Bethel Henry Strousberg

Bethel Henry Strousberg ( born November 20, 1823 in Neidenburg, East Prussia, † May 31, 1884 in Berlin; native / actually Baruch Hirsch Strousberg, Heinrich Barthel Strausberg Germanized ) was a German entrepreneur of the period, which is mainly engaged in railway construction. As befitting residence Strousberg used the 1867/68 of August Orth built Palais Strousberg in Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse.

Life

After the early death of his father in 1835 Strousberg was placed in the care and teaching mastery of his uncle who lives in London and learned in the trading house the commercial profession. Also in London he met the banks and stock exchanges know and earned a reputation as a business professional. The progressive railway in Britain aroused his interest, so he took since the early 1860s plans to build railways in Prussia.

Good contacts with the Prussian government and British financiers gave him in 1862 a first concession for the construction of the East Prussian Southern Railway ( railway line Tilsit - Insterburg ). In the following years, other routes such as Berlin- Görlitz and Hannover- Altenbeken.

A new feature was the practice of Strousberg method of execution and financing of construction projects. He hired a general contractor and thus scattered the risks. The services of the general contractor, however, were not paid in cash but in installments according to progress with shares of the newly established railway company. The founders and investors thus had only a fraction of the actual cost muster and received substantial commissions, partially also profits from the supply of railway equipment or from the sale of land that were needed for railway lines.

Frivolous thing was that the share capital was higher than the actual cost of construction set. The general contractor thus received shares whose par value was higher than the cost of construction. Trading in these shares ballooned the value of the companies artificially.

Strousberg engaged additionally in other projects, such as a newspaper publisher with the newly released 1866 newspaper " The Post"; bought and Others Maschinenfabrik Georg Egestorff in Hanover, operating rolling mills and blast furnaces as well as the then ultra-modern Berlin cattle market. Compared to other entrepreneurs of the era, he was very socially adjusted, paid comparatively good wages and provided additional social benefits. 1868 acquired Strousberg the Miröschau castle in Bohemia, in neighboring Sbirow he was the owner of the castle.

In 1866, Prince Karl Eitel Friedrich of the House of Hohenzollern prince of Romania, Strousberg used his government contacts to bring itself as a company for local rail projects this week. As a result of the former Austro-Prussian contrasts was a Prussian interest to break the Austrian monopoly on the Danube and to establish a traffic route over land. By means of intrigue and bribery received Strousberg in the summer of 1868, the concession for the Romanian railway construction. After its highly successful way to start, however, soon showed technical and financial problems which led partly by a poor quality construction, partly for Baustillstand. Criticism of Strousberg even led to diplomatic complications. Strousberg had to retreat with large financial losses from the business.

From 1867 to 1871 Strousberg was as MP for the constituency of Königsberg 9 ( Olsztyn - Roessel ) member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the Conservative Party

1873 came Strousberg also at the political level under criticism, whose spokesman was the Liberal member of parliament Eduard Lasker. This denounced the funding practices of the founders and made Strousberg for an example of dishonest machinations; his patron, Count Heinrich Friedrich August von Itzenplitz had to resign as minister. The 1873 also occurred founder noise Strousberg survived unscathed. In 1875 he was arrested in St. Petersburg and later charged with inciting a few weeks to credit misdemeanor in Moscow. His company went bankrupt it. In 1876 he was sentenced to deprivation of rights conferred in Russia and expulsion; the re-entry was forbidden.

He spent his final years under economically very cramped quarters in Berlin with failed attempts to build on its previous successes. He died on 31 May 1884 in Berlin after a heart attack. The family tomb in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin -Schöneberg on the east wall, Field J -OE -005 still exists today.

Honors

In 1926 was approved by the Hanoverian city council a cross- road between the Göttingen and the Ricklinger street was named after him. In 1935 she was renamed Kettler road, after the founder of the Federal Statistical Office in Hannover and Lower Saxony home state. Since 1945, she called again " Strousbergstraße ".

Works

  • Lawson's merchant's magazine: statist and commercial review ed by BH Strousberg. 1852-1853
  • Dr. Strousberg and his work by himself portrayed. With a photograph and a railway map. J. Guttentag ( Collin D. ), Berlin 1876 digitized
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