Solo (matches)
Solo is a Czech match manufacturer, which today only works as a trading company, but whose roots go back to the time of the invention of matches . In the company's heyday it supplied all of Central Europe, especially the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , and was one of the market leaders in Central Europe . Solo was founded in 1903 through the merger of several match manufacturers to form SOLO Zündwaren- und Wichsefabriken AG . In the interwar period Solo was divided into a Czech and an Austrian SOLO.
The company's headquarters are in Sušice in the Czech Republic . As a trading company, Solo employs 25 people and has a turnover of around 165 million Czech crowns with 400 million matchboxes .
history
The company was founded by the craftsman Adalbert (Vojtech) Scheinost, who returned to his homeland from Vienna in 1839. He mastered the technology of the then newly developed match production and teamed up with the Jewish industrialist Bernhard Fürth. He had the capital from the sale of goose feathers to America. Together they founded a match factory in Schüttenhofen , as the German name of Sušice was. Production could begin in 1844. When the city was also connected to the railway two years later, it was possible to deliver to the entire monarchy.
Bernhard Fürth died in 1849 and the company was taken over by Agnes Fürth. Scheinost left the company in 1865.
In 1895 the first trademark was registered with the Czech name KLÍČ (the key).
Georg Kollmann founded the Stainz - Stallhof ignition goods factory in Stainz in 1870 . In this, the matches were produced more by hand, while Florian Pojatzi founded a factory in Deutschlandsberg as early as 1856 , where they were produced more industrially. Pojatzi bought the company in 1881 and founded the Florian Pojatze und Compagnie, a privately owned ignition factory .
In 1882, the Actiengesellschaft Union, united match and wax factories, was founded, which from 1885 also had a business in Linz . Only Unionstrasse in Linz is reminiscent of this name .
In 1903, the match factory of the sons Bernhard Fürths Simon and Daniel and several other match factories were merged to form the "Solo - Zündwaren- und Wichse-Fabriken Actien Gesellschaft" based in Vienna . The new company now had productions in addition to Schüttenhofen also in Strakonitz, also in Bohemia, as well as in Linz and in Stainz and Deutschlandsberg in Styria .
The factories were managed from Vienna. However, the two brothers commuted between Vienna and Sušice, which also gave the Bohemian city a social boost. For example, the first tennis court was built here. But social benefits were also introduced for the employees of all Solo plants. Solo was one of the first companies in the monarchy to introduce industrial accident insurance. In Sušice, Daniel Fürth's granddaughter Eva Perl ran a welfare house right next to the factory , which survived both National Socialism and Communism and was only closed after 1989 (Eva Perl died in 2003).
In 1914, a Voith plant in Sankt Pölten was put into operation in Sušice , which continued production until the end of 2008. A machine of the same type can also be found in the Technical Museum in Vienna.
Ernst Fürth, Eva Perl's younger brother, first studied chemistry and later took over the company from his father and uncle. After the First World War , the stock corporation was divided into individual companies in the successor states. The Czech part was called the United Czechoslovak matches and pinewood factories . But all operations remained under the leadership of Fürth.
In 1927 part of the shares went to Ivar Kreuger . A complete takeover was averted by Ernst Fürth.
After the annexation of Austria, the family members of the Jewish Fürth family had to flee. Ernst Fürth went to France with his wife, but in 1942 he was taken to the Drancy concentration camp . He was released, but died shortly afterwards. The relatives who remained in Sušice were taken to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and murdered in one of the Polish camps.
Both the Czech and Austrian companies were incorporated into the Deutsche Zündwaren Monopolgesellschaft in 1938 . After the Second World War , production was resumed and continued as a state enterprise in 1946. In 1958, a factory in Lipník nad Bečvou was added, but it was sold again before the fall of the Wall in 1988.
In the 1980s the company was modernized and production switched from wooden boxes to cardboard boxes. The company Solo Sušice was founded in 1990 and in 1997 as a subsidiary Solo Sirkárna based in Sušice. At the end of 2008, the production of matches in the Czech Republic was discontinued and relocated to India . The manufacturing company was transformed into a trading company.
The Austrian production in Deutschlandsberg was closed on March 31, 1982. Since then there has been no match production in Austria. On May 26, 1979, the striking, narrow and tall, but long-standing company building in Linz, Unionstrasse - on the train station tracks between Westbrücke and ÖBB workshop, with the neon letters "SOLO" on the southeastern roof area - was blown up.
memory
There is a match museum in Sušice. In 2010, as a project of HLW in Deutschlandsberg , an exhibition was put together on match production in Styria and under the title Solo - extinguished fire in the district administration .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Zündwarenfabrik Stainz - Stallhof ( Memento of the original dated December 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the municipality of Stallhof accessed on June 28, 2010
- ↑ a b matches ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten of July 2, 2005; Retrieved June 28, 2010
- ↑ match in the Austria forum; Retrieved June 28, 2010
- ↑ "Solo" as a theme for the project. Kleine Zeitung , May 14, 2010, archived from the original on September 11, 2014 .
