Moritz Neumark

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Moritz Neumark

Moritz Neumark (born June 2, 1866 in Wittmund ; † February 25, 1943 in Theresienstadt concentration camp , actually Moses Lazarus Neumark ) was a German industrialist of Jewish origin, holder of several patents in the coal and steel industry and politician. From 1905 to 1934 he shaped the history of the former blast furnace plant Lübeck AG in the Herrenwyk district , once the largest employer in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck .

Life

Moritz Neumark was the son of the businessman Philip Abraham Neumark and his wife Julchen Neumark, nee Levy. The parents ran the manufactured goods business of AJ Neumark Söhne in Wittmund ( East Friesland ), where the Neumark family had been based for several generations. The couple had ten children; Moritz was born the sixth child. Fritz Neumark was his nephew.

Moritz Neumark attended the Oberrealschule in Oldenburg (Lower Saxony). After graduating from high school, he studied metallurgy at the Technical University of Berlin and the Technical University of Dresden as well as chemistry in Jena . During his studies, he became in 1885 a member of the fraternity Cheruscia Dreden. In 1891 he received his doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen.

After graduating, he worked in Upper Silesia and went on a study tour of several months through European countries. In 1895 he built a steel and rolling mill in Zawiercie , which at that time belonged to Russian Poland, on behalf of Huldschinskyschen Hüttenwerke in Gleiwitz . His first patent for the double top hatch seal for blast furnaces dates from 1898 .

Neumark's residential and management villa on what was then Herrenwyk 2

In 1905 the Lübeck industrial association sponsored the construction of a blast furnace on the Trave. He appointed Neumark to the “Committee for the Construction of a Blast Furnace near Lübeck”. Together with the commercial director Carl Schlömer, Neumark formed the board of directors of Hochofenwerk Lübeck AG, founded on November 7, 1905, from December 1905. On May 8, 1906, the foundation stone for the first blast furnace was laid. From September 1906, when Schlömer left, until 1934, Neumark was the sole director of the stock corporation.

In February 1919 Neumark was elected as a candidate of the German Democratic Party in the Lübeck Citizenship , the city council of the Hanseatic city. Until 1926 he was employed as citizens Member of the Group of People's party to, then until his retirement in 1929 the Hanseatic national union . In particular, he campaigned for a general development plan for the industrial settlements in the Lübeck suburbs of Kücknitz , Herrenwyk, Siems and Dummersdorf. Its aim was to improve the living conditions of the population. He promoted the art and culture of Lübeck. This is how the donation board from 1921 of the Behnhaus , the Lübeck Museum for Art and Cultural History, lists his name. Until his forced exit at the end of September 1933, he was a member of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities .

Neumark was a member of the Lübeck industrial association from February 1906; from November 1910 to 1933 he was a member of the board and was chairman when the latter resigned on June 7, 1933. He was a member of the supervisory board of Rawack & Grünfeld AG in Berlin; In the main committee of the Reich Association of German Industry , he was a deputy member, board member of the Association of German Ironworkers, today's steel institute VDEh , and the Association of German Iron and Steel Industrialists . He also took on functions in the Seewasserstraßenbeirat of the Reichswasserstraßenverwaltung and in the Association of German Employers' Associations .

During Neumark's time as General Director of the Lübeck AG blast furnace, production of two blast furnaces and two coke oven groups began in August 1907. Around 1909 a third blast furnace was put into operation. The company developed so progressively under his leadership that in 1913 the magazine of the Association of German Engineers praised the “high economic efficiency” and reported on a “careful structural development” that made the hut appear as an “example of a strictly modern facility” deserve attention beyond the narrow specialist circles ”.

At the same time in Kücknitz and Herrenwyk, factory and worker colonies as well as master and civil servants' houses, which were equipped according to the corporate hierarchy, were built for the increasing number of employees. Neumark lived with his wife Ida, geb. Trader and the three children Hans, Susy and Lore in a director's villa a long way away.

At the beginning of the First World War , the blast furnace plant had 944 employees. The number decreased during the war, but rose to 1,439 in 1917/18. In the post-war years, the blast furnace became an important factor in the strike movements. In 1930 the world economic crisis hit the plant too. Mass layoffs were pronounced on April 1, 1932, only 300 to 400 workers remained. In 1933 there was an improvement when the National Socialists took power. In the Lübeck Senate , the National Socialists demanded that the management of the plant be Aryanized .

Stumbling block
Commemorative plaque in the Lübeck town hall for the members of the citizenry who were victims of National Socialism

Neumark resigned from his position as general manager in 1934. He moved out of the Herrenwyker service villa. His son Hans remained in charge of the copper smelter until 1938 and then emigrated to the USA, where he found a job at Allied Chemical and became an expert in rocket fuels. His sisters Susanne and Eleonore also escaped National Socialism by emigrating. In 1936 Moritz Neumark moved to Berlin-Grunewald with his wife. In 1942 the couple were deported to the so-called old age ghetto of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where Neumark died on February 25, 1943. His wife Ida came to Switzerland in February 1945 through the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a result of the Himmler-Musy agreement .

The city of Lübeck honored Neumark by naming a street in Herrenwyk after him. In the street Alt Herrenwyk 1 in Lübeck a stumbling block reminds of his fate.

The Hochofenwerk Lübeck AG traded as Metallhüttenwerk Lübeck AG from 1954 and was converted into a GmbH in 1958. The decline began around 1965. In 1981 she went bankrupt.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Nolte (Ed.): Burschenschafter Stammrolle. List of members of the German Burschenschaft according to the status of the summer semester 1934. Berlin 1934, p. 349.

Web links

Commons : Moritz Neumark  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Austrian patent from 1913: Device for separating dust or the like from hot gases.
  • German patent from 1925: Process for producing a carbon-rich pig iron
  • U.S. Patent of 1932; Process for the production of Ferro-Phosphorus low or practically free from Silicon
  • Helmut Hinrichs: Moritz Neumark in the Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland , Volume II, Aurich 1997, pp. 256–257 (PDF file; 53 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Neumark, Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neumark, Moses Lazarus (real name); Neumarck, Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittmund
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1943
Place of death Theresienstadt concentration camp