Carl Küster

Carl Küster (born October 31, 1854 in Hanover , † July 3, 1913 in Barsinghausen ; full name: Carl Konrad Christof Küster ) was a German businessman , editor and founder of the book printing company named after him .

Life

Sales brochure from 1906 in Art Nouveau by Carl Küster, book and art print shop , Hanover for the low-pressure steam heating from Fritz Kaeferle

Born the son of a liqueur - factory owner , Carl Sexton visited the Ratsgymnasium in Hanover. After the death of his father, Küster broke off his school career prematurely and instead completed a commercial apprenticeship .

After Sexton his military service in the so-called "74ern", the first Hanoverian Infantry Regiment. 74 had served, he competed at the Hanover Tageblatt , where he was a reporter , among others, three sensational for its time ballooning reported. Küster quickly rose to the position of editor of the daily newspaper and finally directed the fortunes of the newspaper as managing director .

In 1895 Küster married Millicent , the third daughter of the Hanoverian court jeweler Carl Büsch . With her dowry of 250,000 marks , Küster was able to acquire a printing works with three developed properties (Baringstrasse 7) that was in liquidation . Under the company Carl Sexton Buchdruckerei the company has developed into a respected book printing company with a hundred employees, who was in 1900 the fourth largest of 65 printing plants in Hanover. Customers included well-known companies such as Continental AG , Hackethal-Draht-Gesellschaft , Stadtsparkasse , Döhrener wool laundry and combing and others.

In the meantime, Carl Küster had almost completely filled the ground floor rooms on Baringstrasse with printing machines until he fell ill with cancer in 1908 and died of it in Barsinghausen in 1913. He was buried in the Engesohde city cemetery .

The development to the Carl Küster Druckerei GmbH

Company sign at house Kramerstraße 15 in Hanover

After Carl Küster's death, the widow Millicent Küster was initially the sole owner of the printing house, who, together with her daughter, continued the company through the First World War and the subsequent inflationary period . During the Great Depression and the National Socialist era , the number of employees fluctuated between fifty and seventy, and the printing company had been converted into a GmbH . In the year of the Olympic Games in 1936 , the company celebrated its 50th anniversary , and some of the machines purchased under Carl Küster were still in operation.

During the Second World War , the building of the printing works on Baringstrasse fell to rubble and ashes during the air raids on Hanover on the night of October 9-10, 1943. At least some machines could be salvaged from the rubble. As early as 1944, under the direction of Dr. Elisabeth Löwenstein born Küster the reconstruction of the company "in the rooms of the building Dieterichsstrasse 35 A."

After Elisabeth Löwenstein's death in 1967, Kay Böttcher , a grandson of the company's founder , took over the management. From 1972 onwards, his brother Dirk Böttcher supported him “with the difficult changeover from letterpress to offset printing .” Jens Böttcher joined the management team for the 100th anniversary in 1986 and was supported by his father and uncle for several years.

The now in its fourth generation run family business today has (as of September 2014) in addition to design and layout and printing in different techniques and finishing processes such as " blind , high or deep embossing , steel engraving or hot foil stamping ."

literature

Dirk Böttcher : Küster, (1) Carl Konrad Christof. In: Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 216.

Web links

Jens Böttcher ( ViSdP ): Carl Küster Welcome to Carl Küster Druckerei GmbH on the site druckerei-kuester.de

References and comments

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Dirk Böttcher: KÜSTER ... (see literature)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Jens Küster (ViSdP): Data & Facts / How it all began ... on the page druckerei-kuester.de , last accessed on September 6, 2014.
↑ Deviating from this, the company's chronicle only reports on its website: “Loyal employees and an experienced managing director ensured that the company's good reputation was maintained”.

personal data
SURNAME	Sexton, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Küster, Carl Konrad Christof
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German businessman, editor and printer, founder of the printing company of the same name
DATE OF BIRTH	October 31, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hanover
DATE OF DEATH	July 3, 1913
Place of death	Barsinghausen

[HBL-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Dirk Böttcher: KÜSTER ... (see literature)

[Jens_Küster-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Jens Küster (ViSdP): Data & Facts / How it all began ... on the page druckerei-kuester.de , last accessed on September 6, 2014.

[3] Deviating from this, the company's chronicle only reports on its website: “Loyal employees and an experienced managing director ensured that the company's good reputation was maintained”.