Mayr-Melnhof (family)
Mayr-Melnhof is an Austrian family of entrepreneurs who achieved great prosperity in the steel and metallurgical industry in the 19th century and thus acquired the largest private forestry company in Austria, especially in Styria . It is still the majority owner of Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG , whose annual turnover is over 2 billion euros. It also owns Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding , Mayr von Melnhof'sche Holzhandlung in Salzburg and a housing company.
Franz Mayr (1810–1889) was ennobled in 1859 with the predicate "Edler von Melnhof" and in 1872 raised to the status of baron . The family bought castle estates in Styria and the Salzburg region.
ancestors
The ancestors of the Mayr-Melnhof family come from the village of Schönberg near Knittelfeld , which today belongs to the municipality of Spielberg , where they ran one or, at times, two farms in the Seckau monastery . In 1423 an Andre Mayr is proven. In 1434, Hans Mayr zu Kattinga appeared as the mine master of the church in Schönberg.
There has been a complete line of ancestors since 1603. At that time, Hans Mayr handed over his farm to his son Balthasar. Lorenz Mayr, the eldest son of Philipp Mayr, sold his farms in Spielberg and settled in Judendorf near Leoben (now a district of Leoben) at the Melmayrhof. On July 8, 1777, he married Maria, the only daughter and heiress of the wealthy farmer Franz Zechner, commonly known as Melmayr. His son Franz, born in 1779, became an innkeeper on Leobner Hauptplatz in 1805.
Main heirs and important family members
The Mayr-Melnhof family operated and operates a very consistent inheritance policy so that the large fortunes stay together as far as possible. As in such entrepreneurial and former aristocratic families, it is tradition that the main heir in the family line always carries on the first name, in the case of the Styrian line of the Mayr-Melnhofs the first name Franz.
- Franz Mayr ("Franz I."; * January 27, 1779 at Melmayerhof in Leoben-Judendorf, † April 6, 1847 in Graz). In 1837 he built the "Franzenshütte" on the Vordernbergerbach. Indirectly, he became the founder of the Donawitz iron and steel works , as this Franzenshütte was the first steel and puddling works in Styria .
Family branch Mayr-Melnhof:
- Franz Freiherr Mayr von Melnhof ("Franz II."; * August 23, 1810 in Leoben; † December 28, 1889 in Leoben), the son and successor of Franz Mayr, expanded his father's ironworks in Donawitz and built a cast steel factory in Kapfenberg. In 1859 he wasennobledwith the title of Melnhof and in 1872raised to the rank of baron .
- In 1881 the Donawitz industrial complex was incorporated into the Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft ; In 1894 the Böhler brothers bought the Kapfenberg factory (Böhler-Werke) . In his era, a large part of the extensive forest property was acquired.
- Franz Freiherr Mayr von Melnhof ("Franz III."; * November 11, 1854 Leoben, † July 18, 1893 Himberg in Lower Austria). The son of "Franz II" also became an industrialist and in 1888 founded the wood pulp and cardboard factory in Frohnleiten. This was the beginning of today's Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG , which is the largest cardboard and folding box manufacturer in Europe.
Since the Nobility Repeal Act in April 1919, the surname of the Austrian family branches Mayr-Melnhof:
- Franz Mayr-Melnhof ("Franz IV."; * June 23, 1888 as Franz Freiherr Mayr von Melnhof, † December 20, 1957), was the head of the family's goods and businesses for several decades. From his marriage to Marie Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , he had no male heir. Therefore, he adopted his eldest grandson, the son of his daughter Maria-Mathilde, who was married to Carl Anton Goëss - Saurau (* June 23, 1921, † December 6, 2015), and made him the main heir. The traditional name Mayr-Melnhof-Saurau is derived from this Carl Anton Goess-Saurau .
- Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn , b. Mayr-Melnhof (December 9, 1919), photographer.
Family branch Mayr-Melnhof Saurau:
- Franz Mayr-Melnhof ("Franz V."; * February 22, 1949, † June 14, 1993): As long as he was not yet fully competent, his father Goess-Saurau carried out the most important functions in the family business and continued to do so after son's early death.
- Franz Mayr-Melnhof-Saurau ("Franz VI."; Born March 19, 1977) is the oldest son and the third oldest of a total of six children of "Franz V", who died after a car accident in the Canal Valley , and his first wife Erzsebet Mayr-Melnhof, born Andrássy . Franz Mayr-Melnhof has been married to Eva, née Aggermann, since 2005 and has a son with her, who traditionally bears the first name Franz again, as well as a daughter and another son.
Forest ownership
The forest enterprise Franz Mayr-Melnhof-Saurau in Styria is the largest private forest enterprise in Austria. The total area is 32,400 hectares, of which 28,000 hectares are forest and of which an area is 21,800 hectares of commercial forest. The two forest administrations Frohnleiten- Pfannberg and Leoben- Göß are roughly the same size. The forest property consists of two large contiguous complexes. One is between Frohnleiten and Leoben , the second between Trofaiach and Mautern in Styria .
The forest is located at an altitude of 430 to 2200 m and consists of 75% spruce , 15% larch and 10% beech and other woody plants. The average annual harvest is 150,000 solid meters . In addition to forestry activities, the company is also successful in the construction of forestry equipment.
Industrial companies
The largest asset of the Mayr-Melnhof clan is the majority stake in Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG.
In addition, there are the Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding companies , 74.9% of which are Franz VI. Mayr-Melnhof belong.
Salzburg branch
The Salzburg branch of the Mayr-Melnhof family, whose line split off from their Styrian relatives in 1893, owns around 7,000 hectares of land in Salzburg and Upper Austria. The assets include the Mayr of Melnhof'sche timber business in Salzburg, Schloss Glanegg , castle Kogl , shares in Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG and the housing association of Styrian Mayr-Melnhofs.
The Patriarch of the Salzburg Mayr-Melnhofs, Friedrich Mayr-Melnhof (* July 5, 1924 - April 14, 2020) was State Councilor for Agriculture and Forestry in Salzburg between 1983 and 1986. He was married to Maria Anna geb. Orsini-Rosenberg (1927–2010) and father of five sons and five daughters. He manages the family property himself. Two sons of his children (Heinrich and Paul) died shortly after their births in 1957 and 1963 respectively. The fourth-born son Georg (* 1968) initially studied economics and was to take over the greater part of Salzburg's Mayr-Melnhof property take over. He initially decided against the multi-million dollar inheritance and entered the seminary in 1995. He studied theology and wanted to be a clergyman, but then decided to get married and got married. Today he lives with his wife and two sons and two daughters, is a religion teacher and missionaries within the Loretto community . He has been on the supervisory board of the family company of the Mayr-Melnhof Group since 2008.
His two older brothers have their own businesses: Maximilian Mayr-Melnhof is the owner of the Salzburg forest enterprise, his brother Friedrich is with Monika, nee. Nostitz-Rieneck , a great-granddaughter of the heir apparent couple murdered in Sarajevo , married.
coat of arms
Coat of arms from 1861/1862
Blazon : The coat of arms from 1861/62 is quartered : Fields 1 and 4 show a natural bouquet on a green hill, a horseshoe in the beak with the studs turned downwards and with the right foot holding a horseshoe with the studs on the right, 2 in blue fan-shaped three ears of corn, 3 in gold a four-spoke black comb wheel ; on the helmet with red and silver helmet covers on the right and blue and gold on the left, the ears of wheat between open flight, divided by silver and red on the right, gold and blue on the left .
Barons coat of arms from 1873
Blazon: The baronial coat of arms from 1873 is quartered and covered with a heart shield, inside the bouquet on green ground as in 1861; 1 and 4 show the golden ears of wheat, 2 and 3 in gold the comb wheel. Helm and Zimier as in 1861; as a shield holder two panthers spraying fire from the throat and ears , the right one silver and the left one gold; Motto: "RECTE AGENDO SECURITAS".
literature
- Genealogical manual of the nobility : Adelslexikon, Volume VIII, Volume 113 of the complete series. CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1997, ISSN 0435-2408 , pp. 370-371.
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Joham: Leoben - street names with a history. Self-published by the city of Leoben, Leoben 2015, ISBN 978-3-9504139-0-8 , p. 157.
- ^ Rudolf List : Das Leobner Taschenbuch. OÖ Landesverlag, Ried 1963. Here with reference to a report in the Murtaler Zeitung from January 25, 1958.
- ^ Website of the Franz Mayr-Melnhof-Saurau forestry company.
- ↑ Website of the Mayr-Melnhof Karton Gesellschaft mbH ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2009 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.
- ↑ Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding website
- ^ Website of Schloss-Kogl in St. Georgen im Attergau
- ↑ Friedrich Mayr Melnhof died at the age of 95. In: Salzburger Nachrichten . April 14, 2020, accessed April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Annual Report of the Mayr-Melnhof Group (2012) ( Memento of the original from July 15, 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. (PDF; 4.2 MB)
