Poensgen

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Coat of arms of the Poensgen family

Poensgen is the name of an important entrepreneurial family from the Eifel , who have operated iron works in the Schleiden area as Reidemeister since the middle of the 15th century . Some lines moved to Düsseldorf around 1860 and were instrumental in building up the Rhenish iron, steel and pipe industry.

origin

The traditionally Protestant family Poensgen has been closely associated with the ironworking industry in the Eifel region of Schleiden, Gemünd (Schleiden) and Hellenthal since the middle of the 15th century , and in the 19th century developed the originally handcrafted ironworking and hammering industry into a large-scale trade. A branch of the family, which had lived in the Düren area since the 17th century, devoted itself to the textile industry and expanded it into a large-scale manufacture. The name Poensgen is partly traced back to the first name Pontianus , partly to Potentinus (patron saint of the Eifel monastery Steinfeld ). The spelling of the name can be found as Puntzgen, Pöntzgen, Pönsgen or Poensgen. Part of the widely ramified family relocated their iron, steel and pipe works to Düsseldorf between 1860 and 1864 and, thanks to their entrepreneurial achievements, gained particular importance in the development of the city of Düsseldorf into an important location for the coal and steel industry . Today the name Poensgen is still common in the Eifel region, while it has become less common in Düsseldorf.

history

Ancestor of the Poensgen family

Johann Servatius Puntzgen (* around 1410 in the county of Schleiden; † 1490/95), also called "Pontzeler von Göllicke", is considered the progenitor of the Poensgen family and founded the tradition of iron production. He is proven from 1439 to 1445 as "Reidemeister" (operator of a hammer mill) in Göllicke (today's Goé , district of Limbourg / Belgium) near Eupen . In 1464 Dietrich III. Count von Manderscheid was enfeoffed with the castle house "zum Steinhaus" near Schleiden / Eifel and received the right, as a count "Pontzeler", to raise iron interest on the hammer mills of the county of Schleiden. Married relationships with other Eifel Reidemeister families in Kalltal and Schleidener Tal such as Axmacher , Schoeller , Rotscheidt and Hoesch strengthened and expanded the social and economic position of the Poensgen family. When the Eifeler Hütten were statistically recorded under Prussian administration in 1814/15, the Poensgen family was already involved in eight of a total of 33 businesses.

Poensgen in Düsseldorf

Until the middle of the 19th century the traffic situation of the Eifelhütten between Liège and Cologne was favorable, especially since ore and coal could be taken from the local area. When the capacities of the smelters and the absorption capacity of the markets grew with technical progress, the Eifelhütten fell behind because the ore base was no longer sufficient and the coke smelting was an additional transport task. This was all the more disadvantageous because with the advent of the coke oven in the Ruhr area from 1850 onwards, more and more ironworks were built, which quickly found a connection to the expanding railway network.

Poensgen headquarters in Schleiden-Gemünd, Kölner Strasse 57–59

Above all, Albert Poensgen had to experience this. As early as 1845, after careful studies in England, he began to build iron pipes for gas pipes in the Eifel village of Mauel near Gemünd . a. also supplied the first gas lanterns in Düsseldorf. He is considered to be the first tube manufacturer on the mainland. Until then, it was necessary to meet the entire demand for tubes in the technically leading England. After his efforts with the authorities to initiate the construction of a convenient Eifelbahn ("the railway of Mr. Poensgen") failed and he could not find suitable land in Cologne, he decided to relocate his production to Düsseldorf. There his first tubular rolling mill was built in the Oberbilk district in 1860, followed 10 years later in Oberbilk and Lierenfeld by puddling and universal rolling mills .

His older brother Julius Poensgen also came to Düsseldorf a short time later and built a factory for the production of lead pipes, which later became the “Gebr. Poensgen AG ”, a company for laundry machines. Two other Poensgens, the brothers Gustav Poensgen and Rudolf Poensgen , relocated their father Reinhard Poensgen's iron and steel works from Gemünd to Düsseldorf at almost the same time . This is how the Mariahütte and a rolling mill were built in Oberbilk in 1860, with which they primarily supplied Albert Poensgen. Finally, in 1864, another relative, Carl Poensgen , founded his own steelworks in Oberbilk, which worked according to the new English Bessemer method . In addition, with Ludolph Poensgen (1854-1892), another family member from the Eifel came to Düsseldorf, who built a lead rolling mill in Düsseldorf Klein- Eller in 1881 as the first industrial plant in this district, which until its dissolution in 1960, lead sheets, pipes and panels for the booming construction industry.

Thus, six members of the Poensgen family dared to leap from the Eifel to Düsseldorf in the middle of the 19th century and laid an important foundation stone for its future importance as an important iron, steel and tube city.

The next phase in the history of the Düsseldorf branch of the Poensgen family began in 1872 when Albert, Gustav and Rudolf Poensgen transformed their works into a large company, the “ Düsseldorfer Röhren- und Eisenwalzwerke AG ”. Poensgen ”. In 1910 this company was merged with " Phoenix AG for mining and smelting ". Ernst Poensgen , son of Carl Poensgen, who would subsequently become the most important representative of the family in Düsseldorf, joined the company's board of directors. The ring around the main core of the Rhenish-Westphalian industry was closed when a large part of the German iron, steel and mining companies merged into the United Steelworks AG in 1926 . The Phönix Group (share 26%), the Thyssen Group (share 26%), the Rheinische Stahlwerke (share 8.5%) and the Rheinelbe company Deutsch-Luxemburgische Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG , Bochumer Verein and Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG (shares together 39.5%) hold shares. A number of well-known companies such as Hoesch AG , Friedrich Krupp AG , Klöckner-Werke , Gutehoffnungshütte and Mannesmann were left out. The new mining group, consisting of iron, steel and mining companies and headquartered in Düsseldorf, had become one of the largest German companies with around 242,000 employees. Ernst Poensgen was a member of the board of “Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG” since 1926, initially as deputy. Chairman, from 1935 until the end of 1943 as Chairman. Another member of the Poensgen family, Helmuth Poensgen , a grandson of Julius Poensgen, was also a member of the board of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG from 1926 to 1945.

Patronage

The Poensgen family distinguished themselves in Düsseldorf not only through their entrepreneurial achievements, but also through the promotion of art, sport and social institutions as well as taking on public offices. Clara Poensgen (1846–1910), daughter of Albert Poensgen, was the first to set up factory welfare, a household school for female workers and daycare centers and was involved in the women's movement that was beginning at the time. Her husband Carl Poensgen (1838–1921) created a large landscaped park based on the English model in Ratingen near Düsseldorf in 1907 , which is now open to the public as " Poensgenpark " and is an attraction for numerous visitors. Albert Poensgen, who was the first Poensgen to come to Düsseldorf in 1860, is still remembered today in Flingern on "Albertstrasse". It is thanks to another family member, the physician Albert Poensgen , chairman of the “Beautification Association for the City of Düsseldorf”, that in 1905 the popularly known “ fairy tale fountain ” by the French sculptor Max Blondat was built in the Düsseldorf court garden .

Ernst Poensgen was a patron of Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann and helped them build their famous Düsseldorf theater on Kasernenstrasse . Gustav Lindemann was of Jewish descent. Thanks to the help of Ernst Poensgen and other influential friends, he managed to survive the era of National Socialism . Ernst Poensgen founded the "Ernst Poensgen Foundation for the Promotion of Art and Science". For the tennis ladies he donated the “ Poensgen Games ” (counterpart to the “ Medenspiele ”). Numerous sports clubs and facilities in Düsseldorf also go back to the initiative or financial support of Ernst Poensgen, such as the Düsseldorf rowing club , the hockey club Düsseldorfer HC , the ice rink on Brehmstrasse ( Düsseldorfer EG ) and the Rochusclub in Grafenberger Wald (hence the "Ernst-Poensgen-Allee"). He also had one of the largest sports facilities in Düsseldorf built in Lierenfeld , the "Ernst Poensgen Stadium" ( Düsseldorfer SV 04 ).

Gustav Poensgen founded the "Gustav Poensgen Foundation". The “Gustav-Poensgen-Straße” in Düsseldorf still reminds of him today. Kurt Poensgen , brother of Ernst Poensgen and co-owner of the bank “Poensgen, Marx und Co.”, played a key role in founding the Düsseldorf stock exchange . In 1926, Carl-Rudolf Poensgen rendered outstanding services to the " GeSoLei " exhibition for health care, social welfare and physical exercise, which was extremely successful with over 7.5 million visitors , as was Ernst Poensgen, who was the chairman of the "GeSoLei" executive committee. As President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Carl-Rudolf Poensgen resigned after 25 years of presidency in 1933 under pressure from the National Socialists. The “Karl-Rudolf-Straße” in downtown Düsseldorf and the “ C. Rudolf Poensgen-Stiftung e. V. for the promotion of executives ".

Well-known bearers of the family name Poensgen

Gustav and Rudolf Poensgen's gravesite in the north cemetery (Düsseldorf) . There are other graves of the Poensgen family there
Miner statue family grave Oskar Poensgen, Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf (artist: August Kraus )
see also

Web links

Commons : Poensgen family  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Hugo Poensgen (1838–1893), Consul of the Republic of Chile  - sources and full texts
Wikisource: Ernst Poensgen (1844–1873), Consul of the Republic of Peru  - sources and full texts

literature

  • German Gender Book , Volume 123. CA Starke, Glücksburg / Ostsee 1958.
  • Lutz Hatzfeld:  Poensgen. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 567-570 ( digitized version ).
  • Josef Wilden: Five Poensgen are creating a new Düsseldorf . Düsseldorf, 1942
  • Heinrich Kellerter, Ernst Poensgen: The story of the Poensgen family . A. Bagel-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1908
  • Horst Wessel: The entrepreneurs of the Poensgen family in the Eifel and Düsseldorf . In: Moving-Connecting-Shaping, Entrepreneurs from the 17th to the 20th Century , Writings on Rhenish-Westphalian Economic History, Vol. 44. Foundation Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln, Cologne, 2003
  • Lutz Hatzfeld: The beginning of the German tube industry, for the 100th return of the relocation of the Poensgen plants from Mauel to Düsseldorf . In: Tradition, magazine for company history and entrepreneur biography, issue 6, 1960, pp. 241-258.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pontentinus of Steinfeld ( Memento of 22 February 2008 at the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Website of the Rotscheidt family
  3. ↑ Marc Ingel: Lead rolling mill to give way for construction project , in NRZ from August 24, 2018
  4. ^ Bernhard Dietrich: United steel works. Series: Places of German Work , Volume 4. Widder, Berlin 1930
  5. ↑ Branded . In: Die Zeit , No. 34/1977