Andreas Koch harmonica factory
Andreas Koch Harmonika-Fabrik (also for short: And s Koch ) was a musical instrument manufacturer based in Trossingen , which existed from 1867 and was taken over by competitor Hohner in 1929 .
history
Andreas Koch (1844–1915) had completed an apprenticeship with the Trossingen harmonica manufacturer Meßner and in 1867 he started his own business. As early as 1873, Koch employed 27 workers and achieved an annual production of more than 84,000 harmonicas . In the mid-1870s, the start-up crisis brought the company into serious trouble, and Koch had to borrow money from his father in order to be able to pay the wages. In 1901 Koch already employed over 300 people. In 1903 the production of accordions began; For this purpose, Koch recruited skilled workers from Klingenthal and other places in Saxony.
In 1905 the five sons took over the company, and in 1925 they moved into a large new factory building on the Im Tal street , where modern machinery was used. With over 1000 employees, the company was the second largest in Trossingen. The educator orchestra , made up of employees, also performed on the radio, among other things.
In 1927, the company , which has since been converted into a stock corporation , achieved sales of around 3 million Reichsmarks , of which 1.9 million were with harmonica and 1.0 million with accordions. This means that sales of harmonica were significantly lower than that of Hohner (7.83 million there), but sales of accordions almost reached the value of Hohner, which was 1.17 million Reichsmarks. In 1928 around 1000 people were employed, some of them in branches outside Trossingen.
On December 15, 1928, a takeover contract was initially signed in secret, with which the takeover by the Hohner company on January 1, 1929 was sealed. This step came as a surprise to employees and the public. The background was apparently a dispute that broke out between the five brothers and was also settled in court, which raged primarily between Ernst Koch, who ran the branch in New York City , and his four brothers based in Trossingen.
Aftermath
The factory was operated by Hohner until the late 20th century and then demolished.
The company's founder's villa in Rainstrasse still exists today, and the only remaining parts of the factory are a house for employees and the garages. The German Harmonica Museum in Trossingen owns some of the instruments produced by Koch and dedicated a special exhibition to the company in 2013.
A street in Trossingen is named after the company founder Andreas Koch. Since moving in the 1990s, Hohner has had the address Andreas-Koch-Straße 9 .
literature
- Frank Martin, “The best-equipped establishment in the industry”. The development of the harmonica industry using the example of the Andreas Koch company in Trossingen . Edited by the history association for the Tuttlingen district in cooperation with the German Harmonica Museum Trossingen, 2009, ISBN 3-9806154-6-4
- Hartmut Berghoff , Between Small Town and World Market: Hohner and the Harmonica 1857 - 1961; Company history as social history , 1997, ISBN 3-506-70785-X (plus Habil. Univ. Tübingen 1996/97); 2nd edition 2006, ISBN 3-506-72984-5 - especially pp. 302-303
- Martin Häffner, Karl Martin Ruff, Ina Schrumpf, Trossingen. From Alemannendorf to Music City , 1997 - especially pp. 70–71, 87, 134, 168–170
Footnotes
- ↑ Flyer for the special exhibition ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )