Ludwig Roselius (entrepreneur)

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Ludwig Roselius around 1905 on a photograph by Nicola Perscheid

Ludwig Gerhard Wilhelm Roselius (born June 2, 1874 in Bremen ; † May 15, 1943 in Berlin ) was a coffee trader and founder of the Bremen company Kaffee Hag . As a patron he promoted artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker and Bernhard Hoetger and built the Böttcherstraße in Bremen as a work of art.

Life

Roselius was the second child of the Bremen merchant and coffee importer Dietrich Friedrich Rennig Roselius (1843–1902). His brother was the businessman Friedrich Roselius (1876–1941), his nephew the communication scientist and author Ernst Roselius . His cousin was the pedagogue Marie Roselius (1869–1951) and his daughter the draftsman and writer Hildegard Roselius (1901–1963).

From 1890 to 1893 he completed an apprenticeship in the colonial goods wholesaler of Ernst Grote in Hanover , who was a business friend of his father's. Anna Grote, the second daughter of Ernst Grote, married Roselius in 1899. In 1894 Roselius joined his father's business, Roselius & Co. in Bremen. A few years later, he became a partner in the company, which initially sold groceries as well as coffee. Roselius junior expanded the business; In 1901 a branch was founded in London , in 1902 another in Utrecht , in 1903 the Friedrich Baur company in Hamburg was taken over and in 1905 a branch was founded in Vienna .

The entrance to Böttcherstraße
Bust of Ludwig Roselius in Böttcherstrasse.
( Bernhard Hoetger , 1922)

When Roselius senior died unexpectedly at the age of 59, the doctors attributed it mainly to heavy caffeine consumption . His son then dealt intensively with the effects of coffee and its components on health. After extensive research of his own, he developed a process to remove the caffeine from coffee beans. Since the Bremen coffee trader Christian Detlefsen also dealt with this topic, a collaboration started in 1904. Detlefsen gave up, however, because the success did not materialize straight away. So Roselius went on alone and patented his process in 1906.

In Bucharest , the German "coffee king" Roselius entertained at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, a "correspondence Bureau," ran across the wide propaganda and other activities that aimed to enter the war Romania on the Entente side to prevent or at least delay. Especially in the period from April to June 1915, Roselius' activities were particularly brisk and delayed the Romanian entry into war against Germany, which was already threatening at that time, by almost a year. To this end, Roselius used considerable financial resources from his own assets and worked closely with the German military secret service IIIb in the field of military espionage against Romania. However, Ludwig Roselius' secret service activities did not extend to Romania alone at that time, but to almost the entire Balkan peninsula including Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria and also to Russian Bessarabia . Together with his close friend, the German industrialist Reinhard Mannesmann jun. At the same time, Roselius also dealt with the establishment of a "Macedonian Legion" of several thousand, which was to be deployed in the Balkans in the interests of Germany.

In 1917 he was appointed Consul General of Bulgaria , based in Bremen.

Politically conservative, Roselius had a positive view of National Socialism and supported Hitler , whom he had met privately in Bremen in 1922. The folkish or Nordic - Germanic ideas he pursued with his belief in the irreplaceable value of the Nordic-Low German race under the influence of the ideologues Julius Langbehn and Herman Wirth only met with partial approval. The Böttcherstraße should illustrate this world of ideas (Roselius: "The rebuilding of Böttcherstraße is an attempt to think German.")

An article by Alfred Faust from 1924 shows how difficult it is to classify the personality of Roselius . Faust wrote a. a .:

“He let himself be pumped by indebted kings and needy communists; he corresponded with the swastika Count Reventlow and with the Jew Rathenau , with Wilson and King Ferdinand, with Stresemann and Kakowski (when the Romanian delegates returned from the Hamburg International Socialist Congress, they did not visit the party, but Roselius). If he had business in Holland, the tennis-playing ex-crown prince invited him to his place, and when he was back in Bremen, he invited the red President Ebert to be a guest. The social democrat and land reformer Emil Felden was just as much a desirable dialogue partner as the German national trumpeter Freiherr v. Hünefeldt . "

Roselius was a member of the National Socialist Academy for German Law and a supporting member of the SS . Although Hitler declared at the Nazi party rally on September 9, 1936 that “National Socialism strongly opposed this type of Böttcherstrasse culture”, Roselius was the guest of honor in 1937 at the opening of the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich .

In 1936 a meeting in the Reich Aviation Ministry negotiated a new structure for the Focke-Wulf company . Roselius held 30% of the shares at the time and should leave the company after the reorganization. The Reich was to receive half of the new shares in the amount of 5 million RM, the other half to an electrical company. It was predicted that increasing order numbers for the company could be expected.

Grave of Ludwig Roselius in the Engesohde city cemetery in Hanover, buried on the grave of the Hanoverian coffee merchant Ernst Grote (1845–1927), tomb of Bernhard Hoetger

Barbara Goette was Roselius' closest confidante and looked after him in the Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin) until his death . She acted as his secretary. After a speech by Hitler in 1936, Roselius is said to have intended to take his own life. Goette is said to have informed Hitler of Roselius' influence in the world economy. This was followed by a substantial capital contribution from Roselius (via Kaffee HAG 46%) and Sosthenes Behn ( ITT Corporation or subsidiary C. Lorenz 28%) into the aircraft company Focke-Wulf .

In May 1943, shortly before his death, Roselius and Goette visited the Focke-Wulf-directed French aircraft factory and Roselius donated a clubhouse in Bois de Boulogne to the Bremen development team as a sign of recognition . After the death of Roselius, the situation remained in the leadership of Focke-Wulf; the energetic hand of Roselius was missing in the background.

Roselius was a member of the Haus Seefahrt Foundation , the traditional, exclusive organization of leading Bremen business circles, and in 1930 he was the creator of the renowned Schaffermahlzeit .

Roselius' grave is located in the Engesohde city cemetery in Hanover, Department 37G, grave number 270–272.

Fonts

After the end of the Second World War , Roselius' writings [First] Nordisches Thing [in Böttcherstrasse zu Bremen] (1933/34) and the Fichte published by him became for today. From the writings of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1939) - both published by Angelsachsen-Verlag - placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet zone of occupation .

Entrepreneurial activity

Coffee HAG

Ludwig Roselius became famous when he founded the Kaffee HAG company in 1906.

Timber industry

Roselius briefly entered the wood industry from 1919 to 1922. In order to prevent the outflow of patents and rights to the lignostone discovered by Fritz Pfleumer and his brother Hermann in accordance with the Versailles Peace Treaty, he financed and founded a lignostone factory in Holland on a license basis. Shortly thereafter, Hermann Röchling took over all activities related to Lignostone, which is now operated by Röchling Engineering Plastics based in Haren (Ems) .

Publishing

Roselius founded the publishing house Angelsachsen-Verlag in 1921 and ran it. The publishing house published advertising materials for the brand and the product Kaffee HAG , as well as publications (books and periodicals) from the fields of architecture , visual arts , performing arts , literature and nautical items .

Engagements (selection)

Honors

Literary adaptations

literature

  • Ludwig Roselius: letters. HM Hauschild, Bremen 1919.
  • Barbara Götte: Ludwig Roselius. An obituary. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch . 1951.
  • Red heart & brown drink - 50 years of Hag. Bremen 1956.
  • Hildegard Roselius: Ludwig Roselius and his cultural work. Braunschweig 1965.
  • Dieter Pfliegensdörfer: Ludwig Roselius ... like nobody knows him. Impressions from the life of a - not so honorable - Bremen wholesale merchant. A scenic documentation. (= Workshop reports from the research focus on work and education at the University of Bremen. Volume 5). University of Bremen publication warehouse , Bremen 1987, DNB 880406321 .
  • Arn Strohmeyer : Art under the sign of the Germanic ancestors and the rebirth of Germany: Ludwig Roselius and Bernhard Hoetger. In: Arn Strohmeyer, Kai Artinger, Ferdinand Krogmann: Landscape, Light and Low German Myth. The Worpswede art and the National Socialism. Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-89739-126-0 , pp. 43-110.
  • Arn Strohmeyer: Parsifal in Bremen. Richard Wagner, Ludwig Roselius and the Böttcherstrasse. Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-89739-263-1 .
  • Nicola Vetter: Ludwig Roselius: A pioneer of German public relations. Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-89757-157-9 .
  • Herbert Black Forest :  Roselius, Gerhard Ludwig Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 47 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • 100 years of Kaffee Hag - history of a brand. Edition Temmen, June 2006.
  • Jürgen W. Schmidt: Ludwig Roselius and the lively German secret service activities in Romania April - June 1915. In: Jürgen W. Schmidt: Espionage, double agents and Islamist threats. Ludwigsfelde 2017 (= secret service history. Vol. 5). ISBN 978-3-933022-93-6 , pp. 107-125.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Roselius  - Collection of Images

References and comments

  1. ^ According to Ernst Klee's cultural lexicon on the Third Reich. P. 497, Roselius was a sponsor of Wirth.
  2. ↑ Bremer Volkszeitung. June 5, 1924.
  3. ^ A b Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 497.
  4. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 497.
  5. ↑ Present were: Ministerialrat Dr. Hergesell, councilor of Heinz, Wolzt and von Ranke
  6. ↑ OMGUS declassified per Executive Order 12958, Section 3.5 NND Project Number: NND 775058 By: NND Date: 1977
  7. ↑ Ludwig Leidig: Bombshell. Strategic Book Publ., Houston / Texas 2013, ISBN 978-1-62516-346-2
  8. ↑ Volker Bergmann, Dieter Pfliegensdoerfer; Project group: Willi Elmers, Manfred Fitkau, Wolfgang Guenther, Michael Jung, Michael Wolf. Corrugated iron & wind tunnel. Work and business in aircraft construction in Bremen from the beginnings 1909 to 1989. Steintor, 1989, ISBN 3-926028-51-3
  9. ↑ The Schaffermahlzeit 1930 . In: Weser newspaper . February 14, 1930.
  10. ↑ Karin van Schwartzenberg (responsible): Graves of honor and graves of important personalities in the Engesohde city cemetery. Leaflet with overview sketch, ed. from the City of Hanover, The Lord Mayor, Department of Environment and Urban Greenery, Department of Urban Cemeteries, Department of Administration and Customer Service, Hannover 2012.
  11. ^ German Administration for National Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone, List of Literature to be Separated, 1947 , accessed on November 29, 2011.
  12. ^ German Administration for National Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone, List of Literature to be Separated, 1948 , accessed on November 29, 2011.
  13. ^ Stiftung Schule am Meer (ed.): The complete expansion of the school by the sea on the North Sea island of Juist . Angelsachsen-Verlag , Bremen 1925, p. 14.
  14. ^ Andreas Schnell: Starless Utopia, criticism of the Bremen premiere
personal data
SURNAME Roselius, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roselius, Ludwig Gerhard Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German coffee merchant and patron
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1943
Place of death Berlin