Artur Kühn

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Artur Kühn , also Arthur Kühn , (born December 6, 1883 in Naundorf (Saxony) , † 1944 in Berlin ) was a German locksmith and blacksmith . In 1925 he owned A. Kühn &. Co founded, which operated in Berlin with great success over the years. After Artur Kühn's death, his wife successfully continued the business. The renowned workshop was a state-owned company between 1972 and 1990 , after which it was re- privatized . In 2002 there was a change of ownership and it was renamed Fittkau Metallbau und Kunstschmiede GmbH.

Life

Artur Kühn initially did an apprenticeship as an art fitter after attending school in his hometown. He married Martha Flora Schulze, daughter of a miner. They moved to Berlin around 1909 and rented an apartment at Chausseestrasse  288 in Mariendorf (part of Mariendorfer Damm since 1949 ). Their daughter Luise was born in 1907 and their son Fritz Kühn in 1910 . It is not known how the family initially earned their living. In any case, the house belonged to the master blacksmith R. Arnhold and so it cannot be ruled out that Artur worked in his workshop. Around 1919 the family moved to Hertastraße 7 in Berlin-Pankow .

Artur Kühn's brother, Theodor Kühn, had followed the same training path and had already moved to booming Berlin as a locksmith before Artur. At first he lived in Mariendorf (Strelitzstrasse), and after the wedding with Fanny Bernhardt, they moved into an apartment in Berlin-Pankow , Schönhauser Allee  132. Fanny Kühn let her brother-in-law Artur Kühn win her over as a joint partner for the planned company foundation. Under the name A. Kühn & Co. (building locksmiths and products of the iron industry) the entry in the Berlin commercial register as an OHG at the Charlottenburg district court took place on July 1, 1925 . The locksmith's and blacksmith's workshop was built on a former open-air site in Berlin-Weißensee , Heinersdorfer Strasse 9. It is not known how many employees Artur Kühn started there with. But since his brother was also a trained locksmith and blacksmith and was also involved in the company through his wife, he must have helped. The rapidly growing industry and population of the then imperial capital offered the best conditions for independent craftsmen - locksmith work of all kinds was in great demand. The new company A. Kühn & Co developed quickly and successfully, and brother Theodor Kühn also registered his own company in 1928 as Theodor Kühn Kunstschmiede, Schlosserei & Eisenkonstruktions-Werkstätten . These workshops worked in a courtyard building directly in the Schönhauser Allee apartment block.

For the locksmith's shop in Weißensee, Artur Kühn registered with all Berlin utilities ( Bewag , Gasag , Wasserbetriebe ) and was thus able to take on complex equipment work. After the first few years, the size of the workshop, the storage facilities and the ancillary rooms proved to be inadequate, and the transport links were not the best either. A lucky coincidence came to the rescue of the company boss - the manufacturer Carl Ruthenberg gradually gave up the production of gold strips he had built up at three Weissensee locations and looked for new tenants for his workshops. The two commercial units in Lehderstrasse could be reached via the nearby Tegel – Friedrichsfelde industrial railway . This enabled the ever increasing supplies of materials (pig iron, wood, coal or coke) and the transport of the finished products to be carried out quickly and cheaply. Kühn, who had meanwhile acquired his master craftsman's certificate, therefore leased the necessary premises in the commercial complex Lehderstrasse 74-79 around 1930. The company boss himself and his family moved to Talstrasse 17 in Berlin-Pankow in the 1930s .

Artur Kühn's company received a significant development boost in connection with the hosting of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin . He was able to equip the Olympic Stadium with metal ticket booths, the many new department stores, bank buildings, exclusive shops and residential villas required every form of equipment - from simple banisters and door handles to company signs and decorative balustrades - everything was in the order books. The fire protection door developed by Artur Kühn and registered for a patent in 1936 was an important and economically significant product for all large buildings . The company founder died quite suddenly and before the end of the Second World War in 1944. (Theodor Kühn's company of the same type continued to exist in Schönhauser Allee until the end of the Second World War, but the family had acquired a property in Berlin-Heiligensee (Haselhuhnweg 17). )

Artur Kühn's widow took over the management of the company immediately in 1944 and had this documented in 1949 in the central district court, which was again working . After a short break in the locksmith's work in the summer of 1945, the company's history continued successfully in Weißensee. The location of the companies A. Kühn (in East Berlin) and Theodor Kühn (in West Berlin) in different sectors of the city meant that the sister-in-law Fanny Kühn resigned as a joint partner and Flora Kühn became the official sole owner from January 22, 1952 . At that time she changed her apartment again within the Pankows district and now lived at Thulestrasse 61.

Around 1965/1966, a grinding shop in the Pankow district of Berlin-Buchholz (Berliner Straße 7a) was added as a second part of the operation.

The following socio-political changes in the GDR and Berlin led to the disappearance of the company's founder name from the name of the company. The local court entry for this process was completely harmless: "With the sale of the company's basic and material assets on May 14, 1972, the company expired with effect from September 21, 1972." In concrete terms, this meant A. Kühn & Co. became Forcibly expropriated and was called VEB Kunstschmiede Berlin until 1990 . The long-time owner of the company, Flora Kühn, died around 1966, and grandson Achim Kühn probably ran the business until 1972 , as his son Fritz Kühn had died in 1967.

The reprivatisation carried out in 1990 by the descendants of Artur Kühn (Achim Kühn and his wife Helgard Kühn) led to the revival of the historical company name after the fall of the Wall , the company now appeared as Arthur Kühn Kunstschmiede Metallbau GmbH (new entry in the district court under HR B 36347) on the all-German Market on. The historic location in Lehderstrasse had to be abandoned due to increasing space requirements, structural and hygienic deficiencies as well as unclear ownership structures and the team moved into a completely new building in a newly developed industrial site near Darßer Strasse (at that time still part of the Weißensee district).

Due to increasing problems between the company heirs and some employees, the workshop was ultimately sold to the master blacksmith Stefan Fittkau who worked here. The facility has been called Fittkau Metallbau und Kunstschmiede GmbH since then, and works in the tradition of the company founder and de jure as a continuation of the company at the new location Darßer Bogen in the district of Berlin suburb Malchow .

Web links

References and comments

  1. The documents on the locksmith A. Kühn in several archives and museums appear in both variants - the spelling of the first name with or without "h" - about the same frequency. However, “Artur” can be read on a registration slip that has been specially filled out and signed by the company owner. Therefore, in this lemma, Artur is used without "h".
  2. Kühn, Arthur . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1910, III, p. 1517. "Schlosser".
  3. Script of a speech from 1989 on the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Christian Adolph Behr iron foundry.
  4. Kühn, Artur . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1920, I, p. 1512. "Schlosser".
  5. a b HR A 69166; Page KUB , Register of the Berlin District Court, Section A (years 1914 to 1930).
  6. HR A 72419
  7. Lehderstrasse 74-79 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1931, IV, p. 2161. "A. Kühn & Co, Schlosserei ”(A. Kühn & Co. is shown for the first time in the 1931 address book in Lehderstrasse).
  8. Kühn, Artur . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1933, 1, p. 1461. “Master locksmith; Talstrasse 17 ".
  9. Kühn, Theodor . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1943, 1, p. 1611. “Schlosserei; Berlin N58, Schönhauer Allee 132 “(indication of the apartment with 'Heiligensee, Haselhuhnweg 17: E' (for owner)).
  10. Kühn, Flora . In: Telephone book for Greater Berlin (GDR), 1955, p. 110.
  11. ^ Kühn, A. & Co. In: Telephone book for the capital of the GDR , 1967, p. 252 (naming of the new part of the company in Buchholz).
  12. Procedure in the district court of Mitte for number HR A 7819.
  13. Oral information from former employee Adolf Trödel to 44Pinguine in August 2013. And: Flora Kühn is no longer included in the East Berlin telephone directory of 1967, but the company already has A. Kühn & Co, art blacksmiths.