CH Bohm

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CH Böhm around 1905

Hermann Christoph Christian Böhm (born October 3, 1863 in Meiningen ; † September 1, 1934 in Hamburg ) was a German musical instrument maker.

In 1897 he started producing forest zithers in Hamburg , the design of which he was inspired by the Portuguese guitar . Cistern has been around since the Middle Ages, but Böhm designed a new type of instrument that enabled production and marketing in larger numbers. This idea was taken up by other instrument makers, first in Hamburg, then in the 1920s and 30s also in Vogtland, the center of plucked instrument production at the time.

life and work

Böhm came to Meiningen as the son of master brewer Johann Friedrich Böhm and his wife Mathilde, nee. Kaiser, to the world. By the beginning of the 1890s at the latest, he lived in Hamburg; He married Margaretha Caroline Andresen on April 22, 1891 (born June 15, 1862 in Hattstedt near Husum, † October 22, 1942 in Hamburg). In the marriage register, his occupation at that time as a train driver is given; when his son Ernst Wilhelm was born in 1896, he was a machinist.

Nothing is known about his training as an instrument maker, he first appeared in Hamburg in 1897 as a producer of musical instruments. On June 11, 1897, Böhm registered with the patent office under no. 77344 registered a 9-string cister he called "Waldzither" as a utility model, on August 12, 1897 under the no. 80548 a fan or screw mechanism; later, on the notes of his instruments, he mentions 1897 as the year the company was founded. The mechanics of the early instruments by CH Böhm clearly show the borrowings from the Portuguese guitar , but later Böhm continued to simplify his fan mechanics until the reference to the Portuguese guitar was barely recognizable.

Guitar from CH Böhm with fan mechanism

Böhm cleverly advertised his Waldzither as a German alternative to the national instruments of other countries (Italy: mandolin , England: banjo , Russia: balalaika ) and also pointed out that the instrument was particularly well suited to the increasingly fashionable ones Take hiking tours into the countryside with you. In terms of marketing, he did not miss any other opportunity to increase sales of his Waldzithers. For example, Böhm published his own forest zither school very early on, organized teaching courses for which he made 250 practice instruments available and published a series of song books called “Grillenscheucher”, for which he arranged well-known songs for forest zither. According to his own statements, by around 1910 Böhm had built 5000 forest zithers across the country; by the end of the Böhm company in 1942, it should have been around 20,000 instruments.

In addition to forest zithers, from 1904 onwards, CH Böhm also produced mandolins with a fan mechanism, which he called "forest dolines", as well as guitars.

Böhm forest zither no.3

Around 1906 Böhm had developed four basic models of his forest zithers (simply called No. 1–4); they are also shown in the 1912 catalog. Characteristic of the Böhm forest zithers were, in addition to the fan mechanisms, above all the glass bridges that Böhm used on all instruments (including the Walddoline). Later he added two more models No. 1B and 1C to his model range; they are shown in the 1926 catalog.

Encouraged by Böhm's success, other Hamburg instrument makers such as Gustav Becker or the Detmering company began to manufacture their own forest zithers based on the Böhm model before the First World War . Since Böhm had the name "Waldzither" protected, the Becker instruments were sold as "Mandolin Zithers". After the First World War, the Waldzither idea was also adopted in Vogtland , the center of plucked instrument production at the time. d. H. Instruments were manufactured in large numbers and mainly sold in the Ruhr area and Westphalia as "miners' instruments".

The Böhm company around 1925

In 1918, CH Böhm acquired the house at Steintorweg 2 in Hamburg (St. Georg), where the company had been located since 1904; around 1920 the company expanded again. The largest number of the Böhm-Waldzithers still preserved today comes from the 1920s and 1930s; this can be verified by dating with the help of the notes or signatures glued into the instruments.

After Böhm's death in 1934 (the certificate of inheritance was issued on February 27, 1935), the Waldzither production was initially continued by his son Ernst Wilhelm Böhm (1896-1935) (entries in the address and telephone books of the city of Hamburg), before the Musical instrument producer Georg Walther from Adorf / Vogtland bought the company from Böhm's widow Margaretha Caroline in 1942. The GEWA company continued to produce “real Böhm forest zithers” well into the 1960s, which differed little in terms of design and appearance from the original Böhm instruments.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death register StA Hamburg 20, No. 334/1934
  2. ↑ M. Rosenberger, "The German Cister - the close connection of an instrument with the technical development of its tuning device", Inventor Visionen 1/2011, 24-25.
  3. ↑ Marriage Register StA Hamburg 23, No. 153/1891
  4. ↑ Death register StA Hamburg 4, No. 1299/1942
  5. ↑ Birth register StA Hamburg 21, No. 3421/1896
  6. ↑ Mechanics. ch-bohm-waldzithern.webnode.com. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  7. ↑ CH Böhm, Through field and forest with the German lute. A collection of folk, hiking, soldier, student, gymnastics, drinking and social songs (Grillenscheucher V), Hamburg 1918, 2-3.
  8. ↑ CH Böhm, CH Böhm's total. Gesch. Waldziter and Walddoline (catalog), Hamburg 1912, 5.
  9. ↑ CH Böhm, Through field and forest with the German lute. A collection of folk, hiking, soldier, student, gymnastics, drinking and social songs (Grillenscheucher V), Hamburg 1918, 2-3. The text of the foreword, as evidenced by the reference to the first hiking tours “12 years ago”, was written around 1910.
  10. ↑ Catalog 1912. ch-bohm-waldzithern.webnode.com. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  11. ↑ Catalog 1926. ch-bohm-waldzithern.webnode.com. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  12. ↑ M. Rosenberger: "The Waldzither Puzzle Part 1: Thirties in the Ruhr Area and Westphalia", 3rd expanded and revised edition, Krumbach 2007.
  13. ↑ This is proven by contemporary entries in the Hamburg address books, http://agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de/subhh-adress/digbib/browsevolume . Retrieved February 12, 2016.
  14. ↑ The signatures of the Böhm instruments in chronological order. ch-bohm-waldzithern.webnode.com. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  15. ↑ M. Rosenberger: "The Waldzither Puzzle Part 2: The Waldzither in Hamburg", Krumbach 2005, 3. http://www.etcetra.eu/index_htm_files/Waldzitherpuzzle2.pdf
  16. ↑ M. Rosenberger: “The Waldzither Puzzle Part 2: The Waldzither in Hamburg”, Krumbach 2005, 3. The date of purchase can now be dated back to 1942, cf. the history of the company on ch-bohm-waldzithern.webnode.com.
personal data
SURNAME Boehm, CH
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Böhm, Hermann Christoph Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musical instrument maker
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Meiningen
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1934
Place of death Hamburg