Dr. Hillers

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The former Hillers company building is now a Haribo production facility

Dr. Hillers AG was a company for the manufacture of confectionery in Solingen-Gräfrath , which existed from 1885 to 1974. The Dr. Hiller's peppermint is considered to be the oldest German peppermint with a brand name.

Today there is a Haribo production site at the same location on Obenflachsberg in Gräfrath .

Beginnings until the 1920s

The company Dampf-Chocoladen & Zuckerwarenfabrik Gebr. Hillers was founded in 1885 by the brothers Albert Hillers (* 1860) and Johann Wilhelm Hillers (* 1858) in Graefath. Albert Hillers, a master confectioner , was responsible for the production of sweets and chocolate, the trained businessman Johann Wilhelm Hillers was responsible for sales. From 1913 they were supported by their sons Willy and Dietrich. During the First World War , the company produced dried vegetables for soldiers.

In 1922 the cousins ​​Willy and Dietrich Hillers founded the Dr. Hillers AG as a subsidiary, for which Willy Hillers awarded his doctorate in business administration from the University of Cologne . The new company sold the Dr. Hillers Pfefferminz : “The peppermint flavored candy that was bought and consumed as a 'candy' was enhanced by a different consistency, new tablet shape, type of packaging and the brand name 'Dr. Hiller's Peppermint 'has now become a product with further useful properties: It promoted health, eliminated bad breath, refreshed sustainably, increased smoking enjoyment and thus acquired a completely new [...] product character. "According to the advertising, Dr. Hiller's peppermints were not just simple drops, but also had medicinal and therapeutic properties, with Willy Hillers' doctorate in business administration giving the false impression that a doctor or pharmacist had developed the sweets. The trademark was a sword-lion on a red background, created by the then head of the Solingen technical school for metal design, Prof. Paul Woenne .

The Bergische Arbeiterstimme complained late 1920s repeats the "scandalous situation" for employees at Hiller, sometimes up to 18 hours a day as well as at the weekend had to work, were often adjusted only as a temp and was paid for "favors and gift" . In addition, the workers, mostly women, lick the tin foil packaging for the confectionery in order to seal it, which is “extremely unhealthy”, not only for the workers themselves, but also for the customers, as the women do not open when they are hired Diseases would be examined. In addition, the outhouses on the site are so rarely emptied that the female employees are embarrassed to use them, and the smell spreads to the neighborhood. In 1928, piecework was introduced at Hillers , which led the Bergische workers' voice to the suggestion that the manager should get himself "a whip or a knout" like in Tsarist Russia.

As early as the beginning of the 1920s, Willy Hillers, a pioneer in advertising and co-founder of the Nuremberg Society for Consumer Research (GfK), tried to reach foreign buyers with success. In 1931, a large part of the company's export business was made with the United States . In the same year, a former fellow student of Willy Hillers, Carl Hundhausen , was hired as sales director, who among other things created a corporate design for the company and sent advertising columns to ensure that the retailers positioned the peppermint rolls strategically in the store.

The company in the time of National Socialism

From 1935 the company magazine Der Schwert-Löwe ​​was published with the aim of giving the workforce a sense of togetherness. The Nazi ideology should act as an additional link between the workforce and management. During the Nazi era, the Hillers laboratories worked on the vitaminization of candies, which were accepted by the Wehrmacht as a competitor to Vivil under the name C 30 . Hundhausen, who had joined the NSDAP after the Reichstag elections of March 5, 1933 , used himself for advertising purposes to the NS regime.

“When Adolf Hitler got hoarse during a speech near Solingen, Hundhausen then sent him a box of Dr. Hiller's peppermint with an accompanying letter signed by the staff. Hitler thanks the workers in a personal letter. Hundhausen then had these two letters reproduced in large numbers, put them in leather folders and sent them to all sales representatives, accompanied, however, by the explicit instruction not to use this Hitler correspondence for advertising purposes. This propaganda effect is achieved precisely by: The Führer and we at Dr. Hillers! "

- Eva-Maria Lehming : Carl Hundhausen: His life, his work, his life's work. Public Relations in Germany, Wiesbaden 1997. p. 43 f.

In 1939 the company had 600 employees, and in June of the same year it organized a “followers excursion of the 'Hillers family' to the Rhine”: “With a sounding game from a standard band of the SA we went to Graefrath train station, where it was senior boss Johann Wilhelm Hillers did not miss the parade of the 'followers' with the 'German salute'. "During the trip, Willy Hillers explained:

“A large part of the boom in our company has only been recorded in recent years. Before 1933 we couldn't go on a company outing like this, or have such a celebration where we all celebrate together. We have to focus our thoughts on the first worker in the Reich, on Adolf Hitler. "

- Peer Heinelt : 'PR Popes'. The continuous careers of Carl Hundhausen, Albert Oeckl and Franz Ronneberger, p. 37

In June 1940, the company sent parcels containing Hillers products to around 700 soldiers who came from Solingen-Gräfrath, with a letter written in the Bergisch dialect and a reply card addressed to Hillers-Werke. In the accompanying letter, Willy and Dietrich Hillers declared on behalf of the "Hillers people" that they wanted to thank the "dear Graefrath boys" for what they had done for them "out in the field":

“'We lost our minds how you went to work with the Dutch, Belgians and French. [...] We couldn't cross the map as fast as you chased the whole pack. [...] The French, who just a few weeks ago had a snout the size of a barn door, you squeezed into place so that they quickly took their tail between their legs and called it a day. ' Now it's the turn of 'damn Tommy', 'the damned bastard'. "

After the Second World War

Despite their clear positioning, Dietrich and Willy Hillers survived the denazification process unscathed after the war ; Hundhausen had switched to Krupp-Widia in 1944 . In 1949, the Hillers company carried out another company outing, which was modeled in every detail on the “Rhine Cruise” of 1939, which caused outrage in the communist press, while the bourgeois press reported benevolently. The DGB local committee demanded - unsuccessfully - the appointment of a trustee for the Hillers works.

In 1951, at the suggestion of Willy Hillers, the Central Technical College of the German Confectionery Industry was opened in Solingen-Gräfrath, which is still the world's most renowned training and further education institute for the confectionery industry.

After the war, the range of products on offer grew to 150 items, of which the peppermint candies and the fruit gum drops found the greatest decrease. In the following years a fully automatic candy production line was built. In 1960, the 75th year of its existence, the company had 450 employees and produced 150 million rolls of peppermint candy annually. However, due to large investments it got into financial difficulties. In the summer of 1974, Hillers AG, whose main shareholder, Hans Riegel von Haribo, had also become its toughest competitor, was no longer able to pay its employees; she owed five million marks and had to file for bankruptcy.

The Haribo company took over the location. Today Solingen, with around 850 employees, is the largest of the Group's 15 production sites worldwide and also the most modern.

The Dr. Hillers has been owned by Katjes Fassin GmbH since 1997 .

literature

  • Jochem Putsch: "Confectionery - Hillers becomes Haribo". In: Solingen and sugar. A picture sheet . Series of publications by the Förderverein Industriemuseum Solingen e. V. Vol. 10. Ed. By Jochem Putsch. Pp. 31-44 ISBN 978-3-9804184-9-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city . Walter Braun Verlag Duisburg 1975. Volume 2. ISBN 3-87096-126-0 , p. 66
  2. ^ Jochem Putsch: Solingen. Industrial culture 1880–1960 . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2000. ISBN 978-3-89702-232-4 . P. 117 ( Preview in Google Book Search)
  3. ^ "Marketing 40 years ago?" In: Confectionery . No. 11, June 1960, p. 7. Quoted from: Peer Heinelt: 'PR-Päpste'. The continuous careers of Carl Hundhausen, Albert Oeckl and Franz Ronneberger . (PDF; 752 kB) p. 30
  4. ↑ a b c Jochem Putsch: "Confectionery - Hillers becomes Haribo". In: Solingen and sugar. A picture sheet . ISBN 978-3-9804184-9-2
  5. ↑ Vivil now civil: A war product celebrated its 100th birthday on linksnet.de
  6. ↑ Quoted from: Peer Heinelt: 'PR Popes'. The continuous careers of Carl Hundhausen, Albert Oeckl and Franz Ronneberger . P. 28 (PDF; 752 kB)
  7. ↑ a b c Peer Heinelt: 'PR Popes'. The continuous careers of Carl Hundhausen, Albert Oeckl and Franz Ronneberger . P. 28 (PDF; 752 kB)
  8. ↑ Ham and schnapps for the topping-out ceremony . rp-online.de, May 11, 2012
  9. ↑ ZDS: Learned is learned on tageins.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.tageins.de  
  10. ↑ The good mood bear on rp-online.de v. December 31, 2011
  11. ↑ Sweet fragrance in the secret Haribo halls on solinger-tageblatt.de v. December 27, 2011