You are bidding on one handwritten letter of Swiss industrialists Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller (1836-1915), founder of the Oerlikon machine factory (letterhead here with the French variant "Ateliers de Construction Oerlikon").
Language: French. -- With a postscript signed in German (instructions to the secretary for the fair copy): "To be written by hand, on file format, without letterhead. E. Huber."
Undated, around 1900 (he mentions that he is "president du comité d'organization pour l'exposition de machines Suisses à l'exposition Universelle de 1900".
Handwritten draft of a letter the French Foreign Minister, di Théophile Delcassé (1852-1923), who held this office from 1898 to 1905.
Huber-Werdmüller requests the award of the French Order of the Legion of Honor.
Start:"Monsieur le Ministre, the sous signé Peter Emil Huber, engineer, former colonel d'Artillerie de l'Armee, federale Suisse, president of the Societé Atelier de Construction Oerlikon á Oerlikon - Zurich, Suisse, president of the committee of organization for l 'exposition of machines from Switzerland to the'exposition of the universe of 1900 [...] and the honor of the demander, Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires Etrangéres de la Republique Francaise de bien voulier de proposer pour la nomination dans l'ordre Nationale de la Legion d 'honneur."
((Translation: Mr. Minister, the undersigned Peter Emil Huber, engineer, former colonel of the artillery of the Swiss Federal Army, president of the Oerlikon construction workshop in Oerlikon - Zurich, Switzerland, president of the organizing committee for the exhibition of Swiss machines at the world exhibition of 1900 [...] has the honor , to ask the Foreign Minister of the French Republic to kindly propose him for nomination for the Order of the Legion of Honor.))
To justify this, he mentions awards for his works (including Paris 1878) and gives technical details.
Huber-Werdmüller only signs at the end of the German postscript ("E. Huber").
Scope: four pages (27.8 x 21.8 cm); without envelope.
Condition:Letter folded and punched at the side; Paper slightly browned and slightly stained. bitte also note the pictures!
Internal note: Corner 23-10 flour folder
About Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller, his company and the Order of the Legion of Honor (source: wikipedia):
Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller (*24. December 1836 in Zurich; † 4. October 1915 there) was a Swiss industrialist who, among other things, founded the Oerlikon machine factory.
Studies and impact in business: The son of the Zurich silk manufacturer Johann Rudolf Huber attended schools in Zurich and the Welschland and from 1855 studied mechanical engineering at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. In 1858 he received his diploma as an engineer and then expanded his knowledge at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris. He was also in England for a long time. He was able to acquire further knowledge in what was then the leading industrial country. In 1864 he married Anna Marie Werdmüller.
His first employment was with the Sulzer brothers in Winterthur, which was then run by Charles Brown Sr. was directed. At Brown, Huber had a teacher who was both technically excellent and supportive. He then gained his knowledge at Escher, Wyss & Cie. expand in Zurich. In 1863 he founded the PE Huber & Co. foundry in Oerlikon with the English engineer MM JACKSON . For economic reasons, this company was sold to the Daverio, Siewerdt & Giesker company in Rorschach in 1867 and liquidated in 1872.
In 1876, the Oerlikon tool and machine factory was reorganized and Huber-Werdmüller was appointed president of the board of directors of this company. He purposefully pushed forward the development of the company, added an electrical department in 1884 and appointed Charles Brown senior. as their leader. Brown brought his two sons, Charles and Sidney, two outstanding engineers, into the business. The achievements of Huber-Werdmüller and Oerlikon became public with the establishment of a route for direct current transmission from Kriegstetten to Solothurn and beyond the Swiss border at the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in 1891 in Frankfurt am Main, where the three-phase transmission from Lauffen to Frankfurt was presented for the first time Oerlikon supplied the generators. Huber's son-in-law Dietrich Schindler-Huber later took over management of the company.
The development of Oerlikon's electrical department had another impact on technical progress in Switzerland and Europe. In 1886, the discoverer of aluminum fusion electrolysis, Paul Louis Toussaint Héroult, ordered a dynamo machine from Oerlikon and came to Zurich himself in 1887 to carry out electrolytic experiments. Huber-Werdmüller, who recognized the importance of aluminum as a material early on, recognized the immense advantages of Héroult's process. Together with the equally far-sighted entrepreneurial personalities Georg Robert Neher, director of the Swiss wagon factory in Neuhausen am Rheinfall, and Gustave Naville, president of Escher, Wyss & Cie. in Zurich, he pushed forward his idea of an aluminum factory in Neuhausen.
The Neher family has owned and operated since the early 19th century. Century over the water rights at the Rhine Falls, which could now be used to generate electricity since 1889, as well as the industrial infrastructure at this location with its machine factory and the neighboring ironworks. The Oerlikon company, which at the time produced the largest direct current generators in the world, installed such machines to produce the electricity on a large scale that was necessary for the enormous energy requirements of the Héroult process. Escher Wyss & Cie. supplied the turbines. The Swiss Metallurgical Society was founded with additional shareholders in October 1887, from which Aluminum Industrie AG., Neuhausen (AIAG) emerged, which in turn was transferred to Schweizerische Aluminum AG in 1963.
Schaffhausen thus became the cradle of the aluminum industry in Europe and Huber-Werdmüller helped drive this development forward as co-founder of the Kraftübertragswerke Rheinfelden (today's Energiedienst Holding) and the construction of the aluminum plant there (Aluminium Rheinfelden). He found his final (now vacated) resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich.
Work in public office: From 1867 onwards, Huber devoted himself in public functions primarily to the development of the transport infrastructure in the surrounding area of Zurich. Starting from his position as a local councilor in the Zurich suburb of Riesbach, his birthplace, he worked as a construction director in the local council for a large-scale road expansion. He also supported the construction of a functional quay on Lake Zurich. As a result of the development of the Seefeld, he had to deal with the problems of railway construction and thus became a member of the board of directors of the Swiss Northeastern Railway. Huber was significantly involved in the founding of the Uetlibergbahn, where he campaigned against great resistance for this line to be built as an adhesion railway. Huber also played a key role in the development of rail-based local transport in Zurich and the surrounding area. So he prepared the founding of a Zurich–Riesbach–Enge tram association, the Zurich tram company, which initially built a Rösslitram. After the city was unified in 1893, he initiated the founding of the Zurich Electric Tram.
Huber-Werdmüller was one of the co-founders of the Swiss Electrotechnical Association (SEV) in 1889 and was made an honorary member in 1909.
His son, the lawyer, politician and diplomat Max Huber, continued his father's traditions of involvement in business and society.
The Oerlikon machine factory (MFO) was a Swiss company founded in 1876 by Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller under the name Werkzeug- und Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, based in Oerlikon. The MFO primarily manufactured tools, machines, turbines and the electrical part of locomotives, including the legendary SBB crocodile. The Oerlikon-Bührle company, which later became known for building cannons, split off in 1906. In 1967 the MFO was acquired by Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC), which later became part of ABB, was taken over. ABB is still based in Zurich Oerlikon.
History: Charles Brown led the establishment of an electrical engineering department in 1884/85. He brought his sons Charles Eugene Lancelot and Sidney William into the company. The name Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon MFO was adopted in 1886. Charles EL Brown and Walter Boveri worked at MFO as chief electrician and later head of the assembly department until they founded Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) in Baden in 1891.
In 1891, the MFO presented the first high-voltage line over a distance of 175 kilometers at the electricity exhibition in Frankfurt. The hydroelectric power station installed specifically for this purpose was in Lauffen am Neckar.
At the end of October 1897, the Zurich–Oerlikon–Seebach tram, built by the MFO, began operations.
From 1905 to 1909, the MFO carried out its internationally acclaimed tests on electric train transportation with single-phase alternating current on the SBB Seebach-Wettingen route. The voltage of the contact line was 15 kV with an initial frequency of 50 Hz, which started on the 11th. November 1905 was lowered to 15 Hz.[1] Before the frequency change, the locomotives were equipped with rotating converters and direct current traction motors, then with single-phase direct motors. The tests took place under the direction of Emil Huber-Stockar, the then director of the MFO, and the technology was supervised by Hans Behn-Eschenburg, who later became the general technical director of the MFO.
For a long time, MFO was the largest employer in the Zurich area. After the First World War, the so-called crocodile locomotives emerged.
In 1906, the production of machine tools and railway braking equipment was spun off into the newly founded Oerlikon Machine Tool Factory (SWO), which was later popularly known as Oerlikon-Bührle. The SWO was taken over by the German industrialist Emil Georg Bührle in 1937 and renamed the O. & Co. machine tool factory. In the interwar period it rose to become Switzerland's leading arms company and, for example, the well-known 20 mm and 35 mm anti-aircraft guns. The MFO, on the other hand, took over the electrical engineering department of the Rieter company in 1906.
In 1967, MFO was acquired by Brown, Boveri & Cie., the company founded by the former employees, which in turn merged with ASEA in 1988 to form the global ABB. In 1996, the merger of the transportation technology divisions of ABB and Daimler-Chrysler created ABB Daimler Benz Transportation. After ABB completely withdrew, the company was renamed Daimler-Chrysler Rail Systems in 1999 and finally sold to Bombardier in 2001. When Bombardier had a misunderstanding with the CSeries and was broken up, the rail division went to Alstom in 2021.
The memory of the MFO's former locomotive building is to be preserved through a memorial locomotive of a crocodile locomotive from 1920. She was born on the 15th. June 2020 on Birchstrasse in the forecourt of the PWC building.
Building relocation: The MFO Park, among other things, is now located on the site of the former Oerlikon machine factory.
The now converted former MFO administration building at Oerlikon train station was moved 60 meters to a new location as part of the expansion of the Zurich diameter line at the end of May 2012, becoming the largest building ever moved in Europe. The move was carried out by Iten AG under the building authority of Swiss Prime Site.
The entire relocation of the building was followed with great attention by various media outlets in Switzerland and a large number of visitors. Schweiz aktuell broadcast the building relocation live on television in several special programs over the two days. Today's restaurant Perron 9 shows films of the shift on its website.
The Legion of Honor (French Légion d'honneur, in full L'ordre national de la Légion d'honneur) is a French order of merit. The order was awarded on the 19th. Founded in May 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, with the intention of rewarding military and civil merits, excellent talents and great virtues. No citizen is excluded from this order because of his birth, his status or his religious belief. The Legion of Honor is France's highest honor. In civilian clothing, the miniature is worn as a red ribbon or as a red rosette in the buttonhole, depending on rank.
History: The French Revolution of 1789 fundamentally changed the award system. The order system of the nobility was abolished in France. However, the new order did not want to do without an award system. The administrative and state authorities created by the revolutionary transformation were based on the active participation of representatives of lower sections of the population. In the coalition wars that were waged against France, it seemed necessary to create awards that expressed the will to perform of the mass armies (levée en masse) and, above all, served as motivation. Due to the changed social structures, the religious order system that came from dynastic times could not be used. Rewards were given through monetary gifts or through the awarding of honorary weapons in the form of engraved swords and sabers.
The Legion of Honor, based on an idea by Napoleon Bonaparte, was created in the National Assembly in 1802. The Legion of Honor took equal account of civil and military merit. Roman models provided orientation, which was also reflected in the names. According to the number of regional regions, the legion consisted of 16 cohorts. Each of them numbered 350 legionnaires, 30 officers, 20 commanders and 7 grand officers. The Grand Council presided over the cohorts; The head of the council and the legion was the First Consul. Anyone could join the legion, regardless of rank, status or denomination. Acceptance and membership represented the distinction. Until 1804 there was no insignia that could be worn visibly.
Change from the Order of Knighthood to the Order of Merit: The award differed fundamentally from the orders of the Ancien Régime and in this form corresponded to the social necessities and requirements of the consular period. When Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, the statutes of the Legion of Honor were also changed. It was converted into an Order of Merit by an organization. In the following years, a five-class division was created into Grand Cross (maximum 75), Grand Officer (maximum 250), Commander (maximum 1,250), Officer (maximum 10,000) and Knight (maximum 125,000), which were determined by the one or Three-tiered order differed. An expression of the national significance of this award is its existence through political and temporal changes up to the present. As a civil and military order of merit, it was and is open Allen people regardless of rank or status. Over the years, only modifications to the award or changes to the size and image as well as the motto in the medallion of the medal were made. The changes corresponded to the respective political environment. From 1871 to 1912, the emblem of the Legion of Honor was also part of the national coat of arms of the Third Republic.
International role model: The Legion of Honor as an external symbol of social change was also a model for the award systems of other countries. The development of Europe was lastingly influenced by the French Revolution, the effects of the coalition wars and the Napoleonic Wars. States that were dependent or occupied by France took over parts of civil society structures. In the 19th century there was also an increase in the monarchical countries of Germany. Century increased the number of medals for merit. Although nobility was no longer a requirement for the award, the high classes (Grand Cross and Commander) were still bound to rank and status. The award system was in the 19th century. Century characterized by a large number of foundations. From 1800 to 1945, 3,500 state portable awards of all categories and classes were created in the German states. Merit awards were created for a wide range of achievements and merits in various areas, professions, offices and positions. Achievements in the scientific and technical areas, in industrial development and in the management of administrative tasks were recognized with the award of orders of merit. Representatives of the middle class were seen politically in the 19th century. century to recognized forces in society.
Many orders were expanded to include a grand officer and officer class, a medal or a cross of merit. In technical language, these decorations that are associated with an order are called affiliated medals or crosses. Lower professional groups in the state apparatus and lower ranks in the military were also able to benefit from awards. Awards of medals to workers or farmers remained an exception. Foundations and statutes, class division and award modalities as well as design and form of the orders of the 19th century. Century, the content was dictated by the German princes. They were aimed at honoring achievements in preserving monarchical structures. Within the monarchical system, awards to representatives of the bourgeoisie are an expression of appreciation for their work in the political, economic, scientific and cultural fields.