Georg Gromsch

Richard Georg Gromsch (born October 11, 1855 in Danzig ; † December 12, 1910 ibid) was a German Imperial Navy - senior civil engineer and port construction director who worked in Tsingtau , Kiel and Danzig .

life and career

Gromsch grew up in Danzig. After attending school, he studied civil engineering . After the two main examinations, he was presumably active as a site manager and then as a government master builder, apparently initially in the Danzig port and shipyard area . From May 1896 at the latest he worked in Wilhelmshaven and from August 1897 at the latest in Kiel . There he was building inspector at the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel under director Georg Franzius . Franzius was in the spring of 1897 after China sent to measure at various locations on the Chinese coast, as fleets support point for the German East Asian Cruiser Division in question came. Franzius had also visited and surveyed the bay of Kiautschou , which a short time later, after the murder of two German missionaries on November 1, 1897, was occupied by a German sailor landing corps on November 14, 1897 . In the subsequent negotiations with the Chinese government , Germany leased an area on the east coast of Kiautschou Bay for 99 years. Under the leadership of the Imperial Navy Office and its State Secretary Tirpitz , Tsingtau was then to be expanded into a naval and trading base, in whose modern port war and ocean-going ships were to dock. In addition, docks for the repair of ships were to be built. Up until then, German naval ships in particular could only be repaired in foreign ports in East Asia . Presumably on the recommendation of Franzius, Tirpitz Gromsch appointed head of the building administration in the governorate in Tsingtau. To this end, Gromsch was subordinate to three departments: 1. Port construction. 2. Civil engineering 3. Building construction . Gromsch arrived in Tsingtau on May 16, 1898. The draft of the Tsingtau construction plan for the Great Harbor with a long northern perimeter wall and two jetties was published on September 2nd and was largely made by Gromsch. Construction began shortly thereafter. On July 29, 1900, Gromsch, meanwhile already a naval construction officer , was appointed director of port construction and in February 1902 he was awarded the IV class of the Red Eagle . On February 12, 1902, Gromsch traveled to Shanghai and from there for four weeks to Hankou , where a quay wall had collapsed and had to be repaired. Gromsch then left China in November 1902 and initially stayed in Sopot near Danzig for some time . Gromsch's successor in Tsingtau was Julius Rollmann . On April 8, 1903, he was appointed to Kiel as a naval construction officer and port builder, but on October 22, 1903, he took up a position as port construction director in Danzig. He was then promoted to the naval construction officer and died on December 12, 1910 after a long illness in Danzig. In the port district of Tsingtau a street was named after Gromsch (in 1923 the street was renamed Baoshan Lu . Today the street no longer exists).

Private

Gromsch was married to Anna Clara Rosalie Nath (born February 9, 1868), the marriage resulted in three sons and a daughter.

Web link and sources

• Wilhelm Matzat: biography Richard Gromsch. In: www.tsingtau.org - History of the Germans in East Asia - 1898 to 1946. Accessed on May 18, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Matzat: The official building management in Tsingtau 1898 to 1914. In: www.tsingtau.org - History of the Germans in East Asia - 1898 to 1946. Retrieved on May 18, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Kiautschou Post. 1st half volume from 1911. p. 16.
3. ^ Wilhelm Matzat: Street names of the city of Tsingtau until 1914 in four transcriptions. In: www.tsingtau.org - History of the Germans in East Asia - 1898 to 1946. Accessed on May 18, 2016 .