Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 150
At the age of 16 and having taken
O levels he decided to serve an
apprenticeship at the farm of his
uncle, Gustav Schmidtmann at
Alsum. To grow up close to the
coast, like the Oldendorffs, meant
being in contact with shipping
from an early age. Thus, Egon
Oldendorff became familiar with
the coast, the tidal flats and the
North Sea beyond them when his
father took him seal hunting on
the banks near the coastline. He
would watch ships passing by, be
it on outings to Cuxhaven or during
his time at the Lehe school. Egon
Oldendorff was drafted for military
service shortly before the war
ended and was discharged from
the army on 31 December 1918 as a
qualified cavalryman. He seriously
considered taking up farming but
agreed to his father’s suggestion
to commence his working life in
the parental private bank and
thereafter serve as a trainee in
Hamburg before finally deciding
his future career. He worked in the
bank until June 1920 and opted
for shipping during his time as a
trainee with Lilienfeld & Homuth.
In those days barges played
the dual role of floating stores
and of “feeder” vessels. Barges
would collect export goods from
provincial ports and convey them
to the larger seaports for onward
carriage to distant countries.
Conversely, they would take
imported goods from the seaports
to smaller outports. To a lesser
degree barges were employed in
the shortsea trades. Whilst port
tugs would busily be scurrying back
and forth, barges would often sit
moored at their berths for weeks
before discharging or re‑loading.
Companies like Lilienfeld & Homuth
that owned barges but no tugs
depended entirely on third parties
for towing services, and this was
being felt even more acutely
where the barges were mainly
employed on liner routes. Lilienfeld
& Homuth had liner services going
from Lübeck to Stockholm and
other eastern Swedish ports, and
from Emden/Delfzijl to the United
Kingdom, using their owned barges
ROLF and GUNTHER plus a number
of small barges chartered in. A
broking department attended to
chartering and S&P business. The
head office was on the first floor
of No. 55 Vorsetzen, owned by
Hamburger Hafen-Dampfschiffahrt
AG, on the river Elbe. There
were two partners, two senior
managers, Hans F. Schössow and
Otto Alwin Michaelsen, plus a
number of staff. The company
also had a branch office in Lübeck,
at No. 6 Grosse Altefähre.
When Alfred Homuth retired
early in 1921, Albert Lilienfeld
made young Egon Oldendorff,
Alfred Lilienfeld passed away
unexpectedly at the end of
1921 which made 21‑year-old
Egon Oldendorff the sole
proprietor of the company.
146
the trainee of only nine months,
his partner, as evidenced by the
entry in the Hamburg register of
companies dated 19 February 1921.
The company style changed to
Lilienfeld & Oldendorff, Shipowners
and Shipbrokers, Hamburg, with
a Lübeck branch office. Egon
Oldendorff had come of age, at 21,
merely two days before that date,
a prerequisite for holding company
shares. Yet another two days later
the company announced the news
in a circular letter to its clients,
making reference to Mr Egon
Oldendorff the banker, an attempt
apparently to hide the tender age
of the new partner.
An unnecessary precaution, as
it turned out, since sharp‑witted
and highly motivated Egon
Oldendorff wasted little time in
becoming the company’s driving
force. He had been quick to realise
the drawbacks inherent in an
operation based on owned barges
but chartered tugs. The only way
to keep the barges permanently
employed was to increase their
number and to own tugs, which
in turn would enable Lilienfeld
& Oldendorff flexibly to react to
enquiries. A simple calculation
revealed that high charter rates
for tugs could have driven the
small company into bankruptcy
in a matter of a few months.
Therefore, Egon Oldendorff sold
both lighters and applied the
proceeds to purchasing from
English owners the British‑built ss
GLASSALT of 780 tdw which flew
the new blue house flag as the ss
KOMET. Alfred Lilienfeld passed
away unexpectedly at the end of
1921 which made 21‑year-old Egon
Oldendorff the sole proprietor
of the company. To facilitate the
administration of the estate he
established in 1922 the Nordische
Dampfer‑Reederei Lilienfeld &
Oldendorff GmbH but that company
did not become active until after
Oldendorff moved headquarters
to Lübeck in 1925.
