Wilhelm Anton Riedemann
Wilhelm Anton Riedemann , von Riedemann since 1917 (born December 8, 1832 in Meppen , † January 20, 1920 in Lugano ) was a German businessman, entrepreneur and pioneer of tanker shipping .
biography
Riedemann was the son of the hardware dealer Hermann Heinrich Riedemann (1796–1846) and his wife Anna Maria Deymann (1800–1883), a sister of Matthias Deymann . He grew up in America and after the death of his father the family returned to Germany.
He did an apprenticeship as a businessman and was successful as a representative for paper goods and paints. First he opened a grocer's shop in Geestemünde , then rented two sheds in Geestemünde and now also traded in petroleum. On February 1, 1863, Riedemann founded an agency, debt collection and forwarding business in Bremen - Lehe .
Forwarder and shipowner in Geestemünde
Riedemann came into contact with the Bremen oil merchants Franz Ernst Schütte (1836–1911) and Carl Schütte (1839–1917) and worked with the heirs of the Albert Nicolaus Schütte & Sons company. He participated as a freight forwarder in the oil business. He also founded a shipping company . After the expansion of the Geestemünder port (around 1877), he also participated in the expansion of the Hamburg petroleum port.
Construction of the first tanker (1885)
Since leakage losses of up to 30 percent occurred when transporting petroleum in the wooden barrels customary at the time, Riedemann had the full ship Andromeda converted into the first tanker at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in 1885. In 1885 he built the first petroleum tank in Germany. In Newcastle upon Tyne he had the world's first tanker steamer built, which Glückauf mockingly called Fliegauf because of the risk of explosion . It was 97 meters long, could load around 3,000 tons of oil and set out on its first voyage from Hamburg to the United States on July 13, 1886 .
In 1884 Riedemann built his large palace on Borriesstrasse in the Prussian town of Geestemünde , which was later inhabited by his sister and was then the seat of the Masonic lodge, Zum Rechtsweisenden Compaß . In 1885 he was appointed to the Prussian Council of Commerce . In 1891 he moved into a villa built by Martin Haller on Alsterufer 27, today's American Consulate General in Hamburg .
Foundation of the German-American Petroleum Society (1890)
In 1890 Riedemann was together with Franz and Carl Schütte and the Standard Oil Company of the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller co-founder of the German-American Petroleum Society (DAPG) based in Hamburg (since 1950 Esso ). His shipping company, the DAPG shipping company, moved its headquarters from Bremen to Hamburg in 1892. In 1928 this shipping company was renamed Waried Tankschiff Rhederei . In 1904 the American partners gained decisive influence over the German-American Petroleum Company.
Transporting it in tankers reduced the price of petroleum by 50 percent. When the First World War broke out , the companies in which he was involved had the largest fleet of tankers in the world.
Confessing Catholic
Riedemann's social and business advancement was hampered by the fact that he invested a lot of time in his view as an avowed Catholic. Throughout his life he was connected to his Emsland homeland, and was often in Meppen and Haselünne - the birthplace of his wife Sophie Bödiker (1845–1921) - where he often met her influential brother, the director of the Reich Insurance Office , Anton Bödiker , known as Tonio. Riedemann gave a lot of money for charitable purposes in Meppen and Haselünne, but he also made donations to the Catholic Church and its institutions in Geestemünde and Hamburg. In Hamburg-Barmbek-Süd he founded the St. Sophien Church , whose patronage was chosen after the name of his wife. Due to his generous financial help, Riedemann became an honorary citizen of Meppen and Haselünne in 1912. Since Catholics did not really settle in Protestant Hamburg, the family moved to Lugano in Switzerland shortly before the end of the war .
After the death of his 19-year-old daughter Sophie, Riedemann had the Riedemann mausoleum built in Hamburg in 1905 in the Ohlsdorf cemetery opposite Chapel 8 , which was cleared in 1950.
Honors
- 1885: Appointment to the Prussian Kommerzienrat
- 1917: Hereditary Prussian nobility with the predicate of Riedemann
- Honorary citizens of Meppen and Haselünne
- A street was named after him in his hometown Meppen.
- In Bremen, near the oil port, a street was named after him.
- In Bremerhaven, near the fishing port, a street was named after him.
- In Berlin-Charlottenburg-Nord , a street was named after him in which a petroleum factory and tank farm had been set up on the canal bank since 1896.
literature
- Christof Haverkamp: Riedemann, Wilhelm Anton von . In: Studiengesellschaft für Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (Ed.): Emsländische Geschichte , Vol. 9 (2001), pp. 261–264, ISSN 0947-8582 .
- Ernst Hieke (Ed.): Wilhelm Anton Riedemann. Beginning and rise of the German petroleum trade in Geestemünde and Hamburg (1860–1894) (publications by the Research Center for Economic History; Vol. 26). Hanseatic Merkur, Hamburg 1963.
- Jens Marheinecke: An orphan becomes a petroleum king. The life path of Wilhelm Anton Riedemann . CBK-Productions, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-932053-08-7 .
- Jens Marheinecke, Helmut Schoenfeld: The petroleum king and his mausoleum . Support group Ohlsdorfer Friedhof, Hamburg 1994.
- Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
- Wolfhard Weber: Riedemann, Wilhelm Anton von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 568 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- Riedemann memorial plaque
- Guided tour of the "Riedemann mausoleum" at the Ohlsdorf cemetery.
- Mausoleum Riedemann (photos, floor plan, text)
- Youtube film about the interior of the mausoleum
Individual evidence
- ↑ Riedemanns Privatweg etc .. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Riedemann, Wilhelm Anton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German businessman, entrepreneur and pioneer of tanker shipping |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1832 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Meppen |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 20, 1920 |
| Place of death | Lugano |