Carl Breiding & Son
Carl Breiding & Sohn was a company in Soltau that mainly produced bed springs and, in the meantime, felt and leather shoes and was therefore internationally successful. The company was founded in 1836 and had around 1,600 employees worldwide at the time of its heyday at the turn of the century. In 2005 the company had to file for bankruptcy and was subsequently sold and divided into several new companies.
history
Establishment of the factory
Johan Diederich Röders, who was born in 1771 and opened a colonial and manufactured goods store in Soltauer Marktstrasse, also came from the old Röders family in Soltau. In addition, he founded a tobacco factory in 1808. After Diederich Röders' death in 1816, his widow married the merchant Carl August Victor Breiding (* 1784), who had moved from Rinteln and who continued the business under his name, two years later . Breiding's stepson August Röders (* 1811) took over the company in 1836 and named it Carl Breiding & Sohn . He got to know the bed spring trade at a trade fair in Leipzig and wanted to take it over into his own company. His father agreed to sell finished bed springs. After a second trip to Leipzig, August Röders came up with the idea of making felt shoes. From 1847 he started production in a separate branch of the company.
After visiting the Budapest spring fair, Röders decided not only to sell the finished springs in future, but also to process the raw material. This was followed by the construction of the first small factory building, which opened in 1849. Three years later the factory burned down completely and was rebuilt in the same year, larger and more modern. The Göpel was no longer powered by a horse, but by Soltau's first steam engine.
Worldwide expansion
In 1866/67 Röders opened two more bed spring factories in Moscow and Prague (the latter with a second branch in Berlin ) and a fruit wine factory in Soltau in 1868. The bed spring and felt shoe factory in Soltau was expanded to include leather shoes in the 1880s, which were sold worldwide under the name Soltawa . In 1886 the factory burned down again and was rebuilt one more time, even larger. August Röders was awarded the title of Kommerzienrat by the government in Hanover in 1886 ; he died in 1888.
After his death, his five sons continued to run the factory. The export business for China was launched in the same year . This resulted in the opening of a bed feather cleaning factory in Shanghai with branches in Hong Kong , Hankou and Guangzhou . There was also an office in Newark , USA, for seven years . Towards the end of the 19th century, the company had around 1,600 employees, 500 to 600 of whom were employed in Soltau, which at that time only had around 4,800 inhabitants.
Difficult times after the world wars
The First World War also had some far-reaching consequences for the company. The factories in Moscow were confiscated and the director, Hans Röders, was taken prisoner by the Russians. The assets invested in Russia and China were lost. After the war, the next generation - August Röders' five grandsons - took over management. The family villa in the Breidings garden laid out by August Röders in 1850 served as the headquarters .
In 1922, the wool felt and leather shoes departments were spun off from the company as an independent and still existing company, Gebr. Röders Aktiengesellschaft . The bed spring factory remained as an open trading company. Overall, sales rose again. Due to the market situation, shoe production was stopped in 1926. Otto Röders sen. gave up the management of the Prague branch and subsequently managed the Soltau bed spring factory together with his father. The Prague factory eventually closed in 1931 due to economic conditions in Czechoslovakia and high tariffs. Instead, the machines were used in a newly opened factory in Pfaffstätten near Vienna . After the end of the global economic crisis, the Carl Breiding & Sohn company still consisted of three production sites in Soltau, Berlin and Pfaffstätten, and sales abroad rose again.
In the Third Reich and during the Second World War , business was made more difficult by import regulations and price controls. Since Otto Röders sen. and later Otto Röders jun. participated in the Reichsstelle für Waren, major disadvantages for the company could be avoided.
After the war, took over Carl Breiding & Sohn in Soltau for a few years some of the production of the destroyed factory Werner & Ehlers from Hannover . It was impossible to continue operations in Berlin due to the division of Germany, and the East German government later expropriated the site and tore down the factory building. The Austrian branch was also expropriated and initially run as a Russian company, later it came into Austrian state ownership. In 1954 the Röders succeeded in bringing the plant back into family ownership. After initial difficulties, work in Soltau could be continued after the war. In 1959 the Bavaria bed spring factory from Munich was bought , and the Pumplün bed spring factory from Wuppertal was added in 1970 . With these acquisitions and further substantial investments, a leading role in the German bed spring industry was achieved.
Financial decline
In 1975 a non-family general partner joined the company for the first time , he modernized the spring processing and administration and also expanded global sales, so that the company continued to be a leader in its economic sector in the 1980s.
In the decades after reunification, a bed spring factory in Güstrow , the Neitex company from Görlitz , a production facility for synthetic bedding in Poland and Yeti GmbH from Borgsdorf in Brandenburg , which manufactured down sleeping bags and outdoor products, were acquired. Carl Breiding & Sohn wanted to open up new markets with this, and there was also a cooperation with the fashion group Esprit .
However, these plans did not work out. Due to the company's reduced financial strength, there were financial problems that resulted in bankruptcy in February 2005 . At that time, the company was producing around 500,000 pillows and duvets per year and had around 150 employees. In 2006 the Soltau company was sold to KBT Bettwaren from Everswinkel in Westphalia , production in the Soltau factory initially continued.
On June 12, 2007, the production area with the remaining 55 employees was renamed Heide Bettwaren GmbH , the headquarters were relocated to Langenberg . In April 2008 insolvency proceedings were opened for this successor company, and in October 2012 the company was deleted from the commercial register. The sales division was spun off from the company in 2006 and has been operating as Breiding Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH ever since . The seat of this company was relocated to Anklam in 2011 and thus ended the 175-year history of the Breiding company in Soltau.
literature
- Carl Breiding & Sohn (ed.): Paths across time and space. Font for the 150th anniversary of Carl Breiding & Sohn , 1986.
- Eckart von Naso: From the quiet heath into the wide world. The history of the Carl Breiding & Sohn company 1936 - 1961 , 1961.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang Bargmann : The city of Soltau in the history of Lower Saxony, Volume 2, chapter The economic development in the 19th century , pp. 180-185
- ↑ a b c d e f Wolfgang Bargmann : The city of Soltau in the history of Lower Saxony, Volume 3, chapter The economic situation between the world wars , pp. 77–86
- ^ Buyers wanted , article in the Böhme-Zeitung of June 3, 2005, page 3
- ↑ Breiding still present on the market Report from Haustex , edition 07/2005
- ^ New start for Breiding , article in the Böhme-Zeitung of July 8, 2006, page 3
- ^ From for bedding company , article in the Böhme newspaper from September 8, 2007
- ↑ Heide Bettwaren GmbH on online-handelsregister.de
- ↑ Company on the website of Breiding Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH in an archive version from February 29, 2016 (accessed on March 4, 2016)