Peter Knecht

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Peter Knecht
The knechtshütte in Winz, today Hattingen

Johann Peter Knecht (born March 3, 1798 at Gut Schlicken near Solingen ; † November 21, 1852 in Solingen) was a German entrepreneur and producer of edged weapons and cutlery .

biography

Peter Knecht came from a long-established Solingen family of merchants and publishers with roots in the cutlery trade . He was the son of the landowner and businessman Peter Wilhelm Knecht (1718-1814) and his wife Anna Christina, née Jürgens. He was baptized Protestant Reformed . The family owned extensive agriculture and forests with hunting grounds and fishing grounds. In 1825 he married Julie Schimmelbusch (1804–1881), daughter of the businessman and factory owner Carl Schimmelbusch (1777–1839), a business competitor, and of Friederike Wilhelmina Halbach auf'm Mangenberg near Solingen. One of her uncle was Carl Joest (1786–1848), a partner in the Schimmelbusch & Joest company, which built a sugar refinery in Cologne in 1831 , later the Rheinischer Aktien-Verein für Zuckerfabrikation (1864), which went up in 1930 in Pfeifer & Langen .

Peter Knecht attended a private school in Solingen, where he was taught, among other things, various foreign languages, "a key qualification" for the cutlery export business. From 1817 to 1818 he did a commercial apprenticeship at the Düsseldorf wool dealer JC Solbrig, where he made his first important contacts with senior officers in the owner's salon. Afterwards he initially continued the arms dealership founded by his father, Peter Wilhelm Knecht Söhne . In 1823 he founded his own company for the manufacture of edged weapons; From 1824 the company had a depot and an agency in Paris . The Knechtsche Waffen- und Quincaillerienfabrik , in which Eduard Edler von Moser from Vienna was involved from 1830 to 1840 , won silver medals of honor at Berlin trade shows (1822, 1827 and 1844).

Within a few years the company took a great boom. However, the July revolution of 1830 impaired business connections to France, Belgium and Holland, so that Knecht was looking for new sales channels on the domestic market and in South America . On business trips at home and abroad, he made the contacts necessary for the arms business. In 1833 the then Prussian Crown Prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , Who owned a valuable collection of blades and promoted the refinement of officers and luxury weapons, descended from Knecht on his journey through the Rhine Province .

With the economic downturn from 1831, the truck system increased in Solingen's small iron industry - the remuneration of employees with goods instead of money - which Peter Knecht "bitterly" fought. One background was the competitive situation between the Solingen products and cheap mass-produced products from England , which is why the Solingen entrepreneurs tried to reduce production costs in this way (imported from England). Knecht was a conservative and a staunch monarchist , but out of a “paternalistic sense of responsibility” he was not only committed to the abolition of the payment of goods, but also, among other things, for the poor and the unemployed, an increase in wages and the creation of trade associations. Under the pseudonym Immerwahr he published the article “Nebelbilder aus Solingen” in the Elberfelder Kreisblatt in 1845/46 , in which he denounced the grievances caused by the payment of goods and which caused a lot of sensation. He also wrote the brochure No More Hunger! , in which he propagated the cultivation of potatoes and called on "the princes" to provide good seeds.

During the March riots in 1848, the workers' displeasure with those paying for goods erupted; Peter Knecht was able to prevent major destruction of factories through his intervention. At the suggestion of the Düsseldorf government councilor Carl Quentin , the “Commission for the Improvement of the Situation of Workers” was formed in Solingen from 17 manufacturers and workers, which Knecht assumed as chairman. The aim of the commission was "to advise the existing disparities and, in particular, to improve the camps of the workers". In 1849 the truck system, against which Knecht had campaigned against the majority of Solingen entrepreneurs for over two decades, was banned by law in Prussia.

Together with the Liège rifle manufacturer Max Lesoinne , and at times also with the Dutch mint director Yman Suermondt ( Utrecht ) and John Cockerill ( Seraing ), Knecht ran a factory in Winz near Hattingen from 1836 , which worked with a Cockerill steam engine (45 hp). However, the quality of the cutlery made there was inferior and could not compete with the English products, and Knecht had taken over financially with this establishment. Schimmelbusch & Joest refused to support Knecht after the death of their father-in-law. In 1839 the "Knechtshütte" was forcibly auctioned off . The financial burdens from this venture meant that Knecht's Solingen company had to be closed shortly after his death.

Peter Knecht held numerous offices: he was a city councilor, deputy member of the Prussian National Assembly , until 1850 a member of the trade court and the chamber of commerce, numerous non-profit societies as well as Masonic lodge master . A friendship with the composer Franz Liszt was based on his membership in the Masonic Lodge .

Peter Knecht House

The Peter Knecht House in Solingen-Dahl

Peter Knecht's house, which is partially under monument protection (No. 933), has been preserved and was in the Solingen Hofschaft Schlicken until 1991 , where it fell into disrepair. Because it was in the street, it was bought by a private person who had it dismantled and rebuilt in the Dahl estate ( relocation ). It was inaugurated in 1993.

A street in downtown Solingen is named after Peter Knecht, where he owned a second house. Peter Knecht's estate is in the Solingen city archive .

The edged weapons manufactured by Peter Knecht, especially the blades made of Damascus steel , are coveted collectors and museum objects around the world.

literature

  • Ralf Rogge: Peter Knecht (1798-1852) . In: Ralf Stremmel / Jürgen Weise (eds.): Bergisch-Märkische entrepreneurs of the early industrialization (=  Rheinisch-Westfälische economic biographies ). tape 18 . Aschendorff, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-402-06754-4 , p. 420-444 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rogge, Peter Knecht , p. 420 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Martin Schumacher: Knecht, Peter. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 12 (1979). Pp. 171–173 , accessed December 27, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Rogge, Peter Knecht , p. 422.
  4. ↑ a b Detlef Vonde: "... that people have to learn something." BoD - Books on Demand, 2012, ISBN 978-3-939-84325-2 , p. 35 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  5. ↑ Peter Knecht. In: solinger-tageblatt.de. September 26, 2014, accessed December 27, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Solingen Chamber of Commerce and Industry: Reflexes. Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-20445-9 , p. 75 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  7. ^ The hut was first bought by Belgian entrepreneurs, then by Ewald Berninghaus , and it was renamed the Berninghaushütte . This resulted in today's company Maschinenfabrik Köppern . See: Sabine Kruse: Origin of Industrialization. In: waz.de. May 3, 2014, accessed December 27, 2018 .
  8. ^ Bagel: Official Gazette for the Düsseldorf administrative region. Bagel, 1850, p. 101 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  9. ↑ Well-known members of our lodge: Johannisloge Prinz von Prussen to the three swords. In: freimaurer-in-solingen.de. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Liszt inspired the people of Solingen in 1843. In: solinger-tageblatt.de. September 23, 2014, accessed December 27, 2018 .
  11. ↑ a b Marina Mutz: Solingen: Dahl. In: zeitspurensuche.de. August 21, 1991. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Marc Strassenburg: BUNDESARCHIV - Central database of bequests. In: nachlassdatenbank.de. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  13. ^ Objects by Peter Knecht. In: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Accessed December 30, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Servant, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and arms dealer
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Schlicken near Solingen
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1852
Place of death Solingen