Gustav Harkort (3 March 1795, in Hagen – 29 August 1865, in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

) was a German

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and railroad pioneer from

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Biography

Gustav Harkort was the sixth of eight children of the hardware manufacturer and merchant Johann Caspar Harkort IV. He was also the brother of industrialist and politician

Friedrich Harkort Friedrich Harkort (February 22, 1793, Hagen - March 6, 1880), known as the "Father of the Ruhr," was an early prominent German industrialist and pioneer of industrial development in the Ruhr region.(29 December 2009)Friedrich Harkort - Vorbild u ...

, entrepreneur Johann Caspar Harkort V. and mining engineer and officer Eduard Harkort. Gustav Harkort attended the trade school in

Hagen Hagen () is the Largest cities in Germany, 41st-largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany. The municipality is located in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the R ...

, and after completion, began a commercial apprenticeship in his father's company. In 1813 he took part in the

German Campaign of 1813 The German campaign (german: Befreiungskriege , lit=Wars of Liberation ) was fought in 1813. Members of the Sixth Coalition, including the German states of Austria and Prussia, plus Russia and Sweden, fought a series of battles in Germany ag ...

as a lieutenant in the Märkisches Landwehr Regiment. In 1829 Harkort directed the planning for the construction of the

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...

-Leipzig railway line. On 3 April 1834 Harkort was one of the founders of the Railway Committee, which adopted the concept for a German railway network by

Friedrich List Georg Friedrich List (6 August 1789 – 30 November 1846) was a German-American economist who developed the "National System" of political economy. He was a forefather of the German historical school of economics, and argued for the German Customs ...

(1789–1846) and built a first route between Leipzig and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

(The Leipzig-Dresden Railway). He was the chairman of the board of directors of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company from its foundation in 1835 until his death. Harkort died on 29 August 1865 in Leipzig at the age of 70.

Recognitions

In 1864, on the 25th anniversary of the completion of the Leipzig-Dresden railway, Harkort was named an honorary citizen of the city of Leipzig. On 9 July 1878 a monument designed by the architect Carl Gustav Aeckerlein (1832–1886) in collaboration with the sculptor Eduard Lürssen (1840–1891) was inaugurated in Leipzig. Harkort's name is also included on the Leipzig railway memorial.

Literature

* Robert Boker : Harkort, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ,p. 875 f.(Digitized). * Vera Hauschild (ed.): The great Leipzig people. 26 approximations. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and others 1996, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harkort, Gustav Engineers from North Rhine-Westphalia German company founders People from Hagen 1795 births 1865 deaths