Wilhelm Felsche

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Wilhelm Felsche

Wilhelm Felsche (born June 15, 1798 in Leipzig ; † December 11, 1867 there ) was a German confectioner , chocolate manufacturer and coffee house founder in Leipzig.

Life

Felsche's father was a pastry chef and master gingerbread maker in Leipzig. After attending the Thomas School he also became a pastry chef. He then worked in Hamburg and Paris . After he returned to Leipzig, in 1821 he opened a “Conditorey-Waren-Handlung” in a vault in the colonnade of the Princely House in Grimmaische Strasse, where he was one of the first in Germany to start producing chocolate. In 1835 Felsche built the later traditional Café français on Augustusplatz , where he wanted to offer the people of Leipzig the luxury of the coffee houses he had got to know in Paris.

In 1841 Felsche relocated the production of the chocolate, which was in high demand, to Reudnitz , which was then still outside Leipzig , and in 1845 he acquired the property next to the Café français for the same purpose. In 1856 his son-in-law Adolph Schütte-Felsche (1832–1908) joined the company, which he inherited together with his wife Johanna after Felsche's death. From 1873 they relocated chocolate production to Gohlis .

Wilhelm Felsche also operated other entrepreneurial activities, such as trading in raw ice. Felsche was also a city ​​councilor in Leipzig. Here he emerged with a social commitment and initiated the establishment of the municipal dining establishment for the needy population. In accordance with his humanistic outlook, he became a member of the Leipzig Freemason Lodge Minerva zu den three Palmen .

In 1862 he was given the title of " Royal Court Supplier ". His motto was “He who doesn't strive, doesn't live!” Wilhelm Felsche's wife, with whom he had seven daughters, died ten years after him.

The consequences

Because of the hostility to France during World War I , the Café français became Café Felsche in 1914, but it remained one of the most popular and elegant coffee houses in the city.

At the "Chocolate Palace"
“Schokoladenkontor” Menckestrasse.

Much more extensive and growing faster than the coffee house business was chocolate production in Gohlis, for which six properties were acquired in Menckestrasse. The factory site was continuously expanded. In 1897 a 26-axis, three-storey, representative administration and sales building was built along Menckestrasse. After further production buildings, the crowning achievement was the angled, four-storey building with a total of thirty-seven window axes and a two-storey mansard roof, which was realized in stages up to 1921.

Felsche in Gohlis, along with Richter in Schleußig and Riquet in Markkleeberg, was one of the three big Leipzig chocolate manufacturers. In 1921, on the 100th anniversary of the establishment, the workforce numbered around 600. Café Felsche was destroyed in World War II, and the Gohlis factory also suffered war damage. After the war, the company was expropriated and initially operated as VEB Felsche, then it was called VEB Goldeck. In the mid-1970s, chocolate was over, and the research department of the VEB Kombinat ORSTA-Hydraulik moved into the area and used it as office and laboratory space.

After it was partially vacant in the 1990s, a private investor acquired the complex in 2003 and built high-quality apartments and lofts into the two buildings mentioned above. The corner building on Poetenweg is now called “Chocolate Palace”, referring to its past, and the one on Menckestrasse is called “Schokoladenkontor”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig A - Z . PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 145
  2. ↑ Chocolate in Germany in the 19th century (accessed on September 30, 2010)
  3. ↑ a b c Susann Buhl: If you don't strive, you don't live! - Wilhelm Felsche's chocolate empire in Gohlis , in Leipziger Blätter No. 45, 2004
  4. ^ Wilhelm Felsche in the Gohlis online district magazine (accessed on November 5, 2010)
  5. ↑ picture of the workforce in 3.
  6. ↑ Chocolate in the GDR (accessed September 30, 2010)
  7. ^ Website of the Schokoladenpalais (accessed September 30, 2010)
personal data
SURNAME Felsche, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leipzig confectioner and chocolate manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1867
Place of death Leipzig