Noguchi Shitagau

Noguchi Shitagau

The Supung Dam (called Sui-ho Dam at the time) on the Yalu, which is currently under construction

Hungnam plant of Chōsen Chisso Hiryō (nitrogen fertilizer Korea) in 1927

Noguchi Shitagau ( Japanese 野 口 遵 ; born July 26, 1873 in Kanazawa , Ishikawa Prefecture , Japan; † January 15, 1944 ) was a Japanese industrial pioneer who founded numerous companies and was also heavily involved in Korea and Manchukuo . The industrial conglomerate Nitchitsu ( 日 窒 コ ン ツ ェ ル ン Nichitsu-kontserun , "Nitchitsu Group") built up by him was broken up by the Allied High Command after the Second World War . Among the successor companies are well-known names such as Chisso , Asahi Kasei , Sekisui Chemical ( Sekisui Kagaku Kōgyō ) and Shin-Etsu Chemical ( Shinetsu Kagaku Kōgyō ).

Life

Noguchi comes from an impoverished former samurai family in Kanazawa . He studied electrical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University . After completing his studies, he was hired by the Koriyama Dentō ( 郡山 電灯 ) company as chief engineer in 1896 , but in 1898 he switched to the Japanese subsidiary of Siemens and Halske, where he was active in carbide research. In 1903 he set up the first Japanese production facility for calcium carbide in Sendai . Three years later, the German chemist Adolph Frank and his German-Polish colleague Nicodem Caro announced their new process for the production of calcium cyanamide . Noguchi realized that this method was also suitable for the production of calcium carbide, went to Germany and, with the support of an acquaintance at Siemens, obtained the rights to use the patent in Japan. In doing so, he outstripped much larger and already well-known companies such as Mitsui and Furukawa .

In 1906 he founded the Sogi Denki hydropower plant ( 曽 木 „ 気 ," Sogi electricity ") in Kagoshima Prefecture . With the excess capacity he supplied a company he founded in Minamata ( Kumamoto Prefecture ) in 1907 Nihon Carbide Shōkai ( 日本 カ ー バ ündete ド 商会 Nihon Kābaido Shōkai ). In 1908, with the support of Mitsubishi, he combined both companies to form the company Nippon Chisso Hiryō ( 日本 窒 素 素 "nitrogen fertilizer Japan"), or Nichitsu for short , which became the core of one of the large Japanese corporations ( Zaibatsu ).

In 1914, Noguchi founded the Hiroshima Dentō ( 広 島 電灯 , "Hiroshima Electricity Plant") to develop the rich water resources of the Chūgoku region . The company Chūgoku Denryoku ( 中国 電力 , English Chūgoku Electric Power ), which today has the quasi-supply monopoly for the central Japanese area, goes back to this company.

In 1921 Noguchi acquired the patent for synthetic ammonium from the Italian chemist Luigi Casale (1882–1927) and built the world's first ammonium production facility after Casale in Nobeoka ( Miyazaki prefecture ). This gave it a dominant position in the ammonium sulfate market .

In 1924 he decided to commit to Korea, which had been completely annexed by Japan under the name Chosen since 1910 . Here he founded in 1925, with the support of the Japanese General Government, the Chōsen Suiryoku Denki ( 朝鮮 水力 電 気 , "Hydroelectric Power Plant Korea"), which built huge plants especially in the north of the peninsula. In May 1927 the company Chōsen Chisso Hiryō ( 朝鮮 窒 素 肥料 , "Nitrogen Fertilizer Korea"), which in addition to mineral fertilizers also produces explosives, soda and the like. a. m. manufactured.

In 1929 he acquired the rights of use for their artificial silk process from the German JP Bemberg AG and founded the Japan Bemberg company (today Asahi Kasei Corporation).

In 1937, Noguchi's 12 power plants on the Korean peninsula generated a total of 870,000 kWh. In 1939, 34 percent of industrial production in Korea was made by companies of the Nichitsu Group. In the following year, however, Noguchi suffered in Seoul (then called Keijō or Gyeongseong) a cerebral haemorrhage, after which he withdrew more and more from active management.

In 1941, with 5 billion yen from his personal fortune, he set up the Korean Scholarship Foundation to serve Korean students in Japan. In the same year he donated 25 million yen to the Noguchi Institute to promote science . Both the foundation and the research institute still exist today in a modified form. In 1941 Noguchi received the Order of the Sacred Treasure First Class ( 瑞宝 章 Zuihōshō ). He died in 1944 at the age of 72.

Individual successor companies such as Asahi Kasei in Nobeoka still supply themselves with electricity from the company's own power plants. While the entire western part of Japan works with 60 Hertz, the company's own electricity still has 50 Hertz, as Noguchi introduced at the time due to his contacts with Germany.

literature

• Chūgoku chihō denki jigyōshi (Electricity Company in the Chūgoku Region). Chūgoku Denryoku, 1974 ( 『中国 地方 電 気 事業 史』 )
• Hiroyuki Odagiri, Akira Goto: Technology and industrial development in Japan: building capabilities by learning, innovation, and public policy . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1996.
• Toru Takenaka: Siemens in Japan. From the opening of the country to the First World War . Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, (translation and introduction by Wieland Wagner), ISBN 3-515-06462-1 ( 竹 中 亨 『ジ ー メ ン ス と 明治 日本』 東海 大学 出版 会, 1991 )
• Masaru Udagawa: Nihon o ken'in shita kontserun (corporations that advanced Japan). Fuyōshobō, Tōkyō 2010. ( 宇 田川勝 『日本 を 牽引 し た コ ン ツ ェ ル ン』 芙蓉 書房 出版 ) ISBN 978-4-8295-0486-4 .

Web links

• The Noguchi Institute
• Korean Scholarship Foundation (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ More on Siemens in Japan at Takenaka (1996).
2. ↑ Odagiri / Goto (1996), p. 78.
3. ↑ The hydropower plant on the Bujeon Gang (200,000 kW) was soon followed by others on the Chongchon Gang and (330,000 kW) Heocheon Gang (340,000 kW) as well as the Sup'ung plant (700,000 kW) on the Yalu .
4. ↑ Odagiri / Goto (1996), p. 79.
5. ↑ Odagiri / Goto (1996), p. 79.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Noguchi is the family name, Shitagau the first name.