Bonn flag factory

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View from the north of the factory in front of the A 565 , aerial photo 2014

The Bonner Fahnenfabrik (also BOFA or BofA called) is a long-established company in Bonn district Graurheindorf . The company, which has been producing decorative items since 1866, was one of the largest flag manufacturers in Germany in the 20th century. Since 1928, the company has been located at Römerstrasse 303–305 . Here the factory buildings with the distinctive BOFA chimney are located directly on the A 565 , which crosses the Rhine 450 meters away on Bonn's north bridge. The company has been part of the French family business Doublet since 2011. In addition to the A. Zuntz sel. Wwe. Coffee roasting company , the Hebona office material manufacturer (Herschel family) and the former Bouvier bookstore , the flag factory is one of the most important foundations of Jewish entrepreneurs in Bonn. In July 2018, the company announced that the production and administration site was to move from Bonn to Hennef .

Since January 2019, the new headquarters of the company, which has been operating under the name BOFA-Doublet GmbH since 2012, is Meysstr. 22-24 in Hennef.

history

The company was founded in 1866 by the Jewish businessman Josef Meyer (1818–1884) as a shop for decorative items and wallpapers. The first company headquarters was at Sterntorbrücke 8 in the center of Bonn. The wars of 1864 and 1866 led to an increasing demand for flag decorations, which Meyer met with the production of flags. After the founding of the German Empire in 1871, business activities were expanded to include the production of the black-white-red imperial flag and the Prussian flag. The flags were made by hand using stencil printing (the Prussian eagle was cut onto stencils according to a model, transferred to white cloth flags with oil paint and sewn on with black stripes) and the young flag factory quickly became a sales success.

In the 1870s the company expanded the production of flags and decorative items to include the production of theatrical costumes and complete stage sets. A mobile assembly team traveled all over Germany to set up such stage backdrops or to flag reception rooms. In the following years the Bonn flag factory acquired 15 purveyors' titles . Product catalogs were published in numbers of up to half a million copies. For the inauguration of the Niederwald monument near Rüdesheim in memory of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 , in which Kaiser Wilhelm I participated on September 28, 1883, the company had 50,000 special catalogs printed with depictions of the decorations for this festive occasion. The flourishing of German ocean and inland shipping also brought the Bonn residents large-volume orders in the late 19th century. Shipping companies such as the Preussisch-Rheinische Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft , Stinnes or Thyssen ordered their ships' flags in Bonn. Elaborately embroidered club and regimental flags were also in high demand at the time. The company's extensive range of products also included flag nails, trophies, diplomas, certificates, badges, carnival costumes, masks, lanterns as well as lighting and fireworks items.

In the 1880s, the company was hit by an anti-Semitic campaign. The increasing sales of products in Catholic parishes and associations was not approved by some of the Catholic press. Parishes and other Catholic buyers were written to for months in 1882 to prevent further purchases from the "Israelite Bonner flag factory". Above all, the weekly newspaper LEO - Sunday paper for the Catholic people from the Paderborn Bonifacius printing works pushed the campaign forward.

20th century

Until the beginning of the 20th century, textile products in Bonn were still mainly made by hand and at home. In 1905, the Bonn flag factory changed to industrial production: the factory, which was still located in the center at that time, was expanded to include a large sewing machine room and other buildings for machine use (bleaching runners for applying the bleaching liquor , dyeing machines, washing drums and centrifuges ).

From 1911, flags were printed using a chemical vapor printing process, which replaced traditional stencil painting. During the First World War , in addition to flag production, the production of military tents and straw sacks began. The company survived the post-war and inflationary period almost unscathed. At the height of inflation in 1923, the factory was allowed to issue factory money, so-called "wage checks", that it had made itself, with official approval. During this period, flag production was based on the valuation of rye and wheat prices. A report published in 1918 at the end of the war, in which it was indicated that the Bonn flag factory had delivered the British flags with which the English troops were greeted on their entry into the northern French city of Lille , was reported by the managing director Rudolf Meyer in the Bonner Zeitung, which was published until 1933 back: if his company should be meant, the anti-Semitic colored report is a gross untruth.

In 1924 , a flag weaving mill with 100 looms was built on the opposite side of the Rhine, in Beuel - Pützchen . The building was equipped with a shed roof made up of three riders . In 1928 the main factory moved to Rheindorferstrasse. 224 (today: Graurheindorfer Straße ) in a building of the former hussar barracks complex. The new factory site was between Rheindorfer and Römerstrasse (today's access road and address). In the same year the company went on strike and had to close temporarily. In 1929 the film printing process was introduced in the production of flags . Also in 1929, Otto Meyer's brother Hans founded a branch in what was then Pola in Istria, Italy , the “Fabbrica Italiana Bandiere”.

time of the nationalsocialism

For the factory and its owner family, the time in the Third Reich was shaped by the Jewish origin of the Meyer family. Otto Meyer (1895–1957) had done military service and volunteered in the First World War. He completed his law degree with a doctorate. When the National Socialists seized power , he ran the flag factory. Like his brother Hans, he was baptized Protestant. Her mother Anna has not belonged to any religious community since the death of her husband, Rudolf Meyer (1862–1932), who also had a doctorate in law, a commercial judge and a Finnish vice-consul. Nevertheless, according to the National Socialist view , the sons Otto and Hans were considered Jews.

Striker article

The Meyers were not molested until the end of 1935, and the company was not affected by the usual agitation against Jewish companies. That changed from January 1936. Articles with the headline: "The baptized Meyers" appeared in the anti-Semitic Stürmer and subsequently in the NSDAP newspaper Westdeutscher Beobachter . The opinion was expressed in inflammatory diction that the Meyer brothers were still Jews despite Christian baptism: “The owners of the Bonn flag factory are Jews. The water of baptism did not change their race or blood. They are Jews and must be treated as such. ”The authors of the articles contradicted an assessment made in advance by the Association of Bonn Retailers . The syndic of the association had announced that the Meyers came from a Christian family, since their parents had converted to the Christian faith. A parish report by the Protestant parish in Bonn had also certified the owners of the Bonn flag factory that they were Protestant baptisms, confirmations and weddings.

As a result of the article, the chief public prosecutor filed a complaint against Otto Meyer with the Cologne Special Court on the grounds that the Bonn flag factory produces and sells official flags. A Jewish company is not allowed to do this because the law for the protection of German blood and German honor prohibits Jews from showing the colors of the Reich: “It is an extremely unpleasant situation and incompatible with the reputation of the NSDAP and the National Socialist state if Jewish companies, of all things, do business with the symbols of National Socialism. ”Investigations were initiated, Otto Meyer was summoned and interrogated. The proceedings before the Cologne Special Court were closed because he was able to prove that he had not violated the law.

Aryanization

In 1936 the company supplied flags to the Organizing Committee of the 1936 Summer Olympics . In the same year there was a change of ownership; Otto Meyer's father-in-law, Wilhelm Hollweg, took over the Bonn flag factory. The circumstances of the transfer are unknown, the resulting Aryanization of a company that produced important propaganda instruments with flags and banners will have served to preserve the property in the family, the continued existence of the company and the discontinuation of smear campaigns against the Meyer brothers.

From 1939 Otto Meyer was no longer managing director of the flag factory; he and his mother Anna were indeed as Jews treated ( passport entry , Jewish Star , Jewish property tax , delivery of gold and silver property, sale of shares to forced rates), the so-called mixed marriage Meyers with his Aryan woman protected him and the poor health of his mother but first before transport to the extermination camps . When Anna Meyer received the Gestapo deportation order in 1942 , she committed suicide with a sleeping pill. From 1943 Otto Meyer was compulsorily obliged by the employment office and had to look for waste paper and tin cans from the garbage at the municipal garbage disposal. When in September 1944 the Jews living in mixed marriage were summoned by the Gestapo, Meyer initially went underground. After he had been captured in the meantime and was used to clean up the bombed Bonn, he managed to escape in December 1944. Until the end of the war he lived hidden with relatives and friends.

Forced labor

The war-related need of the navy and the army administration for flags, signal and special flags ensured the continuation of production. The flag factory had been looking for additional workers since 1940. In 1942, representatives of the company, as well as those of the office supplies manufacturer Soennecken , were able to choose Soviet forced laborers from a group transport in Wuppertal . 32 of these workers were employed in the flag factory, who came from the areas of today's Ukraine ( Kiev and Ivankiv district ). The forced laborers slept under the factory roof. They were only allowed to leave the factory premises after a six-month quarantine period.

In March 1945, US associations were in Bonn on the left bank of the Rhine . From here the parts of the city on the right bank of the Rhine were shelled with artillery. The previously undamaged branch of the Bonn flag factory in Pützchen was also destroyed. The branch in Pula was also damaged at the end of the war. After Pula fell to Yugoslavia , the subsidiary there was liquidated.

post war period

Otto Meyer survived the Nazi era, among other places, in a weekend house in the Eifel. After the American invasion in February 1945, he returned to Bonn and resumed his work in the Bonn flag factory . In the following time, the Bonn flag factory developed according to its own information to become the largest German manufacturer of flags, banners, advertising ribbons and foils. As early as the summer of 1945 there was a large order from the British occupying forces , which commissioned the company to produce shorts . In the early 1960s, the screen printing process was automated. When the British Queen Elizabeth II visited Bonn in 1965, the factory produced 120,000 textile and paper flags around the clock. At peak times, up to 400 people were employed in the flag factory. Up to 4,000 square meters of flag could be produced per hour. In 1956, on the occasion of the company's 90th anniversary, the book "Flags all over the world" was published.

In 1998 the screen production was automated and in 2002 digital printing was added to production as an extension. These modernizations went hand in hand with regular job cuts. From the 1980s onwards, increasing globalization led to increased competition and falling profit margins . In 1999, 150 people were still working in the plant, compared to 110 in 2003. At that time, around two million square meters of fabric flags were printed for the production of around 600,000 flags. In 2006, 100 employees generated sales of around 10 million euros. Foreign buyers accounted for up to 20 percent of this.

Bankruptcy and Sale

From around the turn of the millennium there was a significant drop in sales. By 2010 the annual turnover sank to 7 million euros, which led to a further reduction of jobs. In November 2011, the management had to file for bankruptcy . The insolvency administrator conducted takeover negotiations with several interested parties; April 1, 2012, the French family Doublet took over from Avelin the Bonner Fahnenfabrik by descendants of the Meyer family in the fifth generation. Since then, the Bonn flag factory has been operating as BOFA-Doublet GmbH . After the takeover, the number of employees was reduced to 60. In spring 2018, considerations were made to change the location. In addition, the discontinuation of the screen printing was announced. On July 5, 2018, the company finally announced that the production and administration site in Bonn would be closing and moving to Hennef by January 2019 .

Owning family and management

The founder of the company was Josef (also: Joseph) Meyer (1818–1884) from Koblenz, who lived with Marie, geb. Rothschild was married and is buried in the Jewish cemetery on Bonner Römerstrasse. His descendants were the brothers Rudolf (also: Rudolph, 1862–1932) and Caesar Meyer. Rudolf's wife was Anna Mayer (1872–1942). Their sons were Otto Meyer (1895–1957) and Hans Friedrich Meyer. Otto Meyer's father-in-law was Wilhelm Hollweg, to whom the company was transferred during the Third Reich . Later, Gerd Hebermehl (1927–2016), husband of Otto Meyer's daughter Annemarie, ran the flag factory. Hebermehl was also Vice President of the Bonn Chamber of Commerce , commercial judge and holder of the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon . In 2009 Uwe Busch took over the management from him.

offer

The BOFA doublet is now a specialist in the production of advertising banners and so-called Megaprints (large format banners) and other textile advertising. The extensive catalogs also contain a range of common advertising materials:

  • Flags (printed and embroidered mast and swivel flags , pennants , beach flags, table flags and garlands )
  • Exterior decoration (flagpoles, large format banners, foils, stickers and bike stands)
  • Interior decoration (cladding, seating, tablecloths, floor mats)
  • POS (light columns, brochure stands, barriers, displays , advertising counters and lift-up systems)
  • Event Facilities (advertising tents, inflatables, giveaways, advertising boards , beach chairs, advertising displays, exhibition backs, marquee sets, Bunting and balloons)

Factory

The factory complex on Römerstraße essentially consists of three parts. The main building is a former three-storey barracks building around 110 meters long, which has a hipped roof , a central projectile with a roof gable , 21 double window axes and two protruding corner towers on the facade side facing the courtyard. At the same time, about 10 meters away, there is a more modern, 100-meter-long production and administration building with a shed roof (eight tabs) or flat roof. Finally, there is a striking chimney on the southeastern tip of the company premises, the upper fifth of which is painted blue and bears the white inscription "Bonner Fahnen BOFA", which can be seen from afar. The two factory buildings are connected by three glazed pedestrian bridges on the first floor. The motorway exit from the A 565 runs directly behind the main building.

Web links

Commons : Bonner Fahnenfabrik  - Collection of images

References and comments

  1. ↑ Nicolas Ottersbach: 5 Years "Small Jewish Teaching House" - Many Jewish stories from Bonn are gathered in a small space . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . Bonner newspaper printer and publishing house H. Neusser GmbH, Bonn August 25, 2013 ( general-anzeiger-bonn.de [accessed on July 17, 2018]).
  2. ^ Klaus HS Schulte: Publications of the Bonn City Archives . Ed .: City Archives Bonn. tape 16 . Röhrscheid 1976, ISBN 978-3-7928-0383-7 , pp. 391 .
  3. ↑ a b Ulla Thiede, Philipp Königs: Relocation of production - "Bofa" flag factory leaves Bonn for Hennef . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . Bonner newspaper printer and publishing house H. Neusser GmbH, Bonn July 5, 2018 ( general-anzeiger-bonn.de [accessed July 17, 2018]).
  4. ↑ a b c Sylvia Miskowiec, The Stuff Advertising Is Made Of, June 8, 2006, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  5. ^ A b Delphine Sachsenröder, The first Bonn flag showed the Prussian eagle , July 26, 2002, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  6. ↑ Matilda Jordanova-Duda, Electors and Dark Men: Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Bonn shows interesting facts and curiosities about life in the Rhineland , January 31, 2008, Jüdische Allgemeine
  7. ↑ a b c d Anniversary: ​​150 years of Bofa , February 2, 2016, trade journal Werbeartikel Nachrichten
  8. ↑ Purveyor to His Majesty the Emperor , Purveyor to the Court of the King of Romania , Purveyor to the Court of His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Hesse , Purveyor to the Royal Bavarian Court, Purveyor to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Luxembourg , Purveyor to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg , Purveyor to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh , purveyor to the court of His Highness the Duke of Saxe-Coburg , purveyor to the court of his highness the Duke of Saxony-Altenburg , purveyor to his highness the Prince of Hohenzollern , purveyor to the court of His Highness the Prince of Reuss, purveyor to the court of His Highness the Prince of Schwarzbach-Rudolstadt , purveyor to the court His Highness the Prince of Waldeck and purveyor to the court of His Highness the Hereditary Prince of Anhalt , according to Main catalog of the Bonn flag factory , from around 1900
  9. ^ Sabrina Bauer, Successful companies from Bonn: From gold bears to jam jars , November 16, 2016, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  10. ^ Franz Josef Wiegelmann, Churches and Schools: an unfortunate anti-Semitic alliance , December 2010, issue 1/2010, Wi (e) der die Juden. Judaism and anti-Semitism in journalism from seven centuries , Bernstein-Verlag
  11. ^ Messages from the Association for Defense against Anti-Semitism , Volume 28, 1918, p. 124
  12. ↑ Jens Hild, Rautenkranz and red rose: the emblems of the duchy and the Free State of Saxony-Altenburg , publication of the Thuringian State Archives Altenburg , ISBN 978-3-86729-0-753 , Sax-Verlag, 2010, p. 122
  13. ↑ Ralf Forsbach u. a., The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich" , ISBN 978-3-48684-0-209 , Walter de Gruyter , 2006, p. 629 in the Google book search
  14. ^ Klaus HS Schulte, Publications of the Bonn City Archives , Volume 16, Bonn City Archives (ed.), ISBN 978-3-79280-3-837 , Röhrscheid 1976, p. 391
  15. ↑ Annette Hinz-Wessels, The Evangelical Church Community Bonn in the Time of Nationalism (1933–1945) , from: Publications of the Bonn City Archives (Volume 57), ISBN 978-3-92283-2-157 , City Archives (ed.), 1996 , P. 411
  16. ↑ Karin Stöckel, The Work of the Organizing Committee of the XI. 1936 Olympics in Berlin , ISBN 978-3-83661-8-533 , Diplomica Verlag , Hamburg 2008, also: German Sport University Cologne , diploma thesis, 2003, p. 77 in Google book search
  17. ^ A b Mirko Smiljanic : Flags from Bonn: flags and other advertising media , October 21, 2016, Deutschlandfunk
  18. ↑ a b Annette Kuhn , Frauenleben im NS-everyday life , Volume 2 of: Bonn studies on women's history , ISBN 978-3-89085-8-609 , Centaurus , 1994, p. 107ff
  19. ↑ a b Our conversations with contemporary witnesses , website of the city of Münster
  20. ^ Philipp Schumacher, Painful memories of forced labor , September 20, 2007, Kölnische Rundschau
  21. ↑ Helmut Vogt , Das 5th Luftschutzrevier von Bonn: Die Industriegemeinde Beuel in the bombing war , City of Bonn (ed.), 1994, p. 26
  22. ↑ Horst-Pierre Bothien: "The baptized Meyers". In: Bonner Geschichtswerkstatt. September 1, 1941, accessed March 27, 2018 .
  23. ^ Scala International (magazine), issues 1–4, Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei , Frankfurt / Main 1989, p. 38
  24. ↑ a b Doris Pfaff, Bonn flags have been flying all over the world since 1866 , November 14, 2003, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  25. ↑ Erwin Hoeft, flags fly all over the world. Company history for the 90th anniversary of the Bonn flag factory in Bonn , Fahnenfabrik Bonn (ed.), Bonn 1956
  26. ↑ Delphine Sachsenröder, Bonner Fahnenfabrik: French take over insolvent traditional company , March 30, 2012, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  27. ^ Entry by Franz-Josef Knöchel on Bonner Fahnenfabrik BOFA (2017) in the database " KuLaDig " of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on March 27, 2018.
  28. ↑ Matthias Kirch, Rumors of Moving Out: How will the Bonn flag factory continue? , March 14, 2018, Bonner General-Anzeiger
  29. ↑ Inflatable advertising media or play equipment
  30. ↑ Small freebies

Coordinates: 50 ° 45 ′ 15.9 ″  N , 7 ° 5 ′ 29 ″  E