Julius Kunitzer

Juliusz Karol Kunitzer (German: Julius Kunitzer) (1843–1905) was a Polish-German industrialist, economic activist, philanthropist, one of the industrial magnates of Łódź (Congress Poland/Vistula Land). He owned a textile and later a joint stock company. His viciousness towards workers and cooperation with Russian authorities gained him notoriety among Łódż citizens. He was assassinated by Polish Socialist Party activists in the aftermath of the 1905 Łódź insurrection.

Kunitzer was a polarizing personality and career. Known among Łódź's elites as a shrewd businessman, "cotton king" who became a tycoon due to his personal skills and luck, respected for this and his philanthropy and other public initiatives, for others – particularly radicals and socialists, he was a vicious exploiter of workers and a leader of anti-labor industrialists.

Kunitzer was born on 19 September 1843 in the Pohulanka village, in Russian-controlled Congress Poland (increasingly known as the Vistula Land). His family had roots in German burgher society, and moved to the Polish territories in the 1830s Kunitzer himself described himself as a Pole, including during a public speech to Russian businessmen in Nizhny Novgorod which caused a brief sensation. His father, Jakub, a weaver by profession, died in 1850, after which Juliusz with his mother moved to Tyniec. Young Kunitzer became a weaver, following his father's footsteps.

He came to Łódź in 1855. He joined the E. Hentschl's factory, quickly advancing to a managerial position. In 1869 he married Agnieszka Meyer, sister of the industrialist Ludwik Meyer. Using his wife's dowry, he invested in a construction of a new factory, which begun operations in the following year. In partnership with Ludwik Meyer, in 1874, he bought the Hentschl's factory, damaged by the fire, and operated the "Kunitzer i Meyer" company. In 1879 he withdrew from that partnership, built cotton industry in the village of Widzew near Łódź, and begun a different one with Theodor Julius Heinzel. Over the next few decades his factory complex expanded, with a dedicated railway line, worker's housing (150 homes), a hospital, a school, church, shops, and other buildings, which saw Widzew transformed from rural village to a quarter of Łódź.

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