Davistan

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The Davistan AG (Davistan Krimmer-, plush and carpet factories AG) was a German company.

history

The company was founded in 1850 as David & Co by the David family in Berlin . In 1907 the headquarters of the company, which at the time belonged to the Jewish Frank family, was relocated to Katscher in Upper Silesia . When the National Socialists came to power in the German Reich and the associated reprisals against Jews, the Frank family decided to flee Germany in 1933. The exact circumstances are unclear. According to the historian Gregor Schöllgen , professor of modern history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the company was over-indebted and was placed under the management of a banking consortium. Since 1937, a buyer was therefore sought for the company. The Davistan works were taken over by Wilhelm Schaeffler in October 1940 .

"Aryanization" and armaments factory

Wilhelm Schaeffler was 31 years old at the time of the takeover of Davistan and, in his function as “performance auditor”, was employed by Dresdner Bank . According to media reports (February 2009), he was not a member of the NSDAP at that time , but only from 1941.

At the time of the takeover, Davistan AG had four textile plants with a production area of ​​around 40,000 square meters. The decisive factor for the change of ownership and the relatively low purchase price was the imbalance of the company and the political framework, writes the historian Schöllgen. In September 1942, the company was renamed "Wilhelm Schaeffler AG" because at least co-shareholders "Davistan" sounded too Jewish.

In the summer of 1943, a limited partnership for armaments was established alongside the textile production company, the AG . Then the production of needle roller bearings was started. Furthermore, drop devices for the air force, as well as parts for armored vehicles, assault guns and drop systems for aerial bombs were manufactured. In mid-1944 the company employed 290 people in armaments manufacture, and another 476 worked in textile manufacture. Nothing is known about the number of forced laborers from the Katscher Polish camp and how they were treated.

Before Upper Silesia fell into Soviet hands as a result of the war at the end of January 1945, Wilhelm Schaeffler received the order to relocate needle roller bearing production to Schwarzenhammer in Upper Franconia .

Further development of the company

After the war, the brothers Wilhelm and Georg Schaeffler and Heinz Fritsch founded the "Fritsch & Schaeffler Agricultural Machinery Factory" in Schwarzenhammer .

In 1946 the Schaeffler brothers founded "INA" (see Schaeffler Group ) in Herzogenaurach, Franconia , in which they resumed needle roller bearing production that had already been carried out during the war. The development of the INA needle cage, which was groundbreaking at the time, helped the company achieve an industrial breakthrough. INA has become an important supplier for mechanical engineering in the automotive and aerospace industries. After the war, the Schaeffler Group's second mainstay became carpet production , the former core business of Davistan AG. In the 1970s, the Schaeffler Group was one of the largest producers of carpets and carpets in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Research into the Nazi past

Historian Gregor Schöllgen was commissioned by the Schaeffler family to deal with the company's Nazi past. In order to clarify allegations on the Internet, Schöllgen revised his approximately two-year-old report in February 2009 and published the results in the magazine 'Cicero' .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uwe Ritzer: Ugly brown spots. Historians argue about the role of the Schaeffler brothers in the Third Reich - apparently the company was more involved than previously known. Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 17, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b welt.de of February 25, 2009
  3. ↑ a b G. Schöllgen: Schaeffler's dark shadow . In: Cicero, 03/2009, pages 82-85.