West African Planting Society Victoria
The West African planting company "Victoria" Aktiengesellschaft (WAPV) was the largest planting company in Cameroon during the German colonial rule .
| West African Planting Company "Victoria" Public Company | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | DE0007826000 |
| founding | 01/21/1897 |
| resolution | 07/1998 |
| Reason for dissolution | Bankruptcy proceedings |
| Seat | Butzbach , Hesse |
Company history
The company was founded in 1897 with the participation of the explorer Eugen Zintgraff with a share capital of 2.5 million marks. One of the shareholders was Governor Jesko von Puttkamer , who generously supported the plantation industry in West Cameroon. In 1902 the WAPV took over the Günther plantation in Soppo .
In 1904 the company owned around 20,000 hectares of land, on which mainly cocoa was grown. The plantations were mostly in the settlement areas of the Kpe (Bakwiri), which were pushed back to reservations and used for plantation work. In 1913 the company had 20 European and approx. 2000 African employees.
After the First World War , the WAPV was expropriated. In 1925 she was able to buy back part of the previous property at an auction in London, focused on the cultivation of bananas and introduced tea cultivation in Cameroon. At the beginning of the Second World War it was again expropriated. The administration took over the 1947 founded Cameroons Development Corporation (CDC) with seat in Victoria . However, the corporation persisted and made repeated headlines in stock market reports.
In November 1996, the company's headquarters were relocated from Berlin to Butzbach in Hesse, and the entry was made in the commercial register of the Friedberg District Court under HRB 2707.
After the company went bankrupt, its listing on December 14, 2012 ended . The bankruptcy proceedings are conducted at the Friedberg District Court under file number 61a N 7/98 (old: 5 N 7/98).
Victoria Plantation Lane
In 1910 the company built its own small railway with a 60 cm gauge . The railway was 66 kilometers long and connected the coastal town of Victoria with the Zwingenberger Hof square near the main town of Soppo. In between were the company's plantations. It was therefore primarily used to transport vegetable products, but was also used to a limited extent for passenger transport.
Other means of transport
With the Prinz Udo , built in 1913 , the company also had its own motor boat 14 meters in length.
Individual evidence
- ^ Postcard: Harvesting Cocoa Beans , accessed on March 8, 2012
- ↑ https://www.unternehmensregister.de. Retrieved August 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Hoppenstedt Aktienführer 2016, p. V 31
- ↑ Map of the plantations and the plantation path
- ↑ Victoria Planting Railway , in: Deutsches Koloniallexikon , Vol. III, Leipzig 1920, p. 620.
Web links
- FAZ.net on the bankruptcy proceedings of the parent company AKJ
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the West African Planting Society Victoria in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
literature
- Fred Belser: A century of tea on the Cameroon Mountain . Namibiana Book Depot , Delmenhorst 2004, ISBN 3-936858-03-9 .
- Horst founder : history of the German colonies . 4th improved edition supplemented with a new bibliography. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-8252-1332-3 , ( UTB 1332).