Gottfried Schenker

Gottfried Schenker ( born February 14, 1842 in Däniken in Olten, Switzerland, † November 26, 1901 in Vienna ) was an Austrian entrepreneur and co-founder of Swiss origin of today's freight forwarding company Schenker.

Life

Gottfried Schenker comes from a large family, which was located in Däniken for generations. He only attended the Normal School in Däniken and made at the cantonal school in Aarau the Matura. He then went to Heidelberg and began to study law in 1861. Due to bankruptcy of his father's locksmith operation he broke off his studies in 1865 and took a civil service job with the Swiss Central Railway in Basel.

In 1866 he moved to the private sector for transport companies Braff & F. Eckert, an agency of the French Eastern Railway. There, he was only concerned with the collective nature. In 1867 he was sent to Vienna to attend a grain imports from France, Austria -Hungary and to take over the management of the Vienna branch. Disputes with his superiors and difficulties in the procurement of railway wagons brought him to exhaustion. After a hospital stay, he left the end of 1867, the company and took over in 1868 for the Hamburg shipping company Elkan & Co., the Vienna-based agency. He organized large rail freight, under the principles of efficient and profitablesten exploitation of freight capacities, for example, railway building materials from France via Switzerland to Austria and tobacco and food in the reverse direction. In the meantime, Schenker had become settled in Vienna and married in 1869. During his honeymoon he gave an order to transport, rail carriage parts ' from Switzerland to Romania. This led to become self-employed him to the idea, but he began in 1871 for the express Rappaport & Can work as a collective professional.

At the beginning of 1872, he learned Karpeles Moritz and Moritz Hirsch know, the owner of the forwarding company founded earlier Karpeles and deer. The two were impressed by Schenker, saw great opportunities in international freight transport in Southeast and Western Europe and at sea from Trieste and Fiume to implement his plans. Together they founded on July 1, 1872, Schenker & Co., based on Austro-Hungarian Commercial Court of Vienna and a starting capital of 50,000 guilders. The 20,000 florins brought a Karpeles and Hirsch, 10,000 came from Schenker, who, although he had only a minority interest, 50 percent could skim off the profits.

In Vienna, he taught first groupage freight to different cities within and outside Austria -Hungary one. While he already mainly handled the transport by rail, the respective home pick up and deliver were still carried out by horse and cart. He soon founded branches in many cities such as Budapest, Prague, Belgrade and Istanbul. For mass mailings, he also took the boat trip, for the time being on the Danube.

To 1879/80 established Schenker with majority ownership of the Adriatic Sea Steamship Company and the Adriatic Sea Steamship Company - soon the largest Hungarian shipping company in international seaborne trade: he began to Glasgow with flights from Trieste and Fiume. Soon he erweiterterte the schedule with five ships on lines between Trieste, Fiume, London, Liverpool, Hull and Glasgow. Agreements were concluded in the course of time with Cunard, Thomas Wilson and Clarkson.

The river boat transports on the Danube was an essential part in the freight forwarding business by Schenker. Therefore, it was founded in 1895 with headquarters in Munich, the Süddeutsche Danube Steam Navigation Company. Around the turn of the century had this subsidiary 7 tugs and 36 barges traveling and stores in Regensburg, Vienna and Budapest.

Also in 1895 he co-founded with William Burrell of Burrell & Son and August Schenker - Angerer, his later adopted son and designated successor company, again a shipping company, the Navigation Company Austro-Americana to cover the shipping trade with the United States. Austro-Americana, which had its headquarters in Trieste, was the first cargo shipping line, which established regular lines between the Adriatic and North America. 1913 a branch was opened in New York. But not only in the transport industry saw Schenker a foothold, he also participated in the emerging telecommunications companies, which combined with their overseas leads Europe with America.

In 1896, Schenker Austrian citizen, the same year he adopted its related about his wife Partners August Angerer, now Schenker - Angerer. In his last year, Gottfried Schenker was placed under guardianship due to progressive disease and August took over the management.

Schenker is buried in the cemetery Heiligenstadt. In Vienna Simmering ( 11th district ), the Gottfried Schenker street was named after him.