Rudolf Ernst Weise

Bust of Rudolf Ernst Weise on his grave

The tomb of the Weise family on Halle's Stadtgottesacker

Rudolf Ernst way (* 31 December 1844 in Holleben ; † 5. August 1935 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German mechanical engineering - entrepreneurs . Weise was co-founder and owner of the mechanical engineering company Weise & Monski , which was one of the largest private employers in the city of Halle.

Life

Family and education

Weise was born as the second son of the farmer Eduard Weise. After attending the village school, he was able to go to the Latina of the Francke Foundations in Halle with the support of the village pastor and with the help of a scholarship . He later completed an apprenticeship with a master locksmith, but also attended the trade school in Halle. He began studying at the Hanover Polytechnic , which he soon had to finish due to his parents' financial difficulties.

Professional background

In 1864, Weise received a job at the Buckau machine factory near Magdeburg and at Neuman & Esser in Aachen . For a short time he toured Belgium . In 1865, Weise completed his military service and experienced the German War in Bohemia a year later . During the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3, 1866, he was seriously wounded and only narrowly escaped the amputation of his right arm. In 1867, Weise was employed as a designer at Albert Dehne's iron foundry, machine and fittings factory in Halle. In 1869 he became chief designer at the Halle company Riedel & Kemnitz. To mobilize for the Franco-German War in 1870 , Weise was declared indispensable and released from military service.

At the end of January 1872 he went into business for himself and founded the company Weise & Monski together with Alexander Monski (1840–1912). Monski already owned an iron foundry , so its own machines could be manufactured cheaply. Weise acquired a plot of land at the main train station in Halle, on which an office building and the first production facilities, machine and assembly halls, a storage room for models, cast and auxiliary parts, as well as a boiler and machine house were built. The company initially manufactured heating systems, filter presses, machine tools, machines for sugar factories, brick making machines, steam engines, but also steam locomotives and pumps. Thanks to numerous improvements and the excellent quality of its products, the company quickly acquired a good reputation and was soon one of the most important industrial companies in German mechanical engineering. As early as 1876 he parted ways with Alexander Monski, who took over the iron foundry again, but the well-established company was retained.

In conjunction with Carl Adolf Riebeck , a major mining entrepreneur, the company now primarily manufactured pumps for mining operations. Later the pumps were supplied to French and Belgian mines, the Russian and Romanian oil industries, for waterworks in Greece, and even to India and China. Since 1882 he sat on the main board of the Association of German Iron and Steel Industrialists , of which Weise was made an honorary member. The company was awarded a silver medal at an industrial exhibition in Antwerp in 1885 .

Since the previous production site no longer met the requirements, Weise expanded the plant elsewhere, on Merseburger Strasse. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 , Weise & Monski exhibited in its own pavilion. Instead of the piston pumps previously used , Rudolf Ernst Weise got to know the centrifugal pump for the first time , but did not believe in its success. Nevertheless, a little later he also included this design in his product range, which was mainly due to his eldest son Felix, who recognized its potential. The company now had branches in Germany and abroad, including in Berlin , Hamburg , Dortmund , Düsseldorf , Gleiwitz as well as in Moscow , Baku , Brussels , Bilbao and Paris .

Before the First World War , the plant had around 1,000 employees. Between 1912 and 1914, further branches were founded at home and abroad. B. in St. Petersburg , Vladivostok , Riga , Cairo , Bombay , Surabaya , Mexico City as well as in South America and China, most of which were lost as a result of the First World War. Despite great losses during the Great Depression in 1929, the company was able to recover.

Weise founded numerous social institutions for his workforce, including savings institutions and a pension fund, but also let them take advantage of light and therapeutic baths, radiation and Kneipp cures . For the employees and workers, he created an allotment garden with allotments, a works library, an open-air stage, music associations, a guitar club, a stadium and a home for athletes. Rudolf Ernst Weise died on August 5, 1935 at the age of 90 in Halle. He was buried in Halle's Stadtgottesacker . His impressive tomb is located in the inner field of Department II. In his honor, a street in Halle was named Rudolf-Ernst-Weise-Straße in 1914. In 1961 it was renamed for political reasons, but this was reversed in 1995.

Villa Weise in Halle, Händelstrasse 16

Main entrance to the building

Marriage and offspring

Rudolf Ernst Weise was married to Martha Henriette Weise (born July 26, 1856 in Halle; † February 16, 1926 in Halle) since 1875. His wife was a distant relative on his father's side. Her father was co-owner of the Halle mill products wholesaler, Weise & Pfaffe. The marriage had three children, two sons and a daughter.

The only daughter Elisa became a painter. The two sons Felix and Erich Weise initially worked in their father's company. On January 1, 1914, the subsidiary Weise Sons was founded with headquarters in Halle. The sons Felix and Erich, who mainly produced centrifugal pumps, separated themselves from the parent company. In the 1920s, the production and sales of the sons outstripped the parent company. Only after the death of their father in 1935 did the sons receive the right of disposal over the parent company and its production facilities.

The company, which had hardly any losses during the Second World War , was dismantled by Soviet troops in August 1945 and the family was expropriated . Erich Weise and his grandson Ruprecht Weise continued to run the company in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Halle companies were merged with the Halle pump works and are now part of KSB Aktiengesellschaft .

Villa way

After the wedding, the wise men first lived on Königstrasse. Ten years later they moved into their own large house on Landwehrstrasse. By 1896, Rudolf Ernst Weise had a representative villa built on the property at Handelstrasse 16. The historicist- style building stands on a large plot of land for inner-city conditions and was designed by the Berlin architect Hans Grisebach .

The house, a two- to three-storey plastered building, has numerous different bay windows, turrets and gables, which gives the building a castle-like appearance. The reception and representation rooms were on the ground floor, the private rooms and bedrooms on the upper floor. The building is a listed building and has been included in the monument register of the city of Halle.

literature

• Ralf Jacob : resting place of important personalities of the German intellectual and economic history. In: City of Halle (Saale), The Lord Mayor (Ed.): The Halle city godsack. Unique cemetery complex from the German Renaissance. Hall 2003, page 27. ( digitized version )
• Ralf Jacob: 125 years of pump works in Halle. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , Halle edition, February 1, 1997.

Web links

• Famous Halle residents: Weise, Rudolf Ernst In: www.halle.de
• Juliane Graichen: Rudolf Ernst Weise honored . In: www.buergerstiftung-halle.de