Ludwig Roselius

Ludwig Roselius
Ludwig Roselius by Nicola Perscheid c. 1905
Born	2 June 1874 Bremen
Died	15 May 1943 (aged 68) Berlin
Nationality	German
Known for	Art, Coffee and politics

Ludwig Roselius (2 June 1874 – 15 May 1943) was a German coffee merchant and founder of the company KAFFEE HAG. He was born in Bremen and is credited with the development of commercial decaffeination of coffee. As a patron, he supported artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker and Bernard Hoetger and turned the street Böttcherstrasse in Bremen into an artwork.

Roselius was born in Bremen. In 1902, Ludwig Roselius purchase the centrally located No. 4 Böttcherstrasse. It soon became the head office of his business Roselius & Co. which in 1906 established Kaffee HAG (Kaffee Handels Aktien Gesellschaft).

He was a supporter of Die Brücke institute and started the publication of the famous heraldic Coffee Hag albums in the described formats of the Brücke. In his home town he built an entertaining house known as the Glockenspiel House.

During the Third Reich, "Politically a conservative, Roselius had a positive attitude towards National Socialism and supported Hitler, with whom he had a private meeting in Bremen in 1922." Roselius applied for Nazi Party membership twice and was rejected twice because he promoted 'degenerate art' in his Boettcherstrasse

Apparently he had later a falling-out with Hitler – though not with the Nazi ideology – because Roselius believed in the existence of or lobbied for the creation of a purebred "Lower German race" ("Lower" as a geographical term – as in "Lower Saxony") and Hitler did not. 4 Million RM was raised by Heinz Puvogel shortly after Ludwig Roselius died but when questioned after World War II by IARA, investigators lied and turned a blind eye due to a coverup about U.S. multinational ITT Corporation owning 29% of Focke-Wulf and possible future class action payouts as the U.S. government failed to nationalize the ITT Corporation after Pearl Harbor.