ursula von der Leyen , daughter of Ernst Albrecht, President of the European Commission since December 1, 2019 , Federal Minister of Defense from 2013 to 2019, is a great-great-great-granddaughter.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Knoop  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.denkmalpflege.bremen.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=2080
  2. ↑ For the entire section: Manfred Wurthmann: Knoop back in the park. Unveiled bronze monument of the noble industrialist. In: Kurier am Sonntag of October 29, 1995, p. 5. -
    Note: The corresponding newspaper article is available online via the digital newspaper archive of Bremer Tageszeitungen AG (subject to a charge).
  3. ↑ Erika Thieß: The Baron's greatest treasure in: Weser-Kurier from January 11, 2019, p. 12
personal data
SURNAME Knoop, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1894
Place of death Bremen