Stanislaw Biernatzki

Johannes August Stanislaw Biernatzki (born December 28, 1830 in Friedrichstadt , † September 19, 1916 in Hamburg ) was a German businessman and entrepreneur .

Life

Stanislaw Biernatzki was a son of the theologian Johann Christoph Biernatzki and his wife Henriette, nee de Vries. His father died early, which put the family in a precarious position. The bereaved only received a small pension and help from the preacher's widow's coffers. This was not enough to support all family members. Biernatzki's two older sisters moved to live with an aunt in Altona. Two younger sisters grew up in adoptive families. Biernatzki himself lived with two other siblings in their mother's house in Friedrichsberg.

Biernatzki attended school and went to confirmation. His guardian and mother asked him to go to secondary school and study theology. Instead, Biernatzki completed an apprenticeship at the Hamburg manufacturing and banking goods store Krohn & Giebel . Towards the end of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising , in July 1849 he volunteered for the Schleswig-Holstein Army in 1850. He fought in the battle of Idstedt and remained a soldier until the end of the war. Afterwards, he was unable to return to his apprenticeship as it had been assigned elsewhere. So he trained for another two years at the Hamburg retail company Wiesel . He then worked as a traveling salesman for the silk wholesaler AF Marsson.

At the beginning of 1856, Biernatzki quit his job without any financial reserves. From then on he worked as a self-employed commercial agent and borrowed money from private. With that he opened the Stanislaw Biernatzki & Co. agency , which traded in coat fabrics. To set up a business, he needed Hamburg citizenship . He only received this because the Hamburg court president Berkhahn, who had adopted one of his sisters, issued a reference.

Biernatzki did his first successful business with the sale of so-called "leather towels". He bought the goods in the USA, which resulted in contacts that were crucial for his further business with partners in the United States for many years. Biernatzki took an early interest in new types of articles and took the risk of offering them for the first time. The risks resulted from the fact that he basically had to pay for the imported products on delivery. Biernatzki had mixed experiences with this business model: In the 1860s he imported wooden shoe nails, which he successfully resold. In addition, he acquired safety matches known as "Schwedenhölzer" and failed in his efforts to sell them. The very profitable marketing of these articles was only achieved later by another trading company.

At the time of the German War in 1866, Biernatzki's sales declined; Customers remained behind with payments. The entrepreneur therefore ran into economic problems. However, he won 26,000 thalers in the lottery and was thus able to survive the emergency. He then made solid profits from mechanical American products such as kerosene lamps, sewing machines, and chain stitch machines from Willcox & Gibber .

During the civil war , Biernatzki profited from the extremely low rate of the dollar. He imported sewing machines and thus established a relationship with the Lamb Knitting Machine Company . This company had developed the knitting machine in 1866 and granted him the sole rights to import these systems into Europe. The entrepreneur's business with the machines was initially difficult. Due to technical optimizations and modifications, he was later able to successfully introduce them, initially in the German and later in the European market.

Until the First World War , the Lamb knitting machines sold by Biernatzki were considered the standard. However, numerous imitation products led to falling sales. Biernatzki opened the Chemnitz knitting machine factory , initially in Schaffhausen and later in Chemnitz . There he manufactured an optimized form of the Lamb machines and thus also had his own production facility. He later opened another production facility in Nottingham and had milling machines produced in Chemnitz.

While Biernatzki successfully manufactured machines, he failed to market the newly invented taximeter . He had conflicts with the inventor and problems with the authorities responsible for controlling passenger transport. He invested large sums of money, but sold the patent again. The company Westendorp & Pieper later used it for worldwide sales.

From the 1860s, Biernatzki successfully sold roller lawn mowers from America. Until 1914 it held up against competitors with German replicas. On the other hand, he did not have any success selling shoe peg machines that were used to process sole nails. In 1872 the Polytechnic Institute awarded him a gold medal at the Moscow Exhibition. He received this award for bringing inventions to market in Europe.

Voluntary work

In Hamburg, where his company was headquartered, Biernatzki became an honorary officer . He was a member of the city council for several years. For six years he worked as an honorary director of the penitentiary until a post was created for it.

memoirs

In 1915 Biernatzki published his memoir “From the life of a businessman”. In it he presented himself as a proud, German-influenced entrepreneur who, coming from the simplest of backgrounds, had managed to become a respected Hanseatic businessman. The way in which he acted as the prison director shows that he encountered class conceit in an egalitarian manner. Because of his own origins, he obviously treated the poorly placed prisoners with sensitivity and empathy. He approached individual problems in a shirt-sleeved and patriarchal manner. He was rather skeptical about the work of church, state and bureaucracy.

Biernatzki made high demands on the merchant's honesty. He did this not primarily because of the Hanseatic tradition, but because of the bourgeois principles of decency and honor. He pragmatically judged that honesty would last the longest with loans.

family

Biernatzki married Dorothea Maria Louise , née Schmidt , on September 20, 1862 in Altona (* February 22, 1841 in Altona; † June 21, 1917 in Hamburg). Her father Alexander Schmidt was a Hamburg judiciary and married to Louise Antoinette, née Köhler.

The Biernatzki couple had five daughters and six sons, two of whom died shortly after birth. The daughter Elvira (born July 27, 1863 in Hamburg; † 1942) married the entrepreneur Heinrich Kleyer .

literature

• Hartwig Moltzow: Biernatzki, Stanislaw . In: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 43-46.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Biernatzki, Stanislaw . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 43-44.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Hartwig Moltzow: Biernatzki, Stanislaw . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 44.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Hartwig Moltzow: Biernatzki, Stanislaw . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 43.