M & O Ohlsson
M & O Ohlsson is a Swedish bell foundry . From 1878 until the middle of the 20th century it had a branch in Lübeck .
history
The grandfather of the brothers M ( Martin Wilhelm ) & O ( Olof ) Ohlsson, as one of the first bell founders, had developed a method for repairing cracked bells in 1805, with which the previously necessary casting was no longer necessary, and thus around 100 bells were already in the by 1827 repaired in various provinces of Sweden, for which he was awarded a medal by the Patriotic Society in Stockholm . During the process, the enlarged crack in the bell was filled with a special alloy.
His son L. Ohlsson in Ystad and his two grandchildren continued to run the business successfully. In 1878 they opened a branch in Lübeck, first in Depenau , then in Luisenstrasse 1–9 in the Lübeck-St. Gertrud , who soon received successful orders from all over Germany. In 1878 they repaired a bell in Lüchow in Wendland, in 1879 two bells in Krempe , Riesdorf , Buckow in Märkische Schweiz and other places. It was noted in the contemporary ecclesiastical press that this new method gives excellent results in terms of cheapness, durability and restoration of the original tone .
New casting of bells was added from 1898, a line of business that expanded rapidly before the First World War. Ohlsson was appointed Mecklenburg-Schwerin court bell founder. In 1909 Ohlsson cast the carillon from 17 bells for the Nikolaikirche in Flensburg . In Denmark today 54 bells from the Ohlsson production are proven.
However, many of the bells cast by Ohlsson for German churches are no longer preserved because they had to be given in as relatively young bells in the First or Second World War and were melted down for armament purposes. This includes, for example, the Christ bell that was cast in 1913 for the Nicolaikirche in Lüneburg . For the new construction of the St. Gertrud Church (Lübeck), M & O Ohlsson cast three bells named after the reformers Luther, Melanchthon and Bugenhagen in 1909, of which the two smaller ones in 1917 (Melanchthon and Bugenhagen) and the largest (Luther) in the second World War had to be delivered and were lost.
The preserved bells of the foundry include the Brandenburg bell in the Berlin Cathedral (1913) and the guard bell (1902) in the tower of St. Mary's Church in Wismar. In both cases it is a matter of copies of early modern bells, which were made from their metal and largely copied from their bells.
Today the company in Ystad, now called M & E Ohlsson, is one of two existing bell foundries in Sweden.
Individual evidence
- ↑ * November 22, 1865; †?
- ↑ * May 6, 1854 in Ystad; † January 16, 1935 in Lübeck
- ↑ Musica sacra: Monthly journal for church music a. Liturgie 16 (1883), p. 7
- ↑ According to Kirkeklokker i Danmark - En registrant udarbejdet af Hans Nyholm , accessed on June 21, 2010
- ↑ PDF at www.orgelstadt.de
- ↑ History of the St. Gertrud Church ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on June 20, 2010
literature
- Theodor Hach : Lübeck bell customer. Lübeck: Max Schmidt 1913 (publications on the history of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck 2), p. 270
