- Karl Wittgenstein
Karl Wittgenstein (b.
April 8 ,1847 inGohlis nearLeipzig ; d.January 20 ,1913 inVienna ) was anentrepreneur .Life
The grandfather of Karl Wittgenstein, estate manager Moses Meyer, came from Laasphe in the former Wittgenstein "
kreis " (county). He moved toKorbach before 1802, where he opened a dry goods store.The Napoleonic effort of equality before the law for all Jews in the kingdom of
Westphalia in 1808 decreed that all people should take a surname within three months. Moses Meyer took the name of his birthplace and thereafter was known as Moses Meyer-Wittgenstein.Meyer-Wittgenstein's store became the biggest enterprise in the city of
Korbach , but also shortly thereafter began to decline. He had a son, Hermann Christian (b.September 12 , 1802 in Korbach; d. 1878 in Vienna) who moved the business to Gohlis at the end of the 1830s.After Heinrich Christian converted to Protestantism he married Fanny Figdor in 1839. She came from one of the most important business families in Vienna.
Karl, born in 1847, was the sixth of eleven children of Heinrich and Fanny. Three years later the family moved to
Vösendorf (Mödling district) in Austria, where his four younger siblings were born.The family then moved in 1860 to Vienna, where Hermann Christian was involved in the furniture business. In 1865 Karl secretly left home and sought his fortune in the U.S., a violin was his only possession. There he earned a living as a musician and a waiter in bars. In 1867 he moved back home with a great deal of self confidence.
In Vienna he studied at the technical university and became a draftsman and engineer. He began at the mill in
Teplitz , where he eventually became director in 1877 and then a few years later principal shareholder.Karl married his wife, Leopoldine Kallmus, in 1873. They moved for one year to Teplitz in northern
Bohemia , then they moved to a villa in the Vienna district ofMeidling .They had the following children:
* Hermine (b. 1874 in Teplitz, d. 1950) unmarried
* Dora (b. 1876 in Vienna, died at birth)
* Hans (b. 1877 in Vienna, d. 1902 inChesapeake Bay , probable suicide)
* Kurt (b. 1878 in Vienna, d. November 1918? suicide)
* Helene (b. 1879 in Vienna, d. 1956) married to Dr. Max Salzer
* Rudolf/Rudi (b. 1881 in Vienna, d. 1904 suicide)
* Margherita/Margaret Anna Maria (b.September 19 ,1882 in Neuwaldegg, today Vienna, d. 1958 in Vienna) married 1904 to Jerome Stonborough, divorced in 1923
*Paul Wittgenstein (b.May 11 ,1887 in Vienna; d.March 3 ,1961 in New York)
* Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (b.April 26 ,1889 in Vienna; d.April 29 ,1951 inCambridge )External links
* [http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/KarlWittgenstein.htm Karl Wittgenstein, Business Tycoon and Art Patron]
* [http://www.wittgen-cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/deutsch/text/biogrg1.html Ludwig Wittgenstein: häusliches Milieu]
* [http://www.leipzig-gohlis.de/historie/wittgenstein.html Leipzig-Gohlis - Karl Wittgenstein]
* [http://www.wittgen-cam.ac.uk/ Wittgenstein Archiv, Cambridge]
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