Theodor Bergmann (entrepreneur)

Theodor Bergmann (born May 21, 1850 in Sailauf ; † March 23, 1931 in Gaggenau ) was a German entrepreneur and inventor .

Life

Theodor Bergmann was born in Spessart as the son of the innkeeper and brewery owner Johann Adam Bergmann. He attended elementary school in Sailauf and the trade school in Aschaffenburg .

Bergmann was co-owner of a stove factory in Konstanz when the entrepreneur Michael Flürscheim brought him to his ironworks in Gaggenau in 1879 , where Bergmann became a partner in 1884. The ironworks expanded their product range to include around 200 products, including household goods, stoves, advertising enamel signs, vending machines , “Badenia” bicycles, air pistols, firearms and handicrafts. When the Eisenwerke went public as a stock corporation in 1888, Flürscheim and Bergmann were paid out with one million gold marks each . Bergmann remained the sole director of the ironworks until the end of 1893, but then resigned because his concept of offering many, often self-invented items on the world market did not yield the return the shareholders had hoped for.

Orient Express built in 1897

Bergmann then founded the Bergmann-Industriewerke in Ottenau in 1894 with its headquarters in Gaggenau and the same product range as before with the ironworks. Automobiles were added from 1895, and 350 of the Orient Express , developed by engineer Joseph Vollmer , were built by 1899. With this, Bergmann founded the Gaggenau automobile production, which continued at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gaggenau . After the unsatisfactory economic success of the Orient Express, the Bergmann-Werke began building small buses. A small car developed by Willy Seck , the Liliput , launched in 1904 , could not achieve the hoped-for status of a “people's automobile” either. The automobile department of the Bergmann-Industriewerke became independent in 1905 under the direction of Georg Wiß as the South German Automobile Factory Gaggenau .

Bergmann continued the remaining business areas until the sale of his industrial plants to Benzwerke in 1924, which had already taken over the automobile plant in 1907. In his factory in Suhl , he devoted himself to the manufacture and improvement of machine and handguns. Because of his services in this branch, the then Saxon court awarded him the honorary title of commercial advisor .

In December 1924, Bergmann acquired Holzindustrie Rotenfels AG from Carl L. Hochberg , an electrically operated wood flour mill with its own hydroelectric power station on the Murg in what is now the Rotenfels district of Gaggenau , which he continued as Theodor Bergmann wood flour factory . With this company he had a total of 1000 HP of hydropower on the Murg, because his Gaggenau industrial plants had already included other hydropower plants in Ottenau and Gaggenau. The power plant branch (department) also included the supply of electricity to households and to the community of Rotenfels, as well as the execution and delivery of electrical installations for local households. After Bergmann's death, the wood flour factory was continued as a new company name by his community of heirs until 1935; the appointed managing director was the son Theodor Emil Bergmann. Under the subsequent ownership of the company by the Margravial-Badische Industrieverwaltung , the product portfolio changed at the beginning of the 1960s from the manufacture of wood flour, which was mainly sold as a filler for Bakelite and thermosetting plastics, to the manufacture of special plastics, thermoplastics based on nylon. In the 1990s, the company became a location for the Specialty Engineered Materials division of PolyOne , where specialty technical plastics are now developed and manufactured.

Immediately before his death, Bergmann sold the Rotenfels power station, which had been planned by the water and mill construction engineer Ludin and which he had expanded to include a switching house in 1927, to Badenwerke. At about the same time as the wood flour factory was in operation, Bergmann also owned a gypsum and lead pit in Lipburg-Badenweiler in Baden. The registered office was identical to that of the wood flour factory in Rotenfels. This company was also continued by the community of heirs until the company was closed.

In Gaggenau, Bergmann is considered to be one of the most important economic pioneers who gave "the impetus for new industries in this city" and, along with Carl Benz , Gottlieb Daimler and Friedrich Lutzmann, is "the fourth pioneer of the German automotive industry" and "also the most important industrial pioneer in Gaggenau" called.

Despite work and prosperity, Theodor Bergmann never lost touch with his hometown. So he came z. B. in 1900 with his Orient Express to Sailauf, two hundred kilometers away, to celebrate his fiftieth birthday with relatives and friends. The city of Gaggenau, where he still lived, made him an honorary citizen in 1920 on the occasion of his 70th birthday . In 1930, at the age of eighty, he visited his hometown for the last time. As with all of his previous visits, Theodor Bergmann lived and celebrated in the Zum Grünen Baum (Päffche) inn , the home of his parents and birthplace. He died on March 23, 1931 and was buried in the family crypt in Gaggenau. A street in Gaggenau is named after him.

See also

• Pistol Bergmann 1894
• MP18 , the first submachine gun used in combat
• MP28
• Miner machine guns

literature

• Willi Echle: Theodor Bergmann 1850–1931. Life and work of a Gaggenau industrial pioneer. 2nd edition, Torzewski, Gaggenau 1979.
• Ferdinand Kraus (foreword), Fred Maier (foreword), Karl Strom (foreword), Gerhard Steigerwald (foreword), Maria Reinhardt, Herta Hubertus, Bruno Eisert, Gottfried Baumann: Sailauf Eichenberg. Pictures from over 100 years of the village past. 2nd revised edition, Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1996, ISBN 3-89570-140-8 .

Web links

Commons : Theodor Bergmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willi Echle: Gaggenau in the past and present. Gaggenau 1968, p. 75.
2. ^ ^{A b c} Landesarchivdirektion Baden-Württemberg, Landkreis Rastatt and Landesmedienzentrum Baden-Württemberg (ed.): District descriptions of the state of Baden-Württemberg - The district of Rastatt. Volume 2, Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7995-1364-7 , p. 60 ff.
3. ↑ Michael Wessel: Willy Seck developed the Gaggenau Volkswagen. Article in the Badischer Tagblatt from January 3, 2013 ( online ).
4. ↑ Oberschultheiß Anton Rindeschwender. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) City of Gaggenau, archived version
5. ↑ A look at Gaggenau's history. ( Memento from August 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )