Theodor Fleitmann

Franz Friedrich Theodor Fleitmann (August 20, 1828 in Schwerte - October 25, 1904 in Iserlohn) was a German chemist and entrepreneur.

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, he began to study chemistry in 1845. He studied in Gießen and Berlin. From 1849 to 1851 Fleitmann was the private assistant of Justus von Liebig.[1] 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.[2][3]

In 1872 Joseph Wharton sent to an exhibition in Vienna a sample of malleable nickel, produced so it seemed by "removing the oxygen from the fluid nickel by the use of carbon".

Works

Literature