Carl Berg (airship builder)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carl Berg (1851-02-04, Lüdenscheid - 1906-05-26, Bonn) was a German entrepeneur and airship builder.

Berg came from a commercial iron-works family. His great grandfather founded a button-making factory on 1786 in Lüdenscheid. In the following generations the factory developed into an important metal-working company. Among others it incorporated a brass works and an iron works in Eveking (today Werdohl).

After his father's death Carl Berg, at the age of 20, took over the firm and expanded it further. Early on he recognised the opportunities in the electrical industries and delivered special wire for the Post to use for telegraph and telephone. Other non-ferrous metals were developed.

Berg founded as subsidiaries the copperworks "Deutschland" in Berlin and "Österreich" in Außig (part of Cavertitz) (Bohemia). Above all he realised the advantages of aluminium as a light building material and his Lüdenscheid firm became a pioneer of the aluminium industry.

In 1892 Berg delivered material to the airship constructor David Schwarz for his planned dirigible. Berg's firm also constructed the framework and separate parts. After Schwarz's death, Berg worked in a similar way for Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. On the firm's grounds the first Zeppelin was pre-assembled and then delivered to Friedrichshafen.

After Berg's death the airship builder became the customer for Carl Berg AG (operated from 1906 until 1926).[1]

[edit] Bibliography

 This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations.
You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.
  • Wilhelm Schulte: Westfälische Köpfe. Münster, 1977. S.23f. ISBN 3-402-05700-X
  • Hans G. Knäusel: Unternehmen Zeppelin. Bonn, 1994. S.21. ISBN 3-7812-1366-8
  • Nikolaj Müller-Wusterwitz: Die Unternehmen der Familie Berg : Chronik ab 1787. Lüdenscheid, 1999. ISBN 3-921595-30-4
  • Eckhard Trox (Hrsg.): Der Traum vom Fliegen : Carl Berg und die Luftschiffidee von Lüdenscheid bis Lakehurst. Lüdenscheid, 2000. ISBN 3-929614-43-X
  • Eckhard Trox, Der unterschätzte Industrielle Carl Berg (1851-1906) : Aluminiumlegierungen, diffizile Geschäftsbeziehungen und Zeppeline, in: Der Märker. Landeskundliche Zeitschrift für den Bereich der ehemaligen Grafschaft Mark und den Märkischen Kreis, Altena 2001, S. 57-67 ISSN 0024-9661

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ record from Westfallian business archive

[edit] External links

 This biographical article related to aviation is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Persondata
NAME Berg, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION German entrepeneur and airship builder
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Lüdenscheid
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1906
PLACE OF DEATH Lüdenscheid
Languages