Organic malt Teltow
The factory building of the former company Biomalz Teltow is one of the most important industrial monuments in the Teltow - Kleinmachnow - Stahnsdorf region . The manufacturing plant built in 1911 at Iserstraße 8-10 with administration building and office building is a listed building and is entered in the list of architectural monuments in Teltow from December 31, 2010.
founding of the company
The company's history began in a pharmacy in Berlin-Schöneberg . It was there in 1906 that the food technician Myro Patermann developed a tonic for pregnant women based on natural raw materials. This food supplement should also "help against anemia, bleaching and nervous complaints", as was promised in a newspaper advertisement at the time. The chemist Justus von Liebig , who dealt with the fight against hunger and malnutrition, had already developed a malt soup for infants, those who have recently given birth and those who have recently given birth. Myro Patermann relied on these findings and developed a new health food made from barley. Barley has a high nutritional value and is malted to give it a spicy and pleasant taste. On May 6, 1907, Patermann registered and protected his product at the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin under the name “Biomalz”. It was first produced in a factory in Friedenau. Due to increasing demand and the resulting lack of space for further production, the company moved to Steglitz . At that time it was still operating under the name “Chem. Factory Gebr. Patermann ”. Linus and Georg Patermann, the brothers of the inventor of Biomalz, were also active in the company. However, both lost their lives in the First World War . Myro Patermann took over the sole management of the company. Shortly after the start of production in Steglitz there were plans to build a factory in Teltow. With the opening of the Teltow Canal , the small agricultural town had developed into an easily accessible, small industrial town. The engineer JK Meyer drafted the plans for the construction of the new factory, which was built by the company Boswau & Knauer in skeleton construction. The functional red brick building is an example of reform architecture . Production began in June 1911. Just a month later, the plant was expanded to include a spent grain house and a workshop building for carpentry and locksmithing. Around the factory, the company owned other land that was used for agriculture.
Production history
The structure of the factory building can already be read on the outer shell and followed the production process. In the attic there was a storage room for the barley and the grist. Here the malt was crushed and then mixed with water one floor below in the production room. This is how the mash was created, which was boiled and then had to steep for several hours at 50–70 degrees. After that it was lautered and the insoluble spent grain was replaced. Before the finished malt product could be obtained, the water had to be removed again. This was done gently with vacuum evaporators and then the malt extract could be sent through a system for bottling.
The factory supplied itself with a steam engine that generated direct current, and there were three steam boilers in the boiler house next door. In addition, the company had a rail connection to the industrial railway, which led through the factory gate via a turntable. With this space-saving solution, which was first installed in Germany by the Biomalz company, trains were able to drive through the plant in a straight line.
Two years later the company issued licenses to Switzerland and shortly afterwards organic malt was also produced in Vilnius and London. But these relationships were lost again due to the First World War , inflation and the global economic crisis. Supply bottlenecks and forced farming also threatened production in Teltow. It was not until the early 1920s that things started to pick up again and the product range could even be expanded: organic malt sweets and baking additives came onto the market. The name “chemical factory”, which sometimes caused irritation, was changed in favor of the popular product and from 1928 on the company's letterheads read: Gebr. Patermann Teltow-Berlin Biomalz-Fabrik.
Even the Second World War did not leave the company unaffected. "Because it is a business that is used to feed the German people," as a letter from the Reichsleitung of the Labor Service shows, a building application for a team barracks was approved in June 1941. In November 1942 around 40 Russian civilian workers were housed there. Biomalz now also supplied the army and the air force. Nevertheless, the last years of the war were characterized by bottlenecks, and production was finally limited to making jam for the population. Parts of the factory were destroyed in air raids and in April 1945 a major fire raged on the factory premises. A month later, syrup was made again, but mainly from beets, and rhubarb was also added to the malt extract. The company also produced flour, pearl barley and foodstuffs for children for the local population. When it was claimed that malt extract and candy would be given to the company employees without clearance, Myro Patermann was sentenced to a fine of 500,000 marks. In 1953 it was expropriated, organic malt became public property and from then on produced malt extracts and baking agents with over 100 employees under VEB (K) Biomalz "Walter Schütz" Teltow, later an ice cream production was added: the Maskowskoje Maroshenoje sandwich ice cream (Moscow cream ice cream).
Myro Patermann was looking for a new production site immediately after the war. The choice fell on Kirn an der Nahe, where Vitaborn-Werke took over production under license from 1946. The company's founder died in 1951. The company was continued as a family limited partnership by his son-in-law Erhard Wigand. A branch in Berlin-Lichterfelde was responsible for the West Berlin market.
present
The malt extract, which was still available in all drug stores and pharmacies in the GDR, disappeared after the fall of the Wall. On October 1, 1991, the company was transferred back to the founder's family, who were determined to keep the company going. After a dry spell, the company was in the black for the first time in 1995. In addition to baking mixes, a vegetarian minced meat pizza topping made from soy was also produced. Block malt was again included in the offer, as was the brown organic malt juice bottle with the yellow-blue label. But the company had to give up the brand name a few years ago because not all products are organic, as an EU directive for brand names prescribes. This is how organic malt became “Teltomalt”. The company is regularly represented with a stand at the Green Week in Berlin.
In recent years, a large part of the entire ensemble of the former organic malt factory has been extensively renovated and modernized, including the infrastructure. Monument preservation requirements also had to be taken into account. Since then, craft businesses have also settled on the company premises and the district music school has found a home in the red brick factory, as has the Union Social Institutions gGmbH. The Kurrat dance school is also located on the premises. The former boiler house is currently being converted into an event hall with around 200 seats, including a stage. With the Local Agenda in 2010, a biotope was created on the property boundary to the biomalt ditch, in which amphibians and frogs have already settled.
At the beginning of November 2011, the Teltower initiative "Art Sunday" used the commercial area for the 4th edition of the spectacle. 115 artists from all over the republic had traveled, artists from Poland and the Netherlands also took part in this event. Around 500 works were on display.
The Biomalz brand in advertising
The pharmacist Myro Patermann used the instrument of advertising more than 100 years ago to make the “spoon of health” a distinctive brand. Shortly after the organic malt factory was founded (1907), the malt extract from sprouted barley was advertised with word creations such as “the source of all beauty”. As a "rejuvenation cure" against anemia, bleaching and nervous complaints, the fast energy source should help. If the advertising was believed, the product was henceforth ascribed true miracles. The syrup were initially canned, later blue-yellow in brown bottles with a label "on the cheap price of 1.90 dollars per box or a mark per bottle" in most pharmacies , drug stores and health food stores , provided with the words: "If you care about your health, don't let other, supposedly just as good, preparation persuade you".
The advertising made a decisive contribution to the good sales and when the advertising designer Ulrich Patz, a brother-in-law of the company founder, coined the winged phrase “My child, I advise you: take organic malt!”, The product's triumphant advance began. The resounding success was a Berlin six-day race, in which organic malt was advertised in the exhibition halls. The products were piled up in large boxes to be given to the racing drivers during breaks. In the same year, the company's sales exceeded the million mark. At the same time, the construction of a factory building in Teltow was planned, in which production started just a year later in June 1911. The press also advertised the “organic malt cure”, which removes “blood and sap congestion” and “accumulated slag” as it was read in contemporary advertisements. “Slack, withered and angular features” promised to disappear the manufacturers, who realized very quickly that their target group was primarily women.
The product organic malt has now been advertised under the name “Concentrated sunlight in cans” and is aimed primarily at women who have recently given birth and nursing mothers. Even with the first graphic advertisements, female figures were effectively staged. As a lady of the world, as a housewife, mother or grandmother, they have always been both a medium and a target group at the same time. Likewise, the advertisements indicated that the product would also be ideal for children who “cannot cope with the exertion of school”. Children who receive organic malt come home beaming from school and do their homework in a hurry, promises the advertising that appeals to mothers: "Those who love their children give them organic malt". But the mothers should also treat themselves to the strength allowance, according to the council. Vanity was also addressed with “looking younger than peers”. The adjacent advertising stamps were once a classic advertising medium in the stamp format. They were introduced by the Post (1871) instead of the sealing lacquer process and printed in large sheets. They were quickly used as an independent advertising medium, and self-adhesive brands were also available from the shop around the corner.
Web links
- History of the organic malt factory
- Bäke Courier, p. 6 “A juice goes into literature” v. K. Greyish
- Report about artisans on organic malt site
- PNN article v. G. Paul for the 4th Teltower Art Sunday 2011 on the Biomalz industrial estate
- Report and photos from the 4th Art Sunday on a Polish blog
- Keyword-like history of the Biomalz company at the IMT Museum
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry in the list of monuments of the state of Brandenburg, Potsdam-Mittelmark district Status: December 31, 2010 Page 43 (PDF file; 336 kB) ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 52 ° 23 ′ 37.2 ″ N , 13 ° 14 ′ 37.2 ″ E