Leopold Koppel
Encyclopedia
Geheimrat Leopold Koppel (20 October 1843 in Dresden
– 29 August 1933 in Berlin
) was a German
banker and entrepreneur
. He founded the private banking house Koppel und Co., the industrial firms Auergesellschaft and OSRAM, and the philanthropic foundation the Koppel-Stiftung. He was a Senator in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. An endowment he made in 1911 resulted in the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, and endowments from him led to the founding of and support of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik. He was a target of the Third Reich’s policy of Arisierung – the Aryanization of German businesses, which began in 1933.
of Commerce), or, in short, Geheimrat
.
In 1890, Koppel opened his private banking house Koppel und Co.
In 1892, with the Austria
n chemist
and inventor Carl Auer von Welsbach
, Koppel founded the Deutsche Gasglühlichtgesellschaft-Aktiengesellschaft (Degea or DGA, German Gas Light Company), the forerunner of Auergesellschaft
. Koppel was the controlling owner. In 1906, DGA developed the OSRAM light bulb; its name was formed from the German words OSmium, for the element osmium
, and WolfRAM, for the element tungsten
. As the owner of the OSRAM trademark, Koppel separated the light bulb manufacturing from DGA in 1918, forming the OSRAM Werke GmbH, after which the new company was converted into a Kommanditgesellschaft (limited partnership), with DGA as the limited partner. Since Koppel was the majority shareholder in DGA, he thus became the chief partner in the new company. In February 1920, DGA merged its light bulb manufacturing with that of Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG
) and Siemens & Halske
and they became limited partners under OSRAM G.m.b.H. KG; the start of the business year was dated retroactively to 1 July 1919. Koppel (DGA) owned 20% of the OSRAM G.m.b.H. KG stock, and the other two companies each owned 40%.
In 1905, Koppel established the Koppel-Stiftung zur Förderung der geistigen Beziehungen Deutschlands zum Ausland (Koppel Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Relations Abroad). Through this foundation, he promoted German scientific research and development, which in turn benefited German industry and manufacturing.
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft
(KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society) was founded in 1911 to promote the sciences in Germany, especially by establishing research institutions under its umbrella; after World War II
, the organization was renamed the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, in honor of Max Planck
. That same year, the Koppel-Stiftung contributed an endowment of 1 million Marks
towards the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry) in Berlin-Dahlem
. The endowment was given with Koppel’s condition that its director be the Jewish chemist and Nobel Laureate
Fritz Haber
; Haber was director from then until 1933; after World War II, the Institute was renamed the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
From 1913, the Koppel-Stiftung donated money for the salary of Albert Einstein
at the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften
(Prussian Academy of Sciences) so that Einstein would not be required to teach and be able to focus his attention on theoretical research. This supplemental salary was continued for 13 years, and it was instrumental in the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics).
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft had a Senat (Senate, i.e., supervisory board) composed of members from fields including finance, industry, science, and politics. Koppel was a Senator of the KWG from 1921 to 1933.
When Adolf Hitler
came to power in 1933, the Third Reich
initiated Arisierung, a policy of Aryanization of German businesses. As a consequence of this, Koppel was forced to divest himself of Auergesellschaft and his banking house. The German corporation Degussa took control of Auergesellschaft in 1934; Degussa was a large chemical company with extensive experience in the production of metals.
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
– 29 August 1933 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
banker and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
. He founded the private banking house Koppel und Co., the industrial firms Auergesellschaft and OSRAM, and the philanthropic foundation the Koppel-Stiftung. He was a Senator in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. An endowment he made in 1911 resulted in the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, and endowments from him led to the founding of and support of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik. He was a target of the Third Reich’s policy of Arisierung – the Aryanization of German businesses, which began in 1933.
Career
Koppel was a Jewish banker and entrepreneur. In recognition of his contributions to German commerce, he was given the title Geheimer Kommerzienrat (Privy CouncillorPrivy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
of Commerce), or, in short, Geheimrat
Geheimrat
Geheimrat was the title of the highest advising officials at the Imperial, royal or principal courts of the Holy Roman Empire, who jointly formed the Geheimer Rat reporting to the ruler...
.
In 1890, Koppel opened his private banking house Koppel und Co.
In 1892, with the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and inventor Carl Auer von Welsbach
Carl Auer von Welsbach
Carl Auer Freiherr von Welsbach was an Austrian scientist and inventor who had a talent for not only discovering advances, but turning them into commercially successful products...
, Koppel founded the Deutsche Gasglühlichtgesellschaft-Aktiengesellschaft (Degea or DGA, German Gas Light Company), the forerunner of Auergesellschaft
Auergesellschaft
The industrial firm Auergesellschaft was founded in 1892 with headquarters in Berlin. Up to the end of World War II, Auergesellschaft had research activities in the areas of gas mantles, luminescence, rare earths, radioactivity, and uranium and thorium compounds. In 1934, the corporation was...
. Koppel was the controlling owner. In 1906, DGA developed the OSRAM light bulb; its name was formed from the German words OSmium, for the element osmium
Osmium
Osmium is a chemical element with the symbol Os and atomic number 76. Osmium is a hard, brittle, blue-gray or blue-blacktransition metal in the platinum family, and is the densest natural element. Osmium is twice as dense as lead. The density of osmium is , slightly greater than that of iridium,...
, and WolfRAM, for the element tungsten
Tungsten
Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
. As the owner of the OSRAM trademark, Koppel separated the light bulb manufacturing from DGA in 1918, forming the OSRAM Werke GmbH, after which the new company was converted into a Kommanditgesellschaft (limited partnership), with DGA as the limited partner. Since Koppel was the majority shareholder in DGA, he thus became the chief partner in the new company. In February 1920, DGA merged its light bulb manufacturing with that of Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG
AEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....
) and Siemens & Halske
Siemens & Halske
Siemens & Halske AG was a German electrical engineering company that later became part of Siemens AG.It was founded on 12 October 1847 as Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske by Ernst Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske...
and they became limited partners under OSRAM G.m.b.H. KG; the start of the business year was dated retroactively to 1 July 1919. Koppel (DGA) owned 20% of the OSRAM G.m.b.H. KG stock, and the other two companies each owned 40%.
In 1905, Koppel established the Koppel-Stiftung zur Förderung der geistigen Beziehungen Deutschlands zum Ausland (Koppel Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Relations Abroad). Through this foundation, he promoted German scientific research and development, which in turn benefited German industry and manufacturing.
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science was a German scientific institution established in 1911. It was implicated in Nazi science, and after the Second World War was wound up and its functions replaced by the Max Planck Society...
(KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society) was founded in 1911 to promote the sciences in Germany, especially by establishing research institutions under its umbrella; after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the organization was renamed the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, in honor of Max Planck
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...
. That same year, the Koppel-Stiftung contributed an endowment of 1 million Marks
German gold mark
The Goldmark was the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914.-History:Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver...
towards the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry) in Berlin-Dahlem
Dahlem (Berlin)
Dahlem is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in southwestern Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a part of the former borough of Zehlendorf. Dahlem is one of the most affluent parts of the city and home to the main campus of the Free University of Berlin with the...
. The endowment was given with Koppel’s condition that its director be the Jewish chemist and Nobel Laureate
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid...
; Haber was director from then until 1933; after World War II, the Institute was renamed the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
From 1913, the Koppel-Stiftung donated money for the salary of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
at the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Prussian Academy of Sciences
The Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academy established in Berlin on 11 July 1700, four years after the Akademie der Künste or "Arts Academy", to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer.-Origins:...
(Prussian Academy of Sciences) so that Einstein would not be required to teach and be able to focus his attention on theoretical research. This supplemental salary was continued for 13 years, and it was instrumental in the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics).
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft had a Senat (Senate, i.e., supervisory board) composed of members from fields including finance, industry, science, and politics. Koppel was a Senator of the KWG from 1921 to 1933.
When Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
came to power in 1933, the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
initiated Arisierung, a policy of Aryanization of German businesses. As a consequence of this, Koppel was forced to divest himself of Auergesellschaft and his banking house. The German corporation Degussa took control of Auergesellschaft in 1934; Degussa was a large chemical company with extensive experience in the production of metals.
External links
- Arisierung – Deutsches Historisches Museum
- 100 Jahre OSRAM [In English: 100 Years OSRAM
- Historical Review - Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- History of MSA Auer
- Koppel – Obituary, Berlin