German skinning school

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ceremonial sequence for the opening ceremony and consecration of the fur specialist museum and the new classrooms of the German furrier school in Leipzig, January 31, 1939

The German Furrier School in Leipzig was a technical school for further training in the skilled trades of the fur industry , in particular for master training in furring , staffing (making the furs) and refining tobacco products .

The school opened on March 15, 1928. It existed, re-established after the Second World War , until around the mid-1970s. Further German furrier schools emerged in Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main after the Second World War.

history

Before World War II

The Leipziger Brühl was until the beginning of the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 and the threat related to the numerous Jewish fur traders one of the three main hubs for tobacco products, the designated mostly for fur processing skins. This world significance was initially lost after the First World War. Business relations with foreign countries had to be rebuilt. In addition, certain fur refinements, in which some of the companies in and around Leipzig were unrivaled, could meanwhile also be produced in other countries. The aim was to recapture this market. One of the accompanying measures was the establishment of the furrier school by the Reichsbund deutscher furriers for further training exclusively for already advanced journeymen and masters in the fur trade.

Until then, the knowledge about the processing methods was partly still a trade secret , which only had to be passed on within the companies and collected by the journeymen on hikes , it was didactically processed here and generally communicated. For example, by 1925 no details of the recipes for tobacco dyeing had been published by the furriers . The first subject teacher, master furrier Hofmann, was laughed at at first because he measured hair lengths, “but in the end he was well respected by his professional colleagues because it was recognized that modern methods are based on such knowledge. The second subject teacher then had the brilliant idea of ​​combining the cutting and omitting in one work step by cutting diagonally ”.

The plan was the school called Higher furrier school , but it was founded as a German furrier school , out long, however, as the Master School of the German furrier craft ultimately then again, and German furriers school called. The entry in the register of associations at the Saxon District Court in Leipzig was made on April 7, 1928 under the number 1512.

The foundation fell at an initially unfavorable time, just before the start of the global economic crisis . The initiators and organizers of the foundation were the furrier Walter Maerz and the trade teacher Friedrich Lorenz . The Association of German Kürschnerschule e. V. called, later, or perhaps connected, the Reichsinnung. The responsible supervisory authority was initially the Leipzig Education Authority, then the Reich Ministry of Economics. In contrast to the vocational school, it was considered a “commercial school” or “voluntary technical school” without a state qualification, which was originally attended at one's own expense. The school was largely on its own; it had "completely free choice of teachers, freedom in designing curricula and teaching methods". The city council only assumed the duty of supervision, without any material responsibility.

Funding the school remained a constant problem even in better times due to the dependence on grants from the city and the state. The furriers only managed to maintain the school that was important to them with great difficulty: “Often enough, the teachers received their salaries far too late, the rent or the caretaker's salary was outstanding. The school fees to be paid by the students and the contributions from the members of the association were by no means sufficient to financially secure the running of the school. The then headmaster Maerz probably not only helped the school out of a financial tight spot with his own money. "

The prerequisite for admission to the school was a completed apprenticeship and at least two years of professional experience. Another limitation arose from the school's capacity. For the pupils, the hurdle was less the school fee than the loss of earnings. Later the school received an aid fund from voluntary donations from former students of 100 marks annually. The desperate economic situation played a major role at that time, almost every second student was unemployed. In 1928 the school had 24 students; in 1939 there were 76, the highest number since its inception. Although the Brühl had lost its reputation considerably due to the political situation, the school had retained its attraction due to its good specialist training. Of the 76 graduates, only 13 came from Leipzig and the surrounding area, 68 were foreigners. 13 students came from Switzerland, 12 from Norway, 9 from Sweden, 8 from Poland, 5 from Romania, 5 from Czechoslovakia, 3 from Italy, 2 from Austria and one each from the Soviet Union, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, Chile, France, Gdansk, Luxembourg and Yugoslavia. Alois Stollbrock , a graduate, wrote: The German Kürschner School has “developed into a teaching institution that is unique in the world. Nowhere do we find such an exemplary organizational structure and with such a rich field of knowledge in specialist circles ”.

The tradition of the school included visiting the Leipzig fair and the fur fair at Easter. The pupils took part in these trade fairs with their own exhibits, for example the innovations exhibition in the Leipziger Ring-Messehaus .

The master school of the German furrier trade was initially located in Zentralstrasse 3, where the Reich Center for Fur Animal and Tobacco Research had made some rooms available. The ever increasing space requirement shows the popularity that the school received. From 1932 to 1938 it was then on the fourth floor of “Schwabes Hof”, Richard-Wagner-Straße 9, where two workshop rooms and an auditorium were available. Only the court separated the course participants from the center of buying and selling raw materials. Since the rooms were too small, however, the school finally moved to the Servièrsche private school at Sebastian-Bach-Straße 91 in 1939. In addition to the teachers' room and a club room, there were three classrooms, three workshops, two furrier workshops, a machine room and a lecture hall with 150 Places available. Ten teachers taught for 49 hours a week under the direction of Lorenz, a commercial instructor, most of whom had worked at the school since it was founded. At the request of the Reichsinnungsverband des Kürschner, Hut- und Mützenmacherhandwerk, the school was officially designated as the third Leipzig master school by the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education at the beginning of 1939 as the master school of the furrier trade (technical school) in Leipzig.

When almost all of Leipzig's Brühl was cremated and smashed by an air raid on December 4, 1943 , the building of the furrier school was also destroyed. In the fur industry's journal, “Der Rauchwarenmarkt”, neither the destruction of the Brühl nor the school was mentioned. Due to the war, the newspaper was discontinued after the September 1944 edition.

classes

Very soon the German Furrier School offered the curriculum that corresponded to the needs of the fur industry, such as fur processing, pattern drawing, costume studies, etc. Only in 1935 a fundamental correction took place when the courses were extended from three to three and a half months. It had proven useful to supplement the theoretical lessons with two weeks of practical work. The furriers appeared for practical lessons, long after the post-war period, in their white coats, which were characteristic of the industry.

Most of the teachers came from practical experience; in the best of times there were over twelve speakers. Georg Miersemann was in charge of skin processing. The pattern was taught according to his own system by Otto Dönnicke , who owned a cutting school and published specialist books on the subject. Prof. Richard König from the commercial college, son of a furrier, taught the commercial subjects. Fur zoo was taught by the director of the Leipzig Zoo, Prof. Dr. Max Schneider and Dr. Heinrich Dathe , assistant director at Max Schneider and later head of the Berlin Zoo .

Each course visited the fur specialist museum , the Reich Center for Fur Animal and Tobacco Research, various fur processing companies and the breeding station for Karakul sheep in Halle .

In the DDR

Pattern course, Leipzig 1949

The re-establishment of the school, which was also destroyed by the effects of the war, by Leipzig furriers, with the special commitment of Obermeister Otto Barth, was considered a “special milestone” in a renewed upward trend in the Leipzig fur industry . On September 1, 1948, it was reopened at Liebknechtstrasse 14, 2nd floor, today Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse , at the time in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany. Among other things , August Dietzsch was won as a teacher . Together with his former teacher and colleague Friedrich Malm, he wrote the important book “The Art of the Furrier” published in 1951. In addition to managing his furrier business and leading the Leipzig master’s examination committee for many years, he worked as a teacher from 1948 to 1952.

In 1953, the year of its 25th anniversary, the German Furrier School was subordinate to the Ministry of Light Industry for technical issues . By increasing the study time to two semesters, the economic basis for the school's existence was created. The keynote speaker on the school anniversary stated "that it was a special obligation to supply quality workers in the interests of national development, especially to the nationally owned economy"; He concluded his speech "with reference to socialism, which builds a happy world for all creative people, and with wishes for the outgoing students".

The training for young people took place in Leipzig at the “only vocational school in the republic” for the fur trade, at the municipal vocational school V “Arthur Hausmann”, for one week, once a month. Together with the fur processing companies, the teachers had put together an extensive collection of furs.

Skinning schools of the Federal Republic

After the Second World War, Leipzig had finally lost its importance for the international fur trade, the tobacco trade relocated largely to West Germany from the Soviet-occupied zone and later, socialist GDR, in which at least the larger companies were expropriated. In Frankfurt am Main , a new trade center for hides and fur clothing was built around Niddastraße for a few decades , and its global significance is comparable to the old Brühl. Smaller centers formed in other places, above all in Hamburg with its world trade established by the port. The fur sales experienced a unique high point during the German economic miracle. In addition to the two supraregional master training centers for the fur industry in Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main, master’s courses were held from time to time in various cities, including in the Düsseldorf fashion center with its numerous furriers .

Master school of furrier craft

Gerd Münchow, the “longest serving” student at the master school, receives an award for the unable to attend Hans-Quaet-Faslem. Behind Martin von Schachtmeyer (1976).

In the first decades after the Second World War, Hamburg was the seat of the German master school for the furrier trade, the only national German national training center for future master furriers. Its importance was later lost with the establishment of the Federal Fur School in Frankfurt am Main. It was considered a very special qualification to have passed his master's examination in the atelier of Edelpelze Berger and with a diploma from the Hamburg master school for fashion.

When the furrier trade decided in 1946, after the Second World War, to rebuild its organizations, first in the British zone, it was only natural to turn to the training of the next generation. The conscripted age groups had been kept away from the training for a long time and due to the shortage of goods and the associated lack of application, there was a lack of practical experience. In 1948 the general meeting of the working group of the national guild associations of the furrier, hat and cap making trade of the American and British occupation areas decided to set up the master school of the furrier trade in Hamburg . Since the foundation under civil law of the furrier school attached to the master school for fashion not only had considerable founding assets, but also continuously received considerable funds from circles of sponsors and donors, the original plan was to create an institution that would generally support all measures which are in the interest of the furrier trade. As part of the currency reform , the assets were destroyed, so that it was decided to hand over the master school of furrier craft "to the care of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg". In August 1953, however, the foundation itself was restored to its original purpose and renamed by the Central Association of the Furrier Trade as the Institute for Professional Development in the Furrier Trade.

The school was located within the design department in the rooms of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, "Master School for Fashion / Craft School for Graphic Textile Advertising", Armgartstrasse 24, today part of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences . Interactions between the individual divisions were inevitable.

The school's head and specialist teacher was Hans Quaet-Faslem . In the summer of 1958 he went on a fourteen-day trip with some of the students, during which they visited four guilds of the Federal Republic and presented their findings, discussed them with the specialists on site and at the same time promoted attending the school. Together with his former student Martin von Schachtmeyer (* September 2, 1936; † September 26, 2018) Hans Quaet-Faslem wrote the three-volume work “Pelz”, in which they put the basic rules of fur processing on a new basis that applies to all types of fur . In August 2013, Martin von Schachtmeyer described in retrospect how the "Pelz" series came about: "The authoritative specialist book back then was the very informative specialist book" Der Kürschner ". At that time it was the only textbook that was available to us as apprentices and later also in the master school. Even as apprentices, however, we often asked our training masters why certain types of fur should be processed as it is in the "Kürschner". The unsatisfactory answer was mostly, "do it as described, it has been tried"! - but why, there was no answer for that. During my 2-semester studies in the master class for furriers at the University of Applied Sciences for Fashion Design and Applied Sciences in Hamburg, there were occasional discussions in the class and other discussions about how to explain this, especially when training apprentices. [...] In the end it became clear to us all: There must be clear reasons why the many processing methods described in the “Kürschner” have been found through trial and error, in other words empirically, why they are very successful and have proven to be good. There must be basic rules that run like a red thread through everything. The aim now was to recognize and describe these basic rules. [...] "

Federal fur school in Frankfurt am Main

  • Beaver fur stretched by the trapper, collection of the Bundes-Pelzfachschule

  • Ludwig Brauser, teacher and director of the Federal Fur School (1986)

Her teacher Hermann Frank († before 1972) made special contributions to the establishment of the Frankfurt vocational school for furriers and smokers . He was followed as the driving force behind the establishment of an institution in Frankfurt comparable to the Leipzig Furrier School, senior commercial teacher Ludwig Brauser (born September 30, 1924; † March 17, 2009; 1989 Cross of Merit on Ribbon). With his participation and with contributions from the master school of the furrier trade in Hamburg, the first of five subsequent exhibitions arose at the 13th Frankfurt fur fair in 1961 under the title “From apprentice to master”. The chairman of the German fur association assessed this as an international first step "towards the federal fur school as an institution that could create a further training opportunity for all German-speaking furriers and fur traders". According to the school management in October 2012, it is still the only school of its kind in the world.

On the initiative of the Association of the German Tobacco and Fur Industry, the Central Association of the Furrier Trade and Mr. Brausers, in agreement with the municipal and state associations, the school association Bundes-Pelzfachschule was founded in Frankfurt on September 13, 1967 . As in Leipzig, the Frankfurt furrier school should also provide additional training after the apprenticeship and journeyman time and thus continue the previous master courses of the furrier guild Frankfurt am Main. Right from the start, the courses took place on the third floor of the Bergius Vocational School (today the Frankfurt School for Clothing and Fashion ) in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, Hamburger Allee 23. The school was financed mainly through participation fees, as well as monetary and material donations from the companies and grants from the smoking goods association and the central association of the furrier trade.

The school already had 68 participants in its first year, and in its second year of work in 1969 there were already 120 students in six courses. The teaching program initially included the subjects of technical engineering, pattern drawing, a course for members of the fur processing industry and, new to Leipzig, one for the tobacco wholesale trade. In the next 25 years, more participants registered for almost all courses “than the emphatically individual lessons allowed”. By the 20th anniversary year, the school had prepared over 700 furriers for the master craftsman's examination. Well over 3000 people attended the courses and seminars, including foreigners from “East and West”. From 1975 onwards, twelve main courses for more than 200 participants were on the program every year. Well over 100 experts from all branches of the fur industry had presented themselves as speakers by then. These included, among other important personalities in the industry, the furriers Helmut Feilitsch and Dieter Zoern , as well as the fur traders Jürgen Thorer and Heinz Levié .

The main task of the Federal Fur School was to prepare apprentice furriers for the master craftsman examination. This included the commercial area, technical engineering, the creation of patterns and, increasingly important, fur design and species protection. She also offered training seminars for all professions in the fur industry. In addition to teaching, the institute performed special tasks, such as expert reports in the field of species protection, and the school principal was a member of the advisory board of the World Wildlife Fund Germany. Customs officers were made knowledgeable at the school, the close cooperation with zoologists, scientific institutes, universities, ministries and offices at home and abroad as well as the information work for animal welfare and consumer organizations went far beyond the commitment of conventional vocational schools.

A particularly important, fundamental area of ​​master craftsman training is the design of models and the creation of patterns. Hardly any journeyman furrier has the opportunity to deal with this task in the factories, and it is also not part of the curriculum in vocational schools. In Frankfurt this was done in a 7-week course by Ernst Röhr , who, like Otto Dönnicke in Leipzig, had a cutting school and had further developed the “Leibold System”.

Through donations, the Federal Fur School was able to continuously increase its stock of devices and machines. "Textbooks and materials for teaching were not only purchased, but largely developed by and in the school." The world's largest fur collection was created thanks to the tireless efforts of Ludwig Brauser's constant harassment of the fur companies. In the meantime, it was documented on slides and was available for purchase, the fur photos, which have since faded somewhat, are now generally available on the Internet. The collection itself is now in the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt .

In 1984, head teacher Ludwig Brauser also took over the management of the Frankfurt School for Clothing and Fashion , which brought together the three clothing areas fur, leather and textile. In 1988, Brauser wrote, among other things, of the now heated discussion about the right to use skins for processing into clothing: “The» good old days «in the fur trade are over. [...] The elderly cannot understand that fundamental changes have occurred. But the real suffering is the younger generation. She lacks the financial foundation and looks to an uncertain future. There is a lack of convincing arguments in the discussion with animal rights activists. The young generation therefore needs special help so that they do not become desperate and the branch receives active substance. [...] An industry that only processes natural products has to learn to rethink. It is well known that rethinking is easier for the younger generation than for the older generation. [...] "

Despite the abolition of the compulsory master craftsman's craft, the master’s preparation courses were still very popular in 2012. The training rooms are located in the workshops of the Kauerauf company in Obertshausen , the office of the school association in the rooms of the fur wholesale and foreign trade association in Frankfurt am Main. The federal college supports the vocational school for furriers in Fürth with specialist seminars on pattern drawing and fur and leather processing. Trainees as wholesalers and foreign trade merchants, specializing in fur trade, receive a specific specialist qualification in fur studies here. After the amendment of the Master's Examination Ordinance in 2019, the headmaster Volker Laudensack designed a “modular system” that journeymen can use as preparation for the master’s examination. It also enables others interested in the subject of the course to use the courses. The modules, each lasting three to five days, deal with the cutting technique, fitting, model development (altogether 5 partial courses), technical technology (2 partial courses), leather processing and material / fur science.

Well-known names in the fur industry or long-time teachers who have taught at the Federal Fur School were, among many others:

Emil Ballweg (teacher), Egon Beinhauer (furrier), Johannes Bode ( Marco Pelz in Fürth ), Ludwig Brauser (headmaster and teacher), Helmut Brutscher (teacher), Karl Buchmann (teacher), Otto Dabs (furrier in Lübeck, chairman of the School association), Helmut Feilitsch (furrier in Frankfurt), Andreas Franke (Murrhardter Pelzveredlung), Anton Ginzel (Marco Pelzveredlung), Karl-Friedrich Herhold (furrier in Wiesbaden), Ernst Knieriem sen. (Central Association), Dr. Bert Knoop (Central Association), Karl-Georg Köster (Chairman of the School Association), Dieter Kunze (Kürschner in Mannheim), Walter Langenberger (* 1956 - November 4, 1993, Rauchwarenverband, Chairman of the School Association), Dr. Heinz Levié (Marco Pelz), Friedrich Neumann (teacher), Ralf Ohanian (Ofra Rauchwaren), Hans Quaet-Faslem (Hamburg master class), Ernst Röhrs (cutting school in Frankfurt), Martin von Schachtmeyer (furrier in Bad Oldesloe), Hermann Schmidt ( Teacher), Alfred Seffern (leader of the experience exchange groups in the central association), Jürgen Thorer (fur finisher in Offenbach), Heinrich Unbehauen (furrier in Nuremberg), Dietrich E. Werner (representative of Swakara- Karakul), Walter Würker (tobacco shop in Frankfurt, Ofra company, chairman of the school association), Dieter Zoern (furrier in Hamburg).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g A. L .: 25 years of the German Kürschnerschule In: Das Pelzgewerbe No. 3/4, 1953, supplement to the magazine Hermelin, issue 3/4 1953, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin, Leipzig, pp. 22-23.
  2. ↑ According to research by the teacher of the German furrier school Wolfgang Müller (* 1934), August 9, 2019.
  3. ^ A b Friedrich Malm, August Dietzsch: The art of the furrier. Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, 1951, DNB 453192572 , p. 12 ( → book cover and table of contents ).
  4. ^ Walter Maerz: For the introduction . In: IPA - international fur exhibition, international hunting exhibition Leipzig 1930 - official catalog . P. 378.
  5. ↑ Author collective: Manufacture of tobacco products and fur clothing . VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig 1970, p. 29 (→ table of contents) .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Walter Fellmann: The Leipziger Brühl . VEB Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig 1989, pp. 153–156.
  7. ↑ a b c d Christine Spee, Lienhard Jänsch: About the German furrier school in Leipzig In: 1423 - 1998. 575 years furrier guild in Leipzig. Furriers' Guild Leipzig (eds.), Pp. 37, 40.
  8. ^ RG: Leipzig remains Germany's fur city . In: Stadtblatt der Leipziger Tageszeitung , undated copy (January 1939).
  9. ^ Josef Flamm: Memories of the German Furrier School in Leipzig . In: Pelz International Issue 1, 1979, pp. 57-60.
  10. ↑ Without author's name (Gisela Unruh): A master furrier from Brühl remembers - a conversation with August Dietzsch . In: Der Brühl , September / October 1986, VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, p. 34.
  11. ↑ Did you know . Excerpt from a Leipzig daily newspaper, February 19, 19 ??.
  12. ↑ Without an author's name: Passionate about quality for 25 years . In: Rund um den Pelz , No. 12, December 1963, Fulde Verlag Cologne, pp. 42–43.
  13. ↑ C. Schmitz: The organization of the furrier trade . In: The furrier. Technical and textbook for the furrier trade. 2nd revised edition. Vocational training committee of the central association of the furrier trade (ed.), JP Bachem publishing house, Cologne 1956, pp. 26–27 (→ book cover and table of contents) .
  14. ↑ Winckelmannstraße multiple address no. 65 , 1957, p IV.
  15. ↑ Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel 's Rauchwaren-Handbuch . 5th revised and expanded edition. Rifra-Verlag, Murrhardt 1976, p. 395 .
  16. ↑ Hans Quaet-Faslem: The master class of the furrier trade and design class for fur fashion at the master school for fashion / art school for textile and graphic advertising of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg . In: Das Pelzgewerbe No. 4, 1962, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin et al., P. 175.
  17. ^ Hans Quaet-Faslem: Munich - Nuremberg - Dortmund - Bielefeld . In: Rund um den Pelz , issue 10, October 1958, pp. 32–35.
  18. ^ Martin von Schachtmeyer obituary notice . In: Stormarner Tageblatt , October 6, 2018. Last accessed on July 31, 2019.
  19. ^ Willi Treusch: trade fair and association chronicle of 25 years ..... Manuscript, p. 1, Christian Franke collection .
  20. ^ A b c d e Walter Langenberger: The history of the federal fur school . In: 20 years of the Federal Fur School in Frankfurt . Schulverein Bundes-Pelzfachschule e. V., Frankfurt am Main (Hrgr.), 1988, pp. 9-12.
  21. ↑ Federal College for Fur and Leather Clothing e. V. In: Pelzmarkt Newsletter 10/12, October 2012, Deutscher Pelzverband e. V., Frankfurt am Main, pp. 4-5.
  22. ↑ a b Lecturers at the Federal Fur School Frankfurt 1968-1988 . In: 20 Jahre Bundes-Pelzfachschule Frankfurt , 1988, p. 27.
  23. ↑ Henning Zeumer: The international position of the German tobacco industry with special consideration of the Frankfurt-Main location . Diploma thesis, University of Mannheim, self-published 1985, pp. 81–82 (→ table of contents) .
  24. ↑ Ernst Röhrs: Sectional drawing? or sectional drawing? . In: 20 Years Federal Pelzfachschule Frankfurt , 1988, p. 25.
  25. ↑ The fur collection on commons.wikimedia.org .
  26. ↑ Ludwig Brauser: The training ship "Federal Fur School" in troubled waters . In: 20 Jahre Bundes-Pelzfachschule Frankfurt , 1988, pp. 13–15.
  27. ↑ Courses of the Federal Fur School for Fur and Leather Clothing . In: Pelzmarkt Newsletter 11/2019, November 2019, Deutscher Pelzverband, pp. 4–5.
  28. ↑ Walter Langenberger passed away . Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 1214, November 12, 1993, p. 4.

Web links

Commons : Deutsche Kürschner-Schule zu Leipzig  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Frankfurt School for Clothing and Fashion  - Collection of images, videos and audio files