Paul Eduard von Schoeller

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Paul Eduard von Schoeller

Sir Paul Eduard von Schoeller (born June 15, 1853 in Vienna ; † November 2, 1920 ibid) was an Austrian coal and steel industrialist .

Life

Paul Eduard von Schoeller came from the Viennese line of the Rhenish entrepreneurial family Schoeller and was the son of the businessman Johann Paul von Schoeller (1808–1882) and his wife Pauline (1812–1877), who was born in Düren , worked in Vienna and was ennobled in 1867. She was also a born Schoeller and daughter of the Düren cloth manufacturer Johann Peter Schoeller (1778-1838), a brother of Leopold Schoeller and thus a distant cousin of Paul Eduard. After studying in Vienna, Leipzig and at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum Zurich , he and his brother Philipp Wilhelm von Schoeller were trained in the various companies of his uncle Alexander von Schoeller . Soon afterwards he was commissioned by the latter to take over and renovate the rolled barley factory he had founded in Ebenfurth near Vienna, the Schoeller'sche steam mill , as it had gotten economic problems as a result of the Hungarian competition. Later, in 1894, he bought the first Viennese roller mill Vonwiller . During his time in Ebenfurth, Schoeller also played a key role in the construction of a new private railway for goods traffic from Ebenfurth to Wittmansdorf with a connection to Leobersdorf , the construction concession of which he personally received on August 15, 1882.

After having worked for the wholesale company Schoeller & Co. in Vienna for a long time , which later became Schoellerbank , Paul Eduard was finally taken over as a partner in 1883. After the death of his uncle Alexander in 1886 and the death of his cousin Gustav Adolph von Schoeller only three years later , he and his brother Philipp Wilhelm became the universal heir to the entire company empire. But since his brother had soon withdrawn more and more from the operational business, Paul Eduard took over the sole management of the company.

Since Schoeller now wanted to concentrate on just one steel company, he sold both his third share in the Berndorfer Metallwarenfabrik and that of his late cousin Gustav Adolph to the third partner Arthur Krupp , who thereby became the sole owner. In return, he received his shares in the Ternitzer Stahl- und Eisenwerke von Schoeller & Co. , whereby the company became family-owned in its entirety. After Gustav Adolph had already started modernization measures in the Ternitz factory in his last years and had also founded an independent core factory for the production of war material, Paul Eduard pushed the expansion forward. He also replaced the previous mechanical use of water power with a modern power plant with turbine drive and swapped the outdated Bessemer process for the new Siemens-Martin process . This enabled his steel grades to establish themselves on the world market and the affiliated projectile factory also became a main supplier of large-caliber grenades and other armaments for the First World War . Under Paul Eduard's leadership, the family business finally reached its greatest economic expansion. His cousin from the Brno line of the family, Richard von Schoeller (1871–1950), he appointed to head the Ternitz main plant, which later, in 1924, succeeded in merging with the Bleckmann steelworks to form Schoeller-Bleckmann steelworks .

In addition to these diverse entrepreneurial tasks in Ternitz, Schoeller took on other managerial positions, mostly in companies that were partly or wholly owned by the family. In 1898, for example, he replaced his brother as President of the Hütteldorfer Bierbrauerei AG , took over the management of the Leipnik-Lundenburger Zuckerproduktionsgesellschaft and the Granthaler Zuckerfabriken AG from his uncle Alexander and, together with his brother, also assumed the duties of a kuk court supplier . In addition, from 1895 to 1919 he was President and then Honorary President of the Stock Exchange for Agricultural Products, from 1902 as a member and from 1909 as President of the Lower Austrian Handels- u. Chamber of Commerce and from 1903 to 1909 the Central Association of Austrian Industrialists . He was also a member of the board of directors of the Austrian Northwest Railway of the Österreichische Bodencreditanstalt and from 1904 of the industrial council in the Ministry of Commerce. As early as 1898 he was one of the 206 founding members of the Austrian Automobile Club and also worked for many years on the study committee of the newly founded Export Academy in Vienna .

In addition, Schoeller represented the interests of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as Consul General in Vienna from 1892 to 1912 . For the services rendered here, he was raised to the British nobility in 1912 as a Knight Bachelor with the title Sir . Furthermore, in 1902, because of his political commitment to the Austrian liberal constitutional party, he was appointed a lifelong member of the manor in the Austrian Reichsrat .

Finally, Schoeller was still a major advocate of both social issues and art. In these areas he was elected president of the lung sanatorium in Alland and worked as curator of the Jubilee Foundation for People's Housing and Welfare Institutions, founded in 1898, and as an art patron from 1903 to 1908 of the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry . In 1907 he was also a co-founder and from 1912 Vice President of the Technical Museum in Vienna . Finally, from 1916 onwards he was elected presbyter of his evangelical community.

In keeping with his upscale social and economic position, Schoeller owned several prestigious residences. In 1894 he first acquired the Račice Castle in Moravia from Baron von Palm, which was expropriated from the family in 1945 on the basis of the Beneš decrees , and around 1905 the baroque Corbelli-Schoeller Palace in Vienna, which he had extensively expanded. During the First World War, Schoeller temporarily made the building available as a hospital. In addition, acquired Schoeller in 1915 by industrialist Andrew Töpper nor the Töpper Castle in Neubruck in Scheibbs which remained family-owned until 1949, also

  • Račice Castle - family property 1894–1945

  • Headquarters Palais Corbelli-Schoeller in Vienna

  • Töpperschloss Neubruck - family property 1915–1949

  • Hunting lodge in Buchau, Styria

For his services, Sir Paul Eduard von Schoeller was honored with the award of the Commander's Cross in 1898 and the Grand Cross of the Franz Joseph Order in 1905 , and was appointed Privy Councilor in 1918 .

After Paul Eduard's death in 1920, due to his childlessness, his cousin Richard von Schoeller became the universal heir to the entire company empire. Another cousin, Robert Schoeller (1873–1950), followed him in the management of Leipnik-Lundenburger Zuckerfabrik AG. In contrast, his nephew and adopted son, Gustav Neufeldt, son of his sister Emma and the Lüdenscheid wholesaler and Norwegian consul in Vienna Karl Neufeldt (* 1838), inherited the Viennese palace and received both the nobility and the name transfer in 1911. Since then, the descendants still living today have called themselves Schoeller-Neufeldt .

Literature and Sources

Web links

Commons : Račice Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry about Töpperschloss Neubruck on Burgen-Austria (family seat from 1915 to 1945)
personal data
SURNAME Schoeller, Paul Eduard von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian coal and steel industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1920
Place of death Vienna