Oscar Troplowitz

Oscar Troplowitz (1863 to 1918) was a German pharmacist and entrepreneur who owned and built up the Hamburg firm Beiersdorf. Born to a Jewish family in Gleiwitz, he trained at Heidelberg University and in 1890 bought Beiersdorf AG, at that time a chemist's shop and laboratory in Hamburg run by Paul Beiersdorf. Soon afterwards he widened the business into the sale of brand-name goods, and under his ownership the company developed its own products, among them Nivea, Leukoplast, Labello and a pressure-sensitive tape later known as Tesafilm. He kept up the close working relationship with the dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna that his predecessor had enjoyed, and on Unna's recommendation hired the chemist Isaak Lifschütz, discoverer of Eucerit, the emulsifier at the heart of Nivea. Troplowitz also reformed conditions for Beiersdorf's workers, introducing paid vacations, maternity leave and a 48-hour work week.