Bethel Henry Strousberg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bethel Henry Strousberg
Bethel Henry Strousberg,c.1860
Born
Baruch Hirsch Strausberg

(1823-11-20)20 November 1823
Neidenburg,Prussia
Died31 May 1884(1884-05-31)(aged 60)
Berlin,Germany
NationalityGermany
Other namesBarthel Heinrich Strousberg
OccupationIndustrialist
Spouse
Mary Ann Swan
​
(m.1845)​

Bethel Henry Strousberg(20 November 1823 – 31 May 1884) was aGerman Jewishindustrialistand railwayentrepreneurduringGermany's rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century. He cemented his social standing with the construction of thePalais StrousberginBerlin'sWilhelmstrasse,built in 1867–1868 according to plans designed byAugust Orth,which later became the seat of theBritish Embassy.

Life[edit]

Baruch Hirsch Strausberg was born atNeidenburg(present-day Nidzica, Poland) in theProvince of East Prussia,he changed his first names toBarthel Heinrichwhilst attending theGymnasium(Secondary School) inKönigsberg.After the early death of his father, he moved toLondonin September 1839, where he initially lived with his mother's brother Peter Gottheimer, who jointly owned a fancy goods business with his brother Lesser. A third brother, Berton Gottheimer, was also in London in the same business. Strousberg anglicized his name to Bethel Henry and converted to Christianity. On 13 March 1845, he married Mary Ann Swan atSt Bride's ChurchinFleet Street.

In July 1847, Strousberg was working as an agent for several building societies and entrusted to handle member's payments. For some reason, he took an amount of money and booked a passage to America, but was found out when the steamer had to return toSouthamptonhaving loaded the wrong grade of coal. Strousberg was tried, found guilty, and served six months imprisonment with hard labour. A year after his release, the Strousberg's first son, Bethel Henry Jun., was born; and in January 1849, the three of them travelled to the USA returning in April 1850. Their second son Arthur was born in the autumn of that year. By 1854, Strousberg had become a successful publisher and journalist and was also a manager of an insurance company. Socially he was a Fellow of theRoyal Geographical Society.

Strousberg and his family, painting byLudwig Knaus,1870

By the early 1860s, he had gone back to Germany and embarked on a second career as a railway entrepreneur and industrialist. With good contacts to thePrussianstate government and backed by British financiers, he acquired the licence to build the East Prussian Southern Railway line fromTilsittoInsterburgin 1862, followed by theBerlin–Görlitz railwayline opened in 1866/1867. He also founded theHanover-Altenbeken Railwayand theHalle-Sorau-Guben Railwaycompanies in 1868. Strousberg engagedgeneral contractorsresponsible for the construction of the railway lines, whom he paid with block of shares in instalments according to the building progress. He himself had to raise less capital while Strousberg's stockholders initially generated high profits, however, the nominal value of the shares reached dubious heights with regard to the actual costs of constructing. In 1868, he also purchased the iron foundry and engineering works of Georg Egestorff inHanover,predecessor ofHanomag,and operated the Berlin cattle market.

Strousberg was generally known as a fair and caring employer. From 1867 to 1871, he was a member of theNorth GermanReichstagfor the constituency Königsberg 9, also includingAllensteinandRössel.[1]Though a member of the PrussianConservative Party,he did not join any faction in the Reichstag.[2]In 1868, he acquired the castle ofMirošov(Miröschau) and the fiefdom ofZbiroh(Sbirow) inBohemia.August Orth, engaged to build his Berlin city palace, was Strousberg's favoured architect and was also responsible for theGörlitzer Bahnhofentrance building and the renovation work at Zbiroh Castle. The castle is now an hotel and conference venue with guided tours of the restored building.[3]

His business empire began a terminal decline during theFranco-Prussian War(1870–1871). Strousberg suffered a first setback after he reached a licence by theHohenzollernprinceKarl Eitel Friedrich,ruler of the RomanianUnited Principalitiesas Carol I since 1866, for another railway project bypassing the navigation on theDanuberiver largely controlled byAustria.The settlement with the Romanian government turned out to be ruinous, as Strousberg, due to several technical and financial difficulties, was not able to fulfil the railway contracts. He had to withdraw from Romania with major losses and was forced into liquidation in 1872.

His political opponents, led by the National LiberalEduard Lasker,openly denounced his financing methods and his ties with the state government, enforcing the Prussian trade minister Count Itzenplitz to resign in 1873. Though Strousberg came out of thePanic of 1873unscathed, he was declared bankrupt in 1875, withAdolph von HansemannandGerson von Bleichrödersnapping up the majority of his railways for fractions of their worth.[4]After having fled toSaint Petersburg,he had to stand trial inRussiafor alleged fraudulent transactions with the cashing of due bills and granting of credits in 1876. He was deported and returned to Berlin, dividing his time between London and the manor of his son-in-law inBromberg,whilst attempting his social rehabilitation with various projects and writing his memoirs.[5]

Strousberg family plot

Strousberg died of a heart attack in Berlin, in hard economic circumstances. His mausoleum is preserved on the Protestant Old St. Matthew's Cemetery in theSchönebergdistrict of Berlin.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Der europäische Eisenbahnkönig Bethel Henry Strousberg, Joachim Borchart, C.H. Beck, Munich 1991,ISBN3-406-35297-9
  • Der Eisenbahnkönig Bethel Henry Strousberg, Manfred Ohlsen, Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1987,ISBN3-373-00003-3
  • Der Eisenbahnkönig, oder, Rumänien lag in Linden: Materialien zur Sozialgeschichte des Arbeiterwohnungsbaus, Wolfgang Voigt, AG SPAK, München SPAK, 1982,ISBN3-923126-15-8
  • Hanomag Lokomotiven, Lothar Spielhoff, Podszun Motorbücher, Berlin 2004,ISBN3-86133-352-X
  • Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, Christopher Clark, Allen Lane, London,ISBN0-7139-9466-5
  • Aufstieg und Fall des "Eisenbahnkönigs" Bethel Henry Strousberg (Nº 5 in the series Miniaturen zur Geschichte, Kultur und Denkmalpflege Berlins), Horst Mauter, Interessengemeischaft für Denkmalpflege, Kultur und Geschichte der Hauptstadt Berlin, Kulturbund der DDR, Berlin 1981
  • The Amazing Dr. Strousberg, Richard Hunt, 2009,ISBN978-0-9561604-0-9

References[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBethel Henry Strousberg.
  1. ^Reichstag des Norddeutschen Bundes 1867-1870. Historische Photographien und biographisches Handbuch,Bernd Haunfelder and Klaus Erich Pollmann (compil.), Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1989, (=Photodokumente zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien; vol. 2), photo p. 323, short biography p. 475.ISBN3-7700-5151-3
  2. ^Fritz Specht and Paul Schwabe,Die Reichstagswahlen von 1867 bis 1903. Eine Statistik der Reichstagswahlen nebst den Programmen der Parteien und einem Verzeichnis der gewählten Abgeordneten,2nd ed., Berlin: Carl Heymann, 1904, p. 6. No ISBN.
  3. ^"Zámek Zbiroh » Welcome to the Castle of Zbiroh".Archived fromthe originalon 4 May 2010.Retrieved14 April2010.
  4. ^Roth, Ralf & al.The city and the railway in Europe.Ashgate Publishing, 2003. Accessed 9 Sept 2010.
  5. ^Singer, Isidore;et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Strousberg, Bethel Henry (Baruch Hirsch)".The Jewish Encyclopedia.New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bethel_Henry_Strousberg&oldid=1213344658"