Preussler (glassmaker)

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The Preußler (also: Preusler , Preissler ) were a family of glassmakers that originally came from the Ore Mountains . They worked as glassmakers, glass refiners and glass dealers as well as glass and porcelain painters. Among them were respected iron and steel entrepreneurs who were active in the Ore Mountains, Bohemia , Silesia , the County of Glatz and the Bohemian Forest . They had large forest holdings that they systematically used to expand their businesses.

In the Ore Mountains

  • Marienberger Hütte: The first known glassmaker was Barthol Preußler, who in 1486 had received a glassworks as a fief from the Selva bailiff Claus von Einsiedel zu Preßnitz.
  • The Heidelbach glassworks near Seiffen was in operation until the 18th century. She delivered glasses to the Saxon court cellar.
  • The Jugel glassworks was built in 1571 and has been in operation for over 100 years.

In Bohemia

In Silesia

Christian Benjamin Preußler († 1848), pastel drawing
  • The Weißbachtal glassworks was acquired in 1617 by Wolfgang Preußler, the previous operator of the Witkowitz glassworks, with the permission of the landlord Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch . In 1620 it passed to Wolfgang's son Hans Preussler. After Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch was executed in 1635, his possessions initially fell to Emperor Ferdinand III. In 1644 he renewed the privileges of the Weißbachtalhütte. Hans Preußler, who also put the Witkowitzer Hütte back into operation in 1654, died in 1668 of a stroke on the old customs road from Hinterschreiberhau towards Michelsbaude. There a field stone with the initials "HP" is supposed to remember him. His son Johann Christoph Preußler († 1706) continued to run the Weißbachtalhütte and founded a second glassworks in the immediate vicinity around 1702, which was operated alternately with the Weißbachhütte. His son of the same name ran both huts until 1738 and 1740 respectively. Before his death in 1748, he transferred the huts to his son, who died three years later. The widow of the last smelter of the Weißbachtalhütte, Catharina Preußler, was not allowed to continue operating it due to a lack of wood. Around 1810, Christian Benjamin Preußler, the operator of the Karlstaler Hütte, successfully resumed operations on the Weißbach. Because of his success, the Prussian king awarded him the Order of the Red Eagle . Christian Benjamin Preussler died in 1848 at the age of seventy-two as the last of the Silesian line of the Prussians. As early as 1840 he had handed over the Weißbachtalhütte to his son-in-law Franz Pohl.
  • Karlstaler Hütte: After Catharina Preußler was not allowed to continue running the Weißbachtalhütte due to a lack of wood after the death of her husband, the landlord assigned her to the newly built Karlstaler Hütte, three hours away. She put this into operation in 1754 together with her two sons Karl Christian and Johann Gottlieb. Because of the remote location, which entailed additional costs for the transport of the goods, it had to file for bankruptcy in 1775, which was however averted after the creditors could be satisfied. After Catharina's death in 1783, the eldest son Karl Christian took over the business on his own responsibility, from which it passed to his son Christian Benjamin Preußler in 1805. After the hut burned down in 1808, he rebuilt it. In 1840, eight years before his death, Christian Benjamin Preußler handed over the Karlstaler Hütte to his son-in-law Franz Pohl, who was married to Amalia Preußler.
  • Glashütte Hoffnungstal : Karl Christian Preußler built together with the Schreiberhauer glass dealer Mattern and another shareholder a new hut, under the name "Hope Valley" began operations on January 5, 1796 has been expanded to a grinding mill 1799th Because of the increasing surreptitious trade in Bohemian glass, which was brought illegally and duty-unpaid across the nearby border, there were sales difficulties, but also disputes among the shareholders about what is said to have affected the quality of the glassware. After the death of Karl Christian Preußler, his son Christian Benjamin Preußler took over his share in 1805. After a fire in 1821, the Hope Valley Hut was rebuilt, but without the participation of the Preusslers.
  • Freudenburger Hütte: Hans Georg Preußler, a son of the owner of the Weißbachtalhütte, acquired land in the Waldenburger Bergland in 1661 from the then landlord of Fürstenstein , Count Hochberg, in the village of Ullersdorf, which was completely destroyed by the Thirty Years' War, and which was also known as Olbersdorf. He built a glassworks, which he named after the ruins of Freudenburg Castle, three kilometers to the northwest , and which started work in 1662. A settlement was built around the hut, which was also named Freudenburg after the hut and replaced the previous place names Ullersdorf and Olbersdorf. After Hans Georg Preußler's death in 1691, the Freudenburger Hütte was inherited by his son Christian Preußler, who in 1677 also owned the Schwarzbach glassworks near Meffersdorf , in what was then the Upper Lusatian Queiskreis in the Jizera Mountains . Presumably his son George Friedrich Preußler is proven to be the owner of Freudenburger Hütte in 1722. He sold it in 1750 to the Hochbergsche Herrschaft Fürstenstein, from which it was operated until 1758. After the destruction of the Seven Years' War, the hut was not rebuilt.

County of Glatz

  • The Zeilberg hut near Volpersdorf was built in 1680 by Christian Preußler, who also owned the Schwarzbach hut in the Jizera Mountains and inherited the Freudenburger hut after the death of his father in 1691.

More Preusslers

  • Ignaz Preissler (1676–1741), glass and porcelain painter
  • Christoph and Mathias Preußler, sons of the founder of the Weißbachtalhütte, returned to Bohemia after the death of their father in 1620. In Blottendorf and Langenau they founded a later very successful trade in glassware.
  • Otfried Preußler also comes from a family of glassmakers.

literature

  • Dietmar Zoedler : Silesian glass - Silesian glasses . Würzburg 1996, ISBN 3-87057-208-6
  • Carl Partsch: The Preussler tankard . In: Hans Seger and Erwin Hintze (eds.): Yearbook of the Silesian Museum for Applied Arts and Antiquities (= Silesia's prehistory in pictures and writing. New series). Self-published by the Schlesisches Altertumsverein, represented by Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau 1928, Volume 9, pp. 121–130

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marienberg glass production group. In: Albrecht Kirsche: Cistercians, Glassmakers and Turners - Glassworks in the Ore Mountains and Vogtland and their influence on Seiffen's wood art. Waxmann Verlag GmbH Münster, 2005, p. 68, ISBN 3830915446 ( excerpts as digital copies )
  2. ↑ Hope valley belonged to the Silesian part of the Giant Mountains until 1958. After the transition to Poland in 1945, it was renamed Zieliec . In the course of an exchange area it came to Czechoslovakia in 1958 and has been with the community Kořenov connected
  3. ↑ Hugo Weczerka (Ed.): Handbook of historical sites . Volume: Silesia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 316). Kröner, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-520-31601-3 , p. 104.