Maximilian Silberberg

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Maximilian "Max" Silberberg (born September 10, 1878 in Vienna , † December 31, 1946 in Jerusalem , Palestine ) was an Austrian industrialist and chemist.

Life

Silberberg was born in Vienna as the son of a Jewish businessman and, after attending secondary school from 1896 to 1899, studied first at the chemical-technical school of the Technical University in Vienna and then at the University of Basel , where he wrote a dissertation on the subject of " About the Influence of Hydrogenation on Rotational Power "to the Dr. phil. PhD. Afterwards he is said to have worked as an assistant at the University of Bern , but afterwards he returned to Vienna, where in 1904 he invented an apparatus for gas development by bacteria and in 1905 he related with Ernestine (Esther). Sunflower born Adler (born September 17, 1879 in Garsten / Upper Austria ; † July 18, 1963 in Haifa / Israel ), married. The fact that he worked as a chemist in the anchor bread factory in Vienna until around 1907 is most likely due to the fact that his wife was the daughter of the master baker Emanuel Adler, who is said to have been a co-founder of the Mendl brothers' Viennese anchor bread factory.

As a result, Silberberg then, however, the oil industry turned to, made numerous trips through Europe and the US and was - some with their own company, partly through equity interests - especially in the field of oil prospecting , including Galicia , leader operates. In 1913 the architect Arnold Karplus (1877–1968) built at the address Vienna XIX. (Döbling), Blaasstraße 19 for the couple Max and Ernestine Silberberg the “Villa Dr. Silberberg ".

War and interwar period

During World War I, Silberberg initially managed several petroleum pits in Borysław (Boryslav / Galicia). However, when control over the Galician oil wells was lost in the course of the war, he began looking for alternative oil deposits in the Wels area with his Wallerner Erdöl-Gesellschaft, founded in 1916 (which was followed by the founding of a Salzburg oil company in 1917). After test bores previously carried out in Wallern had failed, further boring attempts in 1917 and 1918 in the Schönau district of Schallerbach brought unexpected thermal springs to light from a depth of 461.3 meters, a discovery that was made in 1921, after Silberberg acquired all his rights including drilling equipment by 6.25 million crowns to the Schwefelbad Schallerbach GesmbH founded by the state of Upper Austria and the communities Wallern and Schönau, which led to the establishment of the health resort Schallerbach ( Bad Schallerbach ).

After the loss of Galicia , which is rich in oil sources, and the more or less unsuccessful search for new oil deposits on Austrian soil, the great hardship of the war years prompted Max and Ernestine Silberberg to acquire the Gasteil estate in Prigglitz in order to develop it into their own farm, including Silberberg On March 4, 1922, he placed an advertisement in the “Wiener Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung”, with which he was looking for a “servant who can handle horses and agricultural machines” for a “medium-sized property in the Goggnitz area”. Silberberg commissioned the architect Hubert Gessner (1871–1943), who had previously planned a workers' housing complex in nearby Gloggnitz and who later became one of the defining architects in Red Vienna, to adapt the property acquired in a desolate state . In addition to commercial buildings, Gessner also planned a three-story residential wing for Gut Gasteil, but Silberberg sold the country estate again in 1925 before all the work had been completed.

Flight and emigration

After the "Anschluss" and the Nazis' seizure of power in 1938, Silberberg, who was a recognized petroleum specialist and worked as a chemist and petroleum industrialist in Ustrzyki Dolne until 1924 , and later mainly as a consultant for international companies and as a member of the board of directors of NAWAG, lost “(Naphta- und Warenhandels AG) was in demand as a Jew, his entire fortune. In 1939 he fled with his wife, first to Italy and from there on to Palestine to his daughter Anna (1906–1980), who worked there as a teacher and from 1931 was married to the professor of electrical engineering Stefan Stricker .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Silberberg, Maximilian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silberberg, Max (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian industrialist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1946
Place of death Jerusalem , Palestine