Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke

Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke

Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke (born November 12, 1923 in Hamburg ; † September 3, 2010 in Wohltorf am Sachsenwald) was a Hanseatic entrepreneur (ship broker), publicist, cartographic expert, honorary consul of the Republic of Chile in Schleswig-Holstein (1968-1994) and the Republic of Iceland in Hamburg (1973–2005) and most recently Honorary President of the Society of Friends of Islands eV Hamburg.

Live and act

Professional development

Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke was born in Hamburg and grew up during the Weimar Republic and National Socialism as the son of the renowned entrepreneur Ernst Dreyer-Eimbcke and his wife Susanne. His father was a co-owner of the well-known Hamburg shipbroker company Theodor & F. Eimbcke, which from 1927 to 1986 also acted as the main agency of the Icelandic shipping company "HF Eimskipafelag Islands". Ernst Dreyer-Eimbcke has held the office of Consul General of Iceland in Hamburg since 1962 .

After Oswald's school days, the commercial apprenticeship followed, which was suddenly interrupted by the Second World War . He was drafted as a soldier and soon had to go to the Eastern Front. During the course of the war he was taken prisoner by the Soviets, from which he returned in 1947 at the age of twenty-seven to his hometown of Hamburg in what was then the British Occupation Zone (BBZ).

After that, a new phase of life began for Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke with his apprenticeship as a ship broker , with educational trips taking him to Great Britain (London), the USA (New York), Chile, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. After his training he became one of the directors of the company with its traditional ties to Iceland. In 1955 he was able to visit Iceland for the first time with his wife Erika. In the course of his life a total of eighty trips were to take him to the northernmost country in Europe.

Journalism and consular activity for Chile and Iceland

In 1960 he took over the chairmanship of the "Society of Friends Islands Hamburg eV" (GdFI) founded in 1950, which he held for thirty-five years (until 1995). Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke developed a broad journalistic oeuvre and was the initiator of the "Iceland Reports", the first issue of which appeared in the same year. The Iceland reports, which were subsequently published several times a year, merged in 1995 with the magazine "Islandklukka" of the "German-Isländische Gesellschaft Köln eV" (DIG) to form the joint organization ISLAND of both sister societies. The publication of the “German-Icelandic Yearbooks”, which appeared between 1959 and 1996, is largely due to him.

During this time, especially since his appointment as Honorary Consul of Iceland in Hamburg in 1973, he promoted the mutual visits of the two largest German Icelandic societies GdFI and DIG with Germania in Reykjavík in order to deepen the bilateral relations between the two peoples and states. The office of Icelandic Honorary Consul, d. H. Electoral consul, he worked in Hamburg until 2005. In 1968 Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke was appointed Honorary Consul of the Republic of Chile in Schleswig-Holstein. He represented Chile in Schleswig-Holstein consularly until 1994. As Icelandic consul and chairman of the Iceland friends of Hamburg, he promoted the 1989/90 association "Iceland friends of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania" established there in Greifswald, which is located in the Followed by the GdFI. The son of Hamburg faced numerous challenges of his time and also moved a lot for his hometown. From 1970 to 1986 he was chairman of the "Association of Hamburg Ship Brokers and Ship Agencies", and for many years he was also chairman of the "Association of Friends of the Hamburg Tropical Institute". In addition, he was a plenary member of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce - Committee for IT and Port Policy - from 1981 to 1986 and as chairman of the “Independent Storm Surge Commission” of the Hamburg Senate from 1985 to 1989.

Patron and cartographic expert

Despite numerous commitments at home and abroad, he still found time and leisure to devote himself intensively to collecting old maps and their further research since 1968. He probably owned the largest collection of Icelandic maps and sea maps in Germany. When the “Friends of Cartographica in the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation” was established in 1986, he was elected chairman. His cartographic activities and expertise were also reflected in his honorary membership of the "Geographical Society" in Hamburg and the office of President of the "International Map Collector Society" (IMCoS) in London, which he held from 1995 to 2002 as the first foreigner.

For a long time marked by a serious illness, Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke died at the age of 87 on September 3, 2010 at home in Wohltorf am Sachsenwald in the area around Hamburg. He left his wife Erika, a non-fiction author, and his daughter, Birgit Angerer, with three granddaughters. “With the death of Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke, one of the most famous friends of Iceland said goodbye in Germany (as well as a great personality who has significantly shaped German-Icelandic relations in recent decades” (S. Schopka 2010).

Awards

Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (FRG), Knight's Cross of the Order of the Hawks of the Republic of Iceland (1974 ), Knights Cross of the Order of the Hawks of the Republic of Iceland (2002), Order of Honor “Del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins” of the Republic of Chile (1994).

literature

The extensive literature of Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke is reflected in particular in the "Iceland reports" of the Society of Friends of Islands eV Hamburg (GdFI), the association magazine "Islandklukka" (Icelandic bell) of the German-Isländische Gesellschaft eV Cologne (DIG), the German Icelandic year books, the magazine ISLAND of the DIG Cologne and GdFi Hamburg, the messages of the Freundeskreis Cartographica in the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz eV and others.

The seven most important monographs should be named as representative:

• Iceland, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean have been featured in cartography since the 10th century. In: Communications from the Geographical Society in Hamburg. Vol. 77, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-515-05102-3 .
• Columbus. Discoveries and errors in German cartography. Umschau, Frankfurt a. M. 1991, ISBN 3-524-69097-1 .
• The discovery of the earth. History and stories of the cartographic adventure. Umschau, Frankfurt a. M. 1992, ISBN 3-524-69070-X .
• On the trail of explorers at the southernmost end of the world. Edition Petermann, Justus Perthes, Gotha 1996, ISBN 3-623-00350-6 .
• 400 years of Johannes Mejer: the great cartographer from Husum (1606-1674). KomRegis, Oldenburg 2006, ISBN 3-938501-12-X .
• History of cartography using the example of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. KomRegis Oldenburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-938501-07-8 .
• History and stories of the cartography of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. KomRegis, Oldenburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-938501-02-3 .

literature

• Obituary for Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke. In: Morgunblaðið / Reykjavík. September 21, 2010, p. 27. (Translation into German by Margret and Sverrir Schopka.)
• Sverrir Schopka: Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke (November 12, 1923 - September 3, 2010). In: ICELAND. Journal of the German-Isländische Gesellschaft eV Cologne and the Society of Friends of Islands eV Hamburg. Vol. 16, Issue 2 (November) 2010, pp. 72–74.
• Sverrir Schopka: Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke 85 years. In: ISLAND… Vol. 14, Issue 2 (November) 2008, pp. 84–85.

Web links

• Literature by and about Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke in the catalog of the German National Library