Franz Friedrich Theodor Fleitmann (August 20, 1828 in

Schwerte Schwerte ( Westphalian: ''Schweierte'') is a town in the district of Unna, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Schwerte is situated in the Ruhr valley, at the south-east border of the Ruhr Area. South of Schwerte begins the mountainous ...

- October 25, 1904 in

Iserlohn Iserlohn (; Westphalian: ''Iserlaun'') is a city in the Märkischer Kreis district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest city by population and area within the district and the Sauerland region. Geography Iserlohn is loc ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe ...

and

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 t ...

Family

Fleitmann was the son of the businessman Theodor Friedrich Fleitmann (1796-1860). His maternal grandparents were members of the Duisberg and Overweg merchant families from Iserlohn. In Elberfeld in 1856 he married Maria Winkhaus (1838-1919), the daughter of the Elberfeld silk manufacturer Friedrich Winkhaus (1791-1854). The marriage resulted in three sons and two daughters, including Richard Fleitmann (1860–1923), later General Director of United German Nickel Works in Schwerte.

Life

After attending the provincial trade school in

Hagen Hagen () is the 41st-largest city in Germany. The municipality is located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme (met by t ...

, he began to study chemistry in 1845. He studied in

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

and

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. From 1849 to 1851 Fleitmann was the private assistant of

Justus von Liebig Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 20 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to agricultural and biology, biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a profess ...

. In 1850 he was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences. For health reasons, he gave up his university career in 1851 and moved to Iserlohn. There he managed the nickel smelter ''Neusilberwarenfabrik Herbers, Witte & Co.''. In 1861, Fleitmann acquired the nickel works and together with Heinrich Witte founded the Nickel- und Kobaltfabrik Fleitmann & Witte on the Iserlohner Heath in Iserlohn, which produced blanks for the first German nickel coin in 1871 that were manufactured in the German Empire. A year earlier, the production facility had been relocated to Schwerte. The nickel coins became known as the ''Fleitmännchen''. archive.nrw. de: Vereinigte Deutsche Nickel-Werke AG formerly Westfälisches Nickelwalzwerk Fleitmann, Witte & Co.

In 1877, Theodor Fleitmann succeeded in making nickel rollable and forgeable. In 1879, he "discovered and patented the addition to the molten nickel before casting of metallic magnesium in amounts of from 0.05 to 0.125 per cent, and later amended this practice to use a magnesium-nickel alloy instead." Another invention was the

plating Plating is a surface covering in which a metal is deposited on a conductive surface. Plating has been done for hundreds of years; it is also critical for modern technology. Plating is used to decorate objects, for corrosion inhibition, to improv ...

of thin nickel sheet on steel sheet. With his inventions he created the basis for the later nickel industry. In 1898, Theodor Fleitmann was made an honorary citizen of the city of Iserlohn. Three years later he withdrew from the company, which had grown to over 1,000 employees, and passed it on to his sons Richard (1860-1923) and Theodor Fleitmann (1861-1945). In 1901 the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg awarded him an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

. He was a member of the

Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

. Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
Theodor Fleitmann died of a stroke at the age of 76. The grave of his family at the

Main Cemetery Iserlohn Main may refer to: Geography *Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany *Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries *' ...

is under

monument protection A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

Works

Literature

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleitmann, Theodor 19th-century German inventors German materials scientists German company founders German industrialists 19th-century German chemists 19th-century German businesspeople 1828 births 1904 deaths