A. Duke
| A. Duke
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | one-man business |
| founding | 1845 |
| resolution | around 1946? |
| Seat | Markranstädt , Leipzig-Lindenau |
| Branch | Fur finishing, fur dyeing |
The A. Herzog tobacco finishing and dyeing shop, founded by Anton Michael Herzog in Markranstädt near Leipzig in 1845 as a small business , developed into a world-famous fur dyeing company . A particular specialty of the oldest company in the branch was dyeing black, especially Persian fur .
Company history
The dresser Anton Michael Herzog started his own business in Markranstädt in 1845 with a small fur dressing shop. The largest number of the fur processing companies gathered in the places around Leipzig and serving the fur trade center in Leipziger Brühl were in Markranstädt . The Leipzig tobacco wholesale trade was the city's largest taxpayer in the 1920s. Compared to later companies in the finishing division, the operation was “more than meager”. The company building was a simple stable, the furnishings consisted of a few barrels and the furrier bench for removing flesh from the skins. The skins were washed and rinsed in a neighboring pond. In the beginning, people did not dare to take on the dyeing of the skins and limited themselves to the tanning of all kinds of game.
With the industrial development of Germany, export opportunities also improved considerably. The A. Herzog company also developed considerable foreign business in the Balkans and specialized in curly lambskins, which are very popular in Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria . At that time, buying, selling and finishing was not yet specialized in different branches of the industry, so that the entire business, starting with the purchase of raw hides and finishing up to sales in the Balkans, was in the hands of the company. This soon expanded considerably and built its own larger production building close to the river Luppe (In the article from 1868, the later 1845 is given as the year of foundation, probably the year in which the company moved to Leipzig-Lindenau on Angerstraße was relocated). There were other companies in the industry on Angerstrasse, six of them right next to each other. The companies Friedrich Erler and Theodor Thorer were also important there , but the Leipzig slaughterhouse was also located there until 1977 with a company for the production of meat and sausage products.
For the strong lambskin demand of the countries, the various curly lambskins of European lambs, so-called Schmaschen , were initially used. They came mainly from Romania, Hungary, Holland, also Germany, later the Argentine Buenos Aires Schmaschen were added, as well as the noble Persian skins from the lamb of the Karakul sheep . Black-dyed bobble hat skins made from particularly suitable small curly Italian moirés or South American delicacies went to the Balkans as a specialty of the company.
The first impetus to deal with an artificial color improvement was the red-tipped nature of the actually naturally black, curly sheepskin. The cause of the red tipped skin was the effect of sun and weather on the fur, which made the sheep's hair tips bleached to a greater or lesser extent so that they took on a reddish sheen after being dressed, which had to be covered by dyeing. Gradually, the art of blue wood dyeing , in which the leather was no longer damaged as before, was so developed that the black Persian became one of the most important articles in fur fashion.
The success of the fur dyeing industry only lasted such a short time that members of the industry were also very uncertain about the future of this branch of production. The owner of the company A. Herzog was very reluctant to accept his sons into the company despite the workload. The sons learned the watchmaking trade and, in their father's opinion, should stick with it because he said, "If enough lambskins are dyed black in a few years, no one will want them". - The really big time of Persian fashion, especially in the color black, began after the Second World War and lasted for about forty years. In general, the dyeing of fur is an essential element of fur fashion to this day.
When fur fashion developed at the beginning of the 20th century, in which fur was no longer used only for warming fur lining and as a decorative trimming of textile clothing, the flat, curly Persian fur came increasingly to the fore. Originally located in Russia and later in Afghanistan, an attempt was made at the beginning of the 20th century to introduce karakul sheep breeding in Germany as well. The driving force behind this was the Leipzig fur finisher and tobacco merchant Paul Thorer . This, as well as the A. Herzog company, are contributing considerable funds. Ultimately, this led to an important Karakul breed in what was then German South West Africa, today Namibia, which, due to its climatic and landscape conditions, was better suited for sheep breeding on a large scale. In the heyday of Persian fashion, the flat Persians from the southwest, no longer curled by breeding, but rather shiny moiré, had almost completely displaced the Russian Persian from the world market.
Even when there were already plenty of orders, the dyeing company was initially still a pure craft. Despite the introduction of the steam engine, for example, no mechanical agitators were introduced; if necessary, the skins were stirred by hand all day. If hides had to be greased particularly thoroughly, they drove with the team of dogs or donkeys to Schkeuditz to a wage mill, which carried out this work for the entire Leipzig district.
An inexpensive fur material that is similar to broadtail fur is the so-called " Bueno broadtail ". If you shear the skins of older lambs from a South American breed of sheep almost down to the leather, a very attractive moiré is created that is somewhat reminiscent of a harp. When A. Herzog brought this new product onto the market, it was initially ridiculed. Family members sometimes shaved the fur with scissors, sometimes the neighboring hairdresser. It wasn't until much later that they gained recognition, and bueno broadtail became an important item in the fur industry.
In 1934, A. Herzog offered mercerized skunk skins as a novelty . Due to the high gloss and the softness of the hair, "something really valuable and undeniably permanent was created for fur purposes from the low-quality South American skunks".
Almost all fur finishers around Leipzig had an office in the Leipzig fur district. The specialist directory of the branch from 1938 shows the address Nikolaistraße 39/45 for the office of the finishing and dyeing works A. Herzog; as the company address W 33, Angerstraße 26/28. The company is no longer listed in what was probably the first post-war directory, published in 1950.
After the war, VEB – Kolloidchemie Leipzig was located in the Angerstrasse 26–28 factory, which was built around 1875. Among other things, it produced the office glue “Ligament” and the hair removal cream “Eva” (deleted in the commercial register in 2016). The building, which has since been renovated, is now part of the “Pelz-Manufaktur” residential complex.
A company description from 1897
Also to be mentioned here is the A. Herzog company in Lindenau, whose smokers' finishing and dyeing works were founded in 1868 and which mainly deal with the processing of sheepskins, of which around 600,000 are finished each year. In the year 1887 there were auxiliary machines and mechanical devices: 4 large lauter tuns, 2 small ones, 3 shaking tubs, 2 washing tubs and 3 degreasing tubs, as well as 1 gallus burner and 2 steam dyeing barrels. A steam engine of 12 horsepower and 2 boilers of 73 square meters are used to operate the machines. Heating surface, which also had to supply the steam for the dyeing and drying plants. The number of people employed in the Herzogschen establishment was 70.
The processing of these skins is done on their own account, while the dyeing of the astrakhan skins is done on behalf of others. The value of the colored driftwood (astrakhan) in 1894 was about 3 million marks for about 1 million colored skins. Of course, the number of workers and machines has grown significantly as a result of this increased production. Buenos-Ayres Schmassen , English and Roman Schmassen are processed in Leipzig only by this company.
Sheep and lambskins from Buenos-Ayres and England are dressed and dyed in A. Herzog's steam finishing shop in Leipzig-Lindenau . In addition, Treibel, sheepskins from Russia. But these have already been prepared and are only colored on the account of the customer, while the other skins are also colored on their own account. 150 to 200 bales of 1680 each are processed annually from the skins from Buenos-Ayres, 40-70,000 from the English, which are significantly more expensive because 20% are often received. But in certain years, when the harvests fall favorably, these numbers are significantly exceeded, so that a total annual production of 600,000 pieces will hardly suffice.
The working method is as follows: The skins are first soaked in a large tub, then they are put into washing bins, two of which are in operation in the establishment, and are then processed at the meat bank , usually 200-250 pieces per day by one worker, i.e. it the skins are freed from the meat parts adhering to them by means of the meat bank. After the skins have been lying in salt water for three to four days, they are dried in large drying rooms with steam heating, then in refining bins, five of which are in operation, and finally cleaned in shaking bins. The washing, lautering and shaking barrels are put into operation by a steam engine (operated by 2 men), which in turn receives its steam requirements from two spacious boiler rooms. The lauter tuns are filled with sawdust. The skins are cut and sewn by women, 42 in number, (which number, however, is often, that is, in certain years or parts of the year, not sufficient) in the publishing house. Then they are cleaned by women using scratching machines, of which the factory has three. Once this has happened, they are colored, which is achieved by simply dipping them into the relevant liquid, and dried in dry shaking drums. (Driftels are dyed in a different way.) After dyeing, they are sorted by the sorter, who in this case, as in most other cases, is a furrier . Finally they are stretched. The Romans are treated in the same way as the skins from Buenos-Ayres and England . The whole work process takes three to four weeks.
The factory employs fifty and thirty female workers, eighty people in total. Working hours last from six in the morning to six in the evening with a half-hour breakfast break, a 1-hour lunch break and a half-hour snack break.
The dressers employed at the meat bank are paid piece wages, the others receive weekly wages.
The women are given a special, friendly-looking room for dressing and eating, as are the men, but it is rarely used by the latter.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Franke: 25 years - 250 years - 2500 years. From the beginnings of finishing to the key industry of the tobacco industry . In: skins • colors • fantasy. A portrait of the German fur processing industry . Rifra Verlag Murrhardt, 1973, pp. 13/14.
- ^ Karl Buddeus: Leipzigs tobacco trade and industry . Inaugural dissertation, Leipzig-Reudnitz 1891, p. 96 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Without indication of the author: On the history of tobacco dyeing. Supplement to the "Rauchwarenmarkt" . 5th year, no. 15 , 1935, pp. 2 .
- ↑ Re .: The development of the lambskin wholesalers at Brühl . In: The tobacco market . No. 20/21 , May 14, 1943.
- ↑ Without mentioning the author: leading fashion colors. Tried and tested and new in competition (German finishers present their colors). In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 10, Berlin, April 5, 1934, p. 276.
- ↑ Guide through the Brühl and the Berlin fur industry . Werner Kuhwald, Leipzig 1938, p. 47 .
- ↑ Guide through the Brühl and the Berlin fur industry . Otto Teubel, Leipzig 1950.
- ^ [1] Andreas Dix: Landscapes in Germany. Selected historical locations of the tobacco industry . As of June 29, 2015. Accessed March 18, 2017.
- ^ [2] Jean Heinrich Heiderich: The furrier trade . Emmerling, Heidelberg 1897, pp. 80/81.