CA Herpich sons

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CA Herpich sons

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legal form One-man business; KG; GmbH
founding 1835
Seat Berlin, Düsseldorf
Branch Fashion house, skinning, fur wholesale and retail

The Berlin fashion house CA Herpich Söhne was considered the most important company in the German fur industry for several decades. Originally a furrier with a small fur shop, Herpich developed into a fashion house "with a great and elegant look" and one of the most respected suppliers of high-quality furs and a wholesaler for ready-made fur and pelts.

history

Germany

The head office of the company founded by master furrier CA Herpich in 1835 was located in the center of what was then Berlin , on what was then Königstraße 20 (today: Rathausstraße ). In the course of his business life he succeeded in securing a circle of regular customers and leaving his children with a flourishing business.

"Herpichs-Maß-Salon", advertisement (approx. 1910)
Ocelot jacket (Herpich, 1934)

How often did the sons learn their father's craft. The three brothers, Carl, Julius and Rudolf acquired additional knowledge abroad. The eldest then went to New York in 1868 and founded the tobacco and fur clothing business Charles A. Herpich , which held a leading position for a long time, but was no longer run when Carl died.

The youngest brother Rudolf made in Leipzig independently , the emerging world trade center for tobacco products, the Brühl . His local fur and tobacco wholesale business of the Berlin house enjoyed a very good reputation. This branch went out when Rudolf died in 1895.

After the death of the two brothers, Julius Herpich, the second son of the company founder, became the sole owner of the Berlin business. He took over the company at a time of economic boom and increasing prosperity. He managed to take advantage of the economic situation, and with the help of his two sons Paul and Julius, the business grew steadily. In 1897, therefore, the company moved to its own large commercial building on Leipziger Strasse . At that time the Herpich company already had a worldwide reputation. In the new, large, bright and modern sales and work rooms, it was possible to expand the company's original field of activity, furs, to include more and more articles. After just a few years, the owner acquired the two adjoining houses and had their shops and several floors rebuilt. Herpich and Michelet on the corner of Leipziger Strasse and Jerusalemer Strasse were probably the first in Germany in the 1880s to break away from the only furrier workshop and purposefully created a fur house.

Julius Herpich senior died in 1904. He was succeeded by the two sons Paul and Julius, who had been familiar with the company from their youth and successfully continued the company in the spirit of their grandfather. Philipp Manes , the Berlin biographer of the fur industry who was murdered by the National Socialists, describes his encounters with Julius Herpich junior: “At my suggestion, Julius Herpich was appointed [to the specialist committee of the fur industry] - who appeared regularly at the meetings, but only very rarely Word took hold. He only became talkative when left alone with him. I often had meetings with the otherwise invisible gentleman who was usually represented by his authorized signatory Alexander Graf [...]. "

In 1925, the main focus was still on fur goods, but there was also a fashion department for women in which, in addition to all types of clothing, hats and milliner articles were also available. The men's clothing department was considered equal to the best tailoring companies. The department for real Persian and Oriental carpets was established in 1920, and it too had to be constantly enlarged, and soon the company was also a leader in this article. Following the trend of the times, a department for women's and men's sportswear was set up and a division for sports equipment and equipment was incorporated. The department for fur preservation received special attention in the fur industry . Electrification now made it possible to store furs refrigerated over the summer. The system required for this was the largest of its kind in Europe. In 1925 the customer directory comprised 25,000 addresses. The insurance value of the stored furs was 55 million marks (adjusted for inflation in today's currency: around 210 million euros). The “Department for Conservation” advertised in 1926 with “day and night security” for “fur items, winter clothes, carpets, etc.”.

In addition to the retail trade, Herpich dealt with the wholesale business of fur clothing and skins, large quantities of which were delivered abroad. The purchase was made directly, at the large fur markets in Leipzig and London. Philipp Manes writes in an appreciation: “The company can flatter itself that it has the most exquisite and precious sable, silver fox, blue fox and other noble furs that are unlikely to be found in the industry for the second time. Another advantage of Herpich's products is their impeccable, solid workmanship, which is done almost exclusively in our own workshops ”.

In 1925, the Berlin business premises covered an area of ​​11,000 square meters. Around 900 permanent employees were employed in the main business premises and in the adjoining houses, plus a few hundred home workers for the company's special items. As the area was insufficient, the houses at Leipziger Strasse 9 and 10 were added by three floors at the time. The announcement was made that house no. 11 would also be increased to seven floors: "This will give the Herpich company the first 'skyscraper' on Leipzigerstrasse, which will be followed by others very soon." In 1936, the master furrier Heinz Herpich joined the company as a partner. In the following year the company followed the development of the main business locations in Berlin and opened a second store on Tauentzienstrasse No. 7 b / c. Both houses, the one on Leipziger Strasse and one on Tauentzienstrasse, burned down in 1943 and 1945.

A furrier, who was still very impressed 50 years after his apprenticeship, reported in 1980 about the accuracy with which the furrier studios of Herpich were working: “In the technical school, the apprentices told each other that chipping after matching [the final cut of the fur] was not allowed . Even if only a single piece had to be put on, the whole coat had to be used again. Perhaps it was an exaggeration of the apprentices employed there, after all it sheds light on the correctness of the workmanship of the leading companies at the time ”.

Textile label Herpich Düsseldorf

Master furrier Paul Herpich (1914–1962), the youngest son of Julius Herpich, who died in 1944, had the house on the corner of Tauentzien and Nürnberger Strasse rebuilt after the war. The reopening took place on December 1, 1950, and the mayor of Berlin himself appeared. Mr. Klingberg was responsible for the studio and the model design at the time. In the same year, CA Herpich Söhne also advertises at the old address Königstrasse 20, which was now in the Soviet-occupied part of Berlin. However, the Herpich company for Berlin is no longer listed in the specialist directory for 1957 at the latest. In 1984, however, the relocation of the headquarters of Herpich & Co., fur and women's clothing from Tauentzienstrasse 7 b – c, Berlin to Fürth was registered at the Berlin District Court . Managing director since February 1983; instead of Volker Schöpke ; the Fürth merchant Hartmut Tröger .

Even after the Second World War , the Düsseldorf branch Julius Herpich KG in the Hotel Breidenbacher Hof , on the Heinrich-Heine-Allee side, was considered a particularly exclusive fur address. Herpich is still noted in the specialist address book there in 1981. In 1991 the company is then given under the even more refined address Königsallee 30 in the newly built Kö-Center . On November 15, 2001, an entry was made in the commercial register as Julius Herpich GmbH Pelze & Modellbekleidung , in the meantime the entry has been deleted.

foreign countries

In order to facilitate the constantly growing export business and to be able to better serve the foreign customers, the company set up a branch in Paris under the name Fourrures Herpich . This was so successful that a permanent representation with a model warehouse was set up in London the following year . Both companies were supplied from Berlin and had developed very well by the outbreak of the First World War .

Paul Herpich

CA Herpich, Wholesale in Leipzig
(around 1905)

Paul Herpich (* 1869; † October 9, 1923) joined the company after graduating from high school in 1887. Here he got to know the entire business area of ​​the company and obtained the title of master furrier. To expand his commercial knowledge, he went to London to get to know the tobacco trade, purchasing and the range of fur as well as overseas trade in the English world market. He then worked for his uncle in New York for a long time. The conclusion of his international experience was a one-year stay in Paris. In one of the first Paris fur houses he familiarized himself with the most advanced type of French production methods of the time. With his cooperation, the company CA Herpich Söhne grew in size and importance and gained the "undisputed leading position" in the industry. Paul Herpich was buried in the old St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof on Großgörschenstraße in a mausoleum still preserved today .

Julius Herpich

Julius Herpich (* 1876, † January 14, 1944) joined his father's business in 1892. Here he was especially responsible for the commercial part. In London he learned about local business practices in the largest clothing and fur factories. Then he went to Paris to get to know their customs. In 1895 he took over the company as sole owner after the death of his father. With further annual trips he kept himself up to date on international fashion. A longer stay in the largest squares in North America gave Julius an insight into the organization of the world houses there. From there he brought the idea for a fur knocking machine with a rotating shaft, which he had produced and sold in Germany (see: Knocking in the skinning ). Not least the knowledge he acquired abroad made it possible for him to structure the company in an exemplary manner, which contributed significantly to its unusually rapid growth. This excellently trained and practical organization was considered exemplary far beyond the clothing and fur industry.

CA Herpich & Sons department store

The newly opened HO department store in the former Herpich department store, 1949

The Herpich & Sons department store, whose three houses had been converted into a modern building by the well-known architect Erich Mendelsohn in the years 1924–1929 , was located on the south side of Leipziger Straße at house numbers 8 and 9–13. The corner house no. 8 was on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse , the numbers 9-13 next to it to the east next to the postal museum . One of the three buildings was demolished and rebuilt for this purpose. The uniform facade gave the impression of a single building.

The building stands for “one of the finest achievements in contemporary architecture”, according to Walter Riezler's judgment at the time. In particular, the radically modern facade, which was shown in front of the three houses in 1928, was a much-noticed example of the building culture of that time. It "consisted of a reinforced concrete skeleton clad with travertine and bronze , which was horizontally structured by long window sills and flanked on both sides by curved bay windows". In bronze women clad with glass there were lightbulbs below the window sills, from which the travertine strips underneath were illuminated. The full-width lettering was illuminated directly above the shop windows. Mendelsohn's deliberately reserved lighting concept was revised as early as 1930. Instead of light bulbs, blue fluorescent tubes were installed above the rows of windows on all floors.

Part of the original three houses were destroyed in the Second World War. After the end of the war in tugged on 1 October 1946 Mohrenstrasse bombed Angel Pharmacy , owner Ernst Jost, in the house of the company fur Herpich one, in William Street no. 59, corner of Leipziger Strasse. On the instructions of the central command in the Soviet occupation zone, the pharmacy had to be cleared without compensation by January 31, 1949 so that the first department store of the trade organization HO could be built in the Herpich-Haus .

Villa Herpich ("Stalin Villa")

Villa Herpich, waterside (1953)
Villa Herpich, street side (2012)

The two-storey Villa Herpich in Potsdam- Babelsberg , Kaiserstraße (today: Karl-Marx-Straße 27) was designed in 1910/1911 by the Swedish architect Alfred Grenander for Paul Herpich. The Soviet Prime Minister Josef Stalin lived here from July 17 to August 2, 1945 during the Potsdam Conference ; the Herpich family had previously had to leave the house within a few hours.

“Grenander's style attracted attention at a time when Art Nouveau and the Wilhelminian era were already fading. His Babelsberg house for Paul Herpich distanced itself from the more 'glorified' villas of the Sarre, Lademann or Müller-Grote families. It shows that the question of style cannot only be solved in terms of decorative ornament. Simplification is the order of the day, the clarity of the lines becomes the determining element. Grenander also created a uniform design of functional elegance in Neubabelsberg. On the representative ground floor there is what characterizes an upper -class villa construction: In addition to the hall and reception room , the master's room in front of the garden loggia is given the central role. On the right the ladies' room, on the left the dining room with the adjoining kitchen rooms. [...] At that time, the architect Alfred Grenander designed the eight-meter slope of the garden down to the lake shore. With the construction of the border fortifications in 1961, the Kolonnenweg cut off the property from the bank. It has now become a public riverside path. "

On May 18, 1953, immediately after Stalin's death, the GDR Council of Ministers decided to found the Museum for the History of the Potsdam Agreement. The Cecilienhof Palace in the New Garden and the Stalin house in Babelsberg also belonged to this Stalin memorial . After the crimes of Stalin became apparent, the villa lost its status as a National Memorial in 1955. A commemorative plaque still reminds of this stay: "The Soviet delegation headed by JW Stalin lived in this house from July 17 to August 2, 1945 during the negotiations between the Allies on the Potsdam Agreement".

On July 21, 1945, Stalin served the rest of the statesmen gathered in Potsdam with an opulent menu. He had had the furniture removed beforehand; all that remained was a large buffet, probably because it was integrated into the wall paneling. This is the only one of the old pieces of furniture that is still in the villa today.

During the GDR era, the villa was used by the German Academy for Political Science and Law and the University of Film and Television . After the fall of the Wall , the Herpich family's heirs sold the property with the generous green space to the Berlin-Brandenburg Building Industry Association, which uses the villa as a representative office space and for lobbying work.

Others

In the film comedy from 1918 Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell (directed by Rudolf Biebrach ), “a young tasting mummy [...] has only one dream: to finally get hold of the wonderful ermine fur that she daily in the shop window of Herpich fur house admired. Her dreams go so far that one day she imagines that the fine gentleman who bought the good piece at the fashion show today appears to her as a devil. ”- The mention of the Herpich company in the film is understandable, the director and actor Biebrach was a furrier's son.

Web links

Commons : Herpich Söhne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Philipp Manes : CA Herpich Sons, Berlin . In: Die Pelzkonfektion Nr. 1, March 1925, Berlin, pp. 82–86.
  2. ↑ On the origin and development of the tobacco market . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , Leipzig, April 1, 1938, p. 7.
  3. ^ Philipp Manes : The German fur industry and its associations 1900-1940, attempt at a story . Berlin 1941 Volume 1. Copy of the original manuscript, pp. 141–142. ( G. & C. Franke collection ).
  4. ^ Reply card from CA Herpich Sons .
  5. ↑ Business News . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 25, Leipzig, June 19, 1936, p. 12.
  6. ↑ a b Without naming the author: New opening of the Herpich & Söhne K.-G. company, Berlin . In: Rund um den Pelz , No. 1, January 1951, Fulde-Verlag Cologne, p. 45.
  7. ↑ Bruno Leschig: Memories . In: 700 years of the furrier guild Berlin . 1980.
  8. ↑ In: Guide through the Brühl and the Berlin fur industry , born in 1950. Otto Teubel Verlag, Berlin, p. 142.
  9. ^ Winckelmann Germany 1957 , Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
  10. ^ Editing: Deletions. In Die Pelzwirtschaft No. 10-11, Berlin, November 22, 1984, p. 60.
  11. ↑ News from the commercial register . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 697, June 3, 1983, p. 11.
  12. ↑ News from the commercial register . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 752, June 29, 1984, p. 9.
  13. ↑ www.spiegel.de: Without an author's name: Unfaßlich in die Welt , February 16, 1950. Last accessed November 27, 2014.
  14. ↑ Winckelmann Germany 1981 , Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, p. 241
  15. ^ Winckelmann Germany 1991/92 , Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, p. 77.
  16. ↑ www.moneyhouse.de Last accessed November 28, 2014.
  17. ↑ www.f Firmenkontor24.com: Julius-Herpich-KG- Pelze-Modellbekleidung . Last accessed November 28, 2014
  18. ↑ Obituary. In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 1, January 1944, p. 6.
  19. ↑ Wissen48.net: Architect of the avant-garde Erich Mendelsohn . Accessed November 27, 2014. Secondary source: Petersdorff department store in Breslau: "Like a shining curtain from heaven"; 1928 by Erich Mendelsohn.
  20. ↑ www.yumpu.com: Learning from Las Vegas or the identity of a city . Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  21. ↑ www.friedrichstadtapotheke.de: New beginning in Wilhelmstrasse (also previous pages). Last accessed on November 27, 2014. ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.friedrichstadtapotheke.de
  22. ↑ www.wsa-b.de: Stalin's residence . Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  23. ↑ www.maz-online, without naming the author: A visit to the Stalin villa in Potsdam . August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017.
  24. ↑ List of architectural monuments in Potsdam. Last accessed on November 27, 2014.
  25. ↑ www.potsdam-wiki.de: Villa Herpich ( Memento from December 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Secondary source: Neuendorf-Nowawes-Babelsberg - stations of a district , Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar, 2000, ISBN 3-89570-653-1 . Last accessed November 27, 2014.
  26. ↑ www.filmportal.de: The lady, the devil and the tasting lady . Last accessed November 27, 2014.