Crefeld cotton spinning mill

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Share of more than 1,000 marks in the Crefeld cotton spinning mill on January 1, 1919

The Crefeld cotton spinning mill existed from 1870 to 1971 and was the largest company in the textile industry in Krefeld on the Lower Rhine . It was founded as a cooperative and in 1896, with the construction of the large, castle-like factory building on Spinnereistraße, it was converted into a stock corporation.

The company's objective was to produce raw, semi-finished and finished textiles in order to replace the English imports of high-quality yarns with domestic products such as twisted yarn and cotton yarn . The establishment was an important impetus for further industrial settlements in this branch in and around Krefeld at the end of the 19th century. Crow pile was the company's first trademark .

history

The first director of the company was the engineer Robert Staub. The first supervisory board included Kommerzienrat Heinrich Seyffardt (as chairman), Fritz Leendertz (as deputy chairman), Kommerzienrat Emil Bellardi , city councilor Heinrich Müller-Brüderlin , Rudolf Schelleckes (1847–1902), Albert Oetker , lawyer Paul Krüsemann, Gustav Scheibler (1845) –1911), Kommerzienrat Friedrich-Wilhelm Deussen (1842–1930), all from Krefeld, Ludwig Gauwerky , Mönchengladbach , Carl Vorwerk (1847–1907), owner of the Barmer carpet factory Vorwerk & Co. in Barmen , Jos. Daniels, Rheydt . The founding capital of the stock corporation was 1.8 million marks , the production plant was designed for 60,000 spindles .

The biggest problems in the early years were, in addition to the loss of earnings, the lack of housing for workers. From 1899, nearby apartments were rented for the workers. In addition, workers' houses were built on the company's own property on Ulmenstrasse. In 1902 the loss had risen to over 370,000 marks. The shares were therefore merged and the share capital was reduced to 1.152 million marks. The resulting book profit of 924,000 marks was used to repay losses, write-offs, provisions and, in particular, to improve operating efficiency. One measure was the merging of the spinning facilities, which resulted in a gain in space for 11,400 additional self-actuator spindles . The necessary outworks were already in place.

Yarn production was increased by around 15 percent with the same number of spindles, which resulted in a considerable reduction in production costs . For the first time a profit of 94,783.64 marks was achieved, which enabled a dividend of 5%. Shortly after the turn of the century, full capacity was reached, so that the company had to expand to a capacity of 71,000 spindles. A large part of the workforce came from Bohemia . Workers' apartments in Spinnereistraße and Ulmenstraße were built for them on an area belonging to the factory premises. In the years that followed, the entire plant was equipped with automatic fire extinguishing equipment and an in-house fire brigade was set up with the necessary equipment. The years 1910 and 1911 were heavy losses due to global overproduction and the associated decline in sales. Nevertheless, the management decided to carry out technical modernizations: “The boiler system was improved in line with the times, the combing machines increased by 10. A new steam engine of 2,400 HP from Sulzer Brothers, Ludwigshafen, was put into service; in addition there was a reserve machine of 400 HP for electric light and power transmission. The result was a significant simplification of operations and a reduction in manufacturing costs, which found expression in a dividend of 6% for 1912 and 8% for 1913. "

The first years of the First World War were very profitable for the Crefeld cotton spinning mill, as the army requirements with special requirements for the material quality now covered almost the full capacity. From 1917 production was stopped due to the confiscations . During this time, further investments were made, in particular a new twisting plant was completed because difficulties in the free cotton trade became apparent. The raw material prices had risen exorbitantly: Egyptian cotton on the free market initially cost 130 times the pre-war price; only over time did the price level off at 20 times the pre-war price. After the end of the war, sufficient raw materials were still available, both in our own warehouses and in Switzerland. It would be a year and a half before new cotton could be bought. The aim was also to be able to operate as independently as possible. The repair shops were expanded accordingly; the company had its own carpentry, foundry, plumbing, forge, turning shop and locksmith's shop.

Krefeld today: Vennfelder Weg (left), Spinnereistraße (right). The early 1980s block on the company's former site.

At the beginning of the 1920s, the workforce was 550. The next economic slump came with hyperinflation . After the currency reform of August 30, 1924 , the share capital was set at 172,800 Reichsmarks (RM), reduced to RM 86,400 by the general assembly on April 2, 1929 and increased to RM 100,000 on September 6, 1937.

The highest workforce was reached in the 1950s with 1350 people. Afterwards, the earnings situation deteriorated noticeably due to the textile crisis as a result of the Korean crisis . The takeover by the van Delden textile group in 1965 did not change the situation either. Production ended on March 31, 1971. After a severe fire in 1977, the building , which was not listed , was demolished in early February 1978. In the 1980s, attempts were made to upgrade the residential area around Spinnereistraße on the 23,000 m² site with new residential units. The developer was the Niederrheinische Baugesellschaft .

literature

  • Fritz Horst: The economic development of the Krefeld district since reunification with Prussia in 1815. Dissertation, University of Cologne, 1929.
  • Axel Föhl: Technical monuments in the Rhineland. (= Workbook of the Landeskonservator Rheinland , Volume 20.) Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-7927-0284-3 , p. 30 and p. 42.
  • Hans-Joachim Ramm:  Scheibler. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 624 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Festschrift for the 25th anniversary, August 1921 , digitized by the Leibnitz Information Center for Economics
  2. ^ Frank Heidermann's genealogy
  3. ^ Register entry Scheibler, Gustav Wilhelm der Deutschen Biographie
  4. ^ Walther Risler:  Deussen, Friedrich Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 622 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b Handbook of German Stock Companies , Volume 48, Part 4, 1943, p. 3680
  6. ↑ Cotton Mill . The demolition excavator arrived 30 years ago. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung of January 28, 2008
  7. ↑ Crefeld cotton mill was demolished 30 years ago. In: Rheinische Post from February 1, 1980
  8. ^ Company statistics Albert Gieseler
  9. ↑ Karl Lauschke: Strategies for economic crisis management. The textile industry in Westmünsterland and in Upper Franconia from 1945 to 1975. In: Thomas Schlemmer, Hans Woller (Hrsg.): Politics and culture in the federal state. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56596-6 , p. 218 (online at Google books)
  10. ↑ http://www.albert-gieseler.de/dampf_de/firmen4/firmadet48214.shtml

Coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 55.2 "  N , 6 ° 33 ′ 41.6"  E