Draft:Eduard Elbogen

Eduard Elbogen (25 January 1857 – 30 August 1931) was an Austrian talcum industrialist.

Eduard Elbogen began trading talcum in Vienna in 1886, mainly to the German Empire and the USA. In order to assert himself against competitors, he became a mine and refinery owner himself at the turn of the century. His descendants continued the business - after Aryanization and fusion with other companies together with the mine owner Herzog Ernst August respectively his son.

Family
Eduard Elbogen was born on 25 January 1857 in Prague. His parents were Jakob Samuel Elbogen (1820 in Prague – 1920 in Vienna) and Marie, née Schulhof (23 May 1833 in Prague – 1922 in Vienna). His siblings were Friedrich (1854–1909; court and court lawyer and father of Franz and Paul ), Hermine Silzer and Julius (Gyula), who attended the K.K. Staats-Obergymnasiums zu Landskron in Böhmen (Imperial and Royal State High School in Landskron in Bohemia) from 1877 living in Bohemian-Lichwe and 1894 in Vienna IX, Grünentorgasse 5, traded in clay and kaolin - later mainly in graphite. Gyula's wife, Jeannette "Jennie" Eugenie, née Liechtenstein (1871–) traveled to the USA in 1903 with her youngest child, Kurt. The wife of Eduard's brother Gyula, Jeannette "Jennie" Eugenie, née Liechtenstein (1871–),(https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/62797298/jennie_landau) traveled to the USA in 1903 with her youngest child, Kurt,(https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/62797156/kirk-alfred-landon) (and perhaps Elsa) where she married Alfred, a son of the Viennese stockbroker Baruch Landau(https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/101471029/josef_baruch_landau) and Amalie. Kurt was naturalized and renamed Kirk Alfred Landon (oo 1921 Edith Dorothy Ungar), who founded the Florida for Eisenhower movement,(https://books.google.de/books?id=C7Qb5ZqOqFQC&pg=PA40&dq="Florida+for+Eisenhower"+landon) became general manager at National Lloyds Baltimore.(https://books.google.de/books?id=Lr5FAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&dq=kirk+a.+landon) 1925 is Eileen Marjorie born in NYC and in April 1929 is Robert Kirk Landon born in Scarsdale, N.Y. born.(https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article16254389.html)(https://kirk-foundation.org/about/) Kirk's family lived in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States in 1940 and Dade, Florida, United States in 1945. Together with the American Association for Cancer Research, the Kirk A. & Dorothy P. Landon Foundation awards prizes for cancer research.(https://books.google.de/books?id=JlHxxaSg1OMC&pg=PA939-IA5) - - - The widowed Else Knedel, born Elbogen, had been able to send her two sons abroad, and named her brother Hans Elbogen, managing director of her parents' chemical wholesale business, as their breadwinner - and, after being accommodated in a collective apartment on Esteplatz, was hidden by Stefani v. Lepel (1887-1968) in her parents' apartment on Beatrixgasse from October 1941. Hans, on the other hand, was deported from the collective apartment on October 19, 1941 to the Litzmannstadt ghetto, where he died on March 28, 1944.(Andrea Hansert: Das Haus der Gestapo: Geschichte der Lindenstraße 27 und der Cronstetten ...; p. 163 https://books.google.de/books?id=IKDkEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163) Later became, Knedel Else, sole owner of the company “Montanchemie” chemical wholesaler Julius Elbogens Erbe, Else Knedel-Elbogen, wholesaler of mining products with the exception of ores and coal, and wholesale of paints and chemicals, Kärntner Ring 8/3 (6. 11. 1951)(Amtsblatt der Stadt Wien - Nr. 11 - 16. Februar 1952, p. 9 "Gewerbeanmeldungen" https://www.digital.wienbibliothek.at/download/pdf/1893948.pdf) The sons of Else and Julius Knedel (1880–1930): Howard (1926–)(https://web.archive.org/web/20210120063720/https://www.holocaust.org.uk/howard-kendall) followed his older brother Robert (1919–2014)(https://web.archive.org/web/20240717095242/https://www.afterall.com/obituaries/RobertKendall) on a Kindertransport to England, where he stayed. Robert moved on to Buffalo, where he married in 1945 and worked at the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Else travelled from London to the USA in 1947.

Elbogen was married to Jenni Melanie, née Kadelburg, (23 October 1864 in Budapest – 1942). The couple had four children: Lilli Agathe Elbogen (together with Franz she had a daughter, Mariedi Anders ), Auguste Klarmann, Edgar Dagobert Elbogen (1899–) and Lothar Stefan Elbogen (19 June 1900 in Mödling – 1941 probably in Zasavica near Sabac). His wife was deported to Theresienstadt on 28 June 1942 and transported to Treblinka on 23 September.

Pursue
In 1886, the Eduard Elbogen company was founded in Vienna. Initially, he limited himself to the sale of talcum (also known as Federweißer, feather white or soapstone). Elbogen himself claimed to be the founder of the use of talcum powder in paper manufacturing. His telegram address was "Edelbogen, Vienna".

The feather white mining was opened in Lessach in 1895 by the company of the feather white merchant Eduard Ellbogen [sic] and had to be closed again for economic reasons on 11 August 1900. (The 1st Salzburg Feather White Workers' Union reactivated the mine, which had since fallen into disrepair, in April 1919.)

Around 1897, he quarreled with another Viennese merchant, the spice trader Ludwig König (OHG since 1874), who traded in all kinds of things (sugar and colonial goods in bulk, Schellinggasse 9, Dalmatian Asphalt) and now claimed to run a "Central Sales Office of the united Talcum Unions" (Schulerstrasse 22). He only represented a few unions, "whose products, however, were not at all suitable for paper manufacture, ... In this way, König wanted to achieve the goal of driving the talcum prices to unprecedented levels." Elbogen claimed in the Centralblatt. König, who worked with Adolf Brunner's factory in Mautern and one in Anger, replied on 22 January 1897: Apparently the most outstanding Austrian talcum works, with about 89% of the total Austrian production of about 1,100 wagons, had handed over central sales to us [Ludwig König & Sohn].

Own production
At the turn of the century, Elbogen switched to self-production at Rabenwald in eastern Styria: first he acquired the operating Jocherl mine in Floing (2.5 km east of Oberfeistritz), shortly afterwards the Jocherl mine in Floing and the Hummelbauer mine. He acquired the old Mittermühle mill in Oberfeistritz [today Feistritz bei Anger; Imersy Talc; 35 km northeast of Graz] as a grinding plant, which he reconstructed and fitted with a turbine. The talc is transported from the Rabenwald mine to the Oberfeistritz mill using a material cable car approximately five kilometers long. The modern systems grind various talc products to different degrees of fineness. The main consumer of talc from the Oberfeistritz plant is the paper industry. Talc was loaded at Anger station until the early 1980s.

In the course of the decade he acquired a talc pit and mill in Oberdorf a.d. Lamming (70 km NNW of Graz), whose production was increased twentyfold within a few years. In Mautern (80 km NW of Graz and 40 km W of Oberdorf) he bought a talc pit with a mill and electric drying plant located directly at the station. This includes the surrounding pits in Magdwiesen, Kammern and Rennach.

By 1909, Elbogen had concessions, leases and mining rights in Styria, Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as four turbine-driven mills. In November 1909, he advertises for fine paper production with seven Styrian suppliers and two mines and talkumrefineries of his own.

In 1910, Elbogen took over the magnesite and talc works founded by Jozef Karol Demuth in Hnúšťa-Mútnik, Slovakia, in the so-called "Lower Magnesite" (today's district of Hnúšťa). Elbogen mined magnesite at the site, which he then processed in his factories in Austria. The Elbogen company operated the mining until 1922, when the exposed veins of high-quality magnesite had been mined - and due to currency difficulties following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. https://web.archive.org/web/20230219103253/https://historica.upol.cz/pdfs/hol/2022/02/07.pdf : Four years later, in 1926, magnesite mining was resumed in Hnúšťa-Mútnik in Slovakia under various operators, but they were unable to establish themselves on the Central European market dominated by Elbogen. After the construction of the Lovinobaňa plant in 1931, production in Mútnik was stopped and the plant's machinery (presses, wheel mixers and machine tools) was largely transferred to the Lovinobani plant. Only part of the talc grinding plant remained in operation until 1936. In 1937, Dr. Štefan Szakall from Číž and his partner, a German, Ing. Mayer, founded the company "Rimavskodolinský talcumovy proyelsky". The restored Dolna Magnesitka plant also included a Colegang type talc grinding plant and two Dräffer crushers. The following year, 1938, a room was built for processing flaked talc. The products were mainly exported to Budapest and to J. Elbogen in Vienna. Talc sales at this time were around 500 tons per year. The plant manager was Jozef Heinz. In the 1930s, Ing. Vojtech Rástocký (1885–1966) discovered a magnesite vein near the old Mashi near Hnúšte. In July 1934, Ing. Rástocký signed a lease agreement with the forestry company Sinco to carry out surveying work. Along with magnesite, a large amount of high-quality talc was identified at this location. Ing. Rástocký did not have sufficient financial means to extract it, so he sold all mining rights to the company Talkum-Bergbau-Gesellschaft m.b.H, based in Munich. The director of the company was Alfred Schnellhorn (and Bodo R. Gerhard; Neuhauserstr. 9 IV). After securing the necessary technical equipment and building the mining infrastructure, it was the largest and highest quality magnesite mine in the Hnúšťa district.)

In 1912, The Chemical Trade Journal and Chemical Engineer reported: "We are informed, that Mr. Edward Elbogen, of Vienna, Austria, who is the proprietor of several Austrian talc mines, has not joined the Association of the Austro-Hungarian Talc Mines." In 1916, k. k. Kommerzienrat Heinrich Rosenberg reported on the „Tätigkeit der Talkum-Interessierten in Österreich-Ungarn“ (activities of those interested in talcum in Austria-Hungary), which was four years later also noted with interest in overseas. It is also mentioned that the USA produces 65 % of the world's talc and that Germany and Austria together produce 5.4 %.

In 1914, the talcum union De Giorgis & Elleon in Pinerolo (38 km southwest of Turin) in Italy converted into a limited partnership. The Viennese talcum miner Eduard Elbogen joined the company as a limited partner. The new company's extensive mine holdings produced around 400 wagons per year. The company transferred exclusive sale of its production, which is to be significantly increased through new investments, to Eduard Elbogen.

In 1915, the personally liable partner Adolf Brunner and two limited partners left the "Österreichisch-Alpine Talksteinwerke Adolf  Brunner  &  Co." in Mautern. The mine owner Eduard Elbogen (Vienna) and a limited partner joined as personally liable partners.

During the first world war, production came to a standstill. In November 1917, the operation was placed under the War Performance Act (Kriegsleistungsgesetz). This order refers to the talcum mines in Floing, Baiersdorf, Stubenberg, Obertal and Kammern in Styria, as well as to the mine in Mühlbach in the crown land of Salzburg, and also to the talcum mills in Oberfeistritz, Oberdorf and Mautern.

In 1928 he operated talc mines in Styria with the following managers in:
 * St. Jakob near Hartberg: Johann Grobbauer
 * Stubenberg near Harberg: Leo Schretthauser
 * Baierdorf near Weiz: Alois Krenn
 * Floing near Weiz: Leo Schretthauser

Further production range

 * Asbestos
 * Graphite and graphite tablets from his Čučice-Ketkowitz graphite works
 * Earth pigments in all shades
 * Kaolin (china clay)
 * Alabaster (gypsum)

Shortly before his death, Eduard Elbogen entered the trade in remote-controlled float valves.

Aryanization under Lothar
After Elbogen's death in 1931, Lothar headed the talc mining and wholesale company Edward Elbogen Nachf., which had the exclusive sales rights for Italian talc in the USA.

In 1937, Lothar entrusted the works manager Jozef Heinz with mining and management of the works in the factory in Hnúšťa, Slovakia, whose mining rights had meanwhile been transferred to the Munich-based company Talkum Bergbau Gesellschaft mbH (Alfred Schnellhorn). A mill was built near the deposit. The mill contained two molecularizers for grinding the flour, which was shipped to Germany as an Austrian product. In 1939, a plant for grinding and sorting flakes was built.

In 1937, the Salzburg governor Franz Rehrl reported: "Jewish self-interest recently caused the closure of a factory with 32 workers in the Lungau. The Federweiß mine in Lessach was bought by Dr. Ellbogen, who is called the Austrian Federweiß King - but not to continue running it, but to shut it down, as the removal of the machines clearly shows. The purpose was to eliminate an inconvenient competitor in order to be able to dictate the prices alone."

After the Anschluss of Austria (March 1938), by the end of June 1938, in addition to Lothar Elbogen, the wealthy Jewish families Moriz (1854–1939 in Zurich) and Stephan (1894–1976) Kuffner (Ottakringer Brewery), Emil Reitler (1886–1949), Isidor (1866–1946) and Karl Zuckermann (1902–1960), Richard Stein (head of the Franz Waldmann paper wholesaler, among others), Guido Fischel, and Fritz Spitzer (or Paul Fürth and Otto Krasny) had joined Aktion Gildemeester, an emigration assistance office (after Haavara Agreement).

For resisting state authority (possibly provoked), Lothar was sentenced to three months in prison from September 1 - immediately followed by pre-trial detention for currency offenses. (Due to the conviction, the university revoked Lothar's doctorate in law in December - but it was re-recognized posthumously in 1955).

On 8 September 1938, the Duke's confidant, Ing. Herbert Uebersberger (* 1908; son of Hans Uebersberger ), submitted the official request of Duke Ernst August of Brunswick-Lüneburg (who himself mined for talcum powder and asbestos in Austria) to the Viennese authorities to acquire the Eduard Elbogen company (stating his total assets at 2–3 million, of which he wanted to invest 1.5 million in Austria).

Since May, provisional administrators had been appointed to the company. Although the nomination had been requested by the Federation of Industrialists, less qualified Nazi cliques were able to prevail. From May 1938, Ernst Steinfellner had brought a female assistant into the company to support him, Maria Böttner, who later became Uebersberger's wife. Soon overburdened by multiple appointments, he appointed Egon Iby in September, but he barely made an appearance 10 times in eight months and was recalled at the end of March 1939. Edwin Hauser (* 1901 in Vienna ) followed as commercial manager until September 1939. For him, the new times were worthwhile: by moving into a "Jewish apartment" in Vienna 8, Alserstrasse 67 - in which Lothar's lawyer Otto Loeb also lived - he was able to significantly improve his living conditions. Hauser insulted Lothar Elbogen in prison by calling him a "Jew". The long-time managerial employee Norbert Mendrochowitz continued to work for the company. Likewise, chief accountant Alfred Kurz and Adolf Schrötter - but were banned from using their passports.

Elbogen was forced to sell his company. There are different figures for the agreed purchase price: 380,000 RM or 130,000 RM, although the latter also included paying off the company's debts to the bank. Debts to Lothar's brother Edgar also had to be paid off. After the war, the value was estimated at 1 million Austrian francs.

Since the Reich Flight Tax - formally 25% - was to be "according to existing practice ... 100% as a result of regular valuation disputes", he stated in a draft contract submitted to Duke Ernst August of Brunswick-Lüneburg on 27 September 1938 that he would be "literally a beggar" as soon as he left the country. The Duke's asset manager was Paul Knoke. Lothar had contractually been obliged to give his lawyer "certified, irrevocable powers of attorney, by which he is authorized to make all declarations and documents necessary and useful for the implementation of this contract and to sign documents on behalf of the seller without the further knowledge and consent of the seller." The head of the Austrian Control Bank, Walther Kastner, considered it appropriate to lift the "foreign exchange security custody" of Elbogen on the basis of this passage. But not the "Aryanizers", who were worried about the fulfillment of the contract. However, this matter was to be resolved within a few days. Helmut Foltinek, the responsible officer of the control bank, who was staying at the "uniquely scenic" holiday home of Hintersee near Berchtesgaden at the time, recommended consulting "Exc. Dr. Knoke", the Duke's general representative, in this matter and informing the foreign exchange office that it would receive information from the final owner of the company. The Duke or his representative Knoke, when asked about the need to extend Elbogen's detention, had his confidant Ing. Herbert Uebersberger (* 1908) inform him shortly afterwards that Lothar and Franz Elbogen's departure was undesirable until contractual security was in place.

On 16 June 1939, the purchase for 300,000 RM was completed by the Kontrollbank. The following day, the Duke signed a contract with the Kontrollbank. In the same month, his mother begged the Duke to release him. After the outbreak of war in September 1939, the shareholders feared that the USA would enter the war and that the American assets would be confiscated. As they told the Reich Ministry of Economics in Berlin, this made it unavoidable to disguise the assets by transferring them. They applied for a transfer of their American assets to the de-Bary-Bank in Amsterdam. By purchase agreement of October 1939, the Duke of Lothar Elbogen directly acquired the mine in Hnúšťa-Mútnik in Slovakia. On 20 November 1939, the remaining assets were declared forfeit, acording to Pawslovski. In late autumn 1939, Lothar was able to flee to Yugoslavia, allegedly without a passport or money.

His fiancée (and later heiress) Grete Klug, whose parents ran the Café Herrenhof, was allowed to leave the country. In November 1939, after six months of imprisonment in Dachau and with the intercession of William C. Bullitt, cousin Franz (co-major shareholder) was able to travel with his second wife Julia on board the SS Saturnia, the last of the family, from Naples to New York. In 1941, Franz obtained passports and visas for the USA for Minnerl "Mimi" and Paul Elbogen, who were interned in France.

According to Pawlowsky and Wendelin, Lothar describes: "according to his own statements, did not receive a single penny, penny or dime from the sale. After being released from foreign exchange custody, he required hospital care until September 14, 1939, and on November 14, after unspeakable hardships and experiences, he managed to reach Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Lothar Elbogen had decided to flee out of fear of being arrested again: I was in constant danger of death until my last day. Therefore, I could not wait long until all travel documents were together, since they wanted to withhold them from me in the first place. He could not count on an exit permit as long as the new owners of his company had not acquired all of his foreign assets and they had to fear that Elbogen might resist. Lothar Elbogen did not see himself as bound by the forced purchase agreement and always hoped that after his release he would be able to save part of his assets from the grasp of the "Aryanizers" through personal contact with his foreign business partners. He was unable to use the English visa that his fiancée, Grete Klug, who had already emigrated from Austria, had arranged for him. When the Wehrmacht invaded in 1941, he was again taken prisoner and died. Grete’s father, Markus Klug, also fell victim to a mass shooting in 1941.

In July 1941, the former Control Bank (closed in 1942) listed 96 further cases of Aryanization.

In 1941, Duke Ernst August of Brunswick and Lüneburg († 1953) prevailed over his competitors and became the new owner for 372 thousand RM (including 23 thousand RM from the Nantsch talcum factory). The previous ownership shares of the brothers Ludwig and Franz Hintz were transferred to Christian Hintz in 1948. Uebersberger also acquired the Gebrüder Wiedenhofer company in Anger (Styria), Ranacher-Talkum-Werke, Federweiss-Werke and Greinitzer AG, combined them to form the Deutsche Talkumindustrie company and was appointed sole authorized signatory, managing director and operations manager of the plants.

After the war
While Austria exported 95% of its talc before the war (14,087 tons in 1937), half of which went to Germany, production subsequently fell to 30%. Important mines and exporters are:
 * Austrian Talcum Industry, Vienna
 * Pyrite mining Naintsch, Graz
 * Talc and mica works Gustav Schilhan, Weisskirchen

According to Peter Steckhan, the communist Österreichische Volksstimme ran the headline „Nazigaunereien in der Talkindustrie – Das Bombengeschäft eines herzoglichen Arisierers“ (Nazi scams in the talc industry – The bomb business of a ducal Aryanizer) and named the masterminds.

In 1953, the entire property was owned by the Austrian Talcum Industry, Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In 1956, the shareholders were named: Prince Ernst August the Younger, Nordstemmen, Grete Rappaport, London; Dr. Edgar Elbogen, Zurich. In 1959, the Naintsch - Kiwisch and Co. Talcum Works from Graz acquired the Austrian Talcum Industry company and thus also the property at Fusch. In 1978, the company's property was sold to a private individual and interest in the site was abandoned.

It is possible that the company was restituted to Elbogen's heirs in 1955 and Lothar was a victim of the Kladovo transport. But it is also quite possible that he wanted to travel to China with the smuggler Josef Schleich via Yugoslavia and Italy. Lothar's cousin Paul together with Ing. Carlo Kornfeld (Via Pomerio 16) had met with Schleich in the Albergo Reale (Hotel Royal) in Fiume in February 1939 to make an agreement regarding the transport of Jewish emigrants from Graz to the East.

The Aryanization case “Ed. Elbogen” was the subject of several criminal proceedings after 1945.

Edgar Elbogen (– 8 May 1979; chemist, educator, artist), who lived in the village of Gnadenwald, Tyrol before 1934, resided in Haus Vigilia in St. Johann in Tirol in 1964. After fleeing the national regime, he returned from exile in 1945. A number of artists gathered around him. Due to the events of the war, Edgar Elbogen was even more convinced of the need to develop inner values ​​through art and in the entire education system. His wife Maria (1899–1998) inherited the local Alte Gerberei. The property was then transferred to a foundation in 1998 following a suggestion by his nephew and later adopted son Christian Ritsch (– 2002). Since May 2023, Zima Unterberger has been realising the 45 million euro project "Elbogen Höfe" with 131 apartments between the Kitzbüheler Horn and the Wilder Kaiser.

current research
The duke's grandson, the Erbprinz at Marienburg made the family archive available to the Pattensen external state archive for research in 2015. Four master and doctoral projects have been running since 2016 on this and the duke's other eight businesses under the direction of Prof. Dr. Cornelia Rauh (The Nazi Business of Guelph), Leibniz University Hannover. "A publication of the project results is in preparation."

Literature
Theodor Venus, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck: ''Die Entziehung jüdischen Vermögens im Rahmen der Aktion Gildemeester. Eine empirische Studie über Organisation, Form und Wandel von „Arisierung“ und jüdischer Auswanderung in Österreich 1938–1941''. (=Nationalsozialistische Institutionen des Vermögensentzuges, Band 2) Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission, Verlag Oldenbourg, Vienna/Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0496-4

Category:1857 births Category:1931 deaths Category:Businesspeople from Prague Category:19th-century Australian businesspeople Category:20th-century Australian businesspeople