Ernst Brinkmann KG

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Company logo (1992)
Main store in Spitalerstraße after the closure (2002)
Typical receipt for a transistor radio (1998)
Main entrance of Brinkmann on Spitalerstraße (November 1992)
Brinkmann's side entrance on Spitalerstraße (November 1992)

The Ernst Brinkmann KG was the operator of a Germany-wide chain with more than forty technology department stores and over 4,000 employees. In 2001 the company filed for bankruptcy .

History, employees and locations

The company was founded in Harburg in 1929 by Ernst Brinkmann, a tool dealer. Bicycles, electrical goods and radios were sold in the shop on Wilstorfer Straße and in the branch in Kiel that opened two years later. After the two shops were bombed out, the head office was relocated to Spitalerstraße in Hamburg after the war .

Over the years, a technical department store with a wide range of products including electrical appliances, entertainment electronics, optical devices and apparatus, PCs, their components and software, toys, musical instruments, household appliances and china was built here.

Brinkmann also offered articles as a trademark , for example the “Brinkmann topline 1600 Watt” vacuum cleaner corresponded to the “ EIO 80” model.

In 1986 Robert Meyer, the founder's grandson, took over the management. He began building further branches, including the "HOT - House of Technic", which eventually belonged to the Brinkmann Group with four branches. Another subsidiary was the Lübeck “Kaufhaus Warter”. From 1992 a mail order business was also set up.

The company recently had department stores in the cities of Hamburg, Hanover, Bremen and many other north and east German cities. From the mid-1990s onwards, the company expanded to include the former GDR and opened a branch in Wismar. The southernmost branch was opened in Plauen / Vogtland.

particularities

By the time it was finally closed in 2002, a multi-stage private customer sales process typical of Brinkmann had been established: If you wanted to buy an item, you turned to a seller, who peeled an item sticker from the goods and stuck it on the side of a yellow receipt pad. In addition, he stuck his staff sticker on the left, which was used to settle the pro rata employee commission for each item sold. The goods were labeled again by hand. With this receipt you went to one of the cash registers, which verified the purchase with a cash register imprint on a dot matrix printer. Then you went to the goods issue, where the product was handed over and the receipt was given a green, round stamp (see photo with an example from 1998).

Bankruptcy and liquidation

For the year 2000 the group consisted of 46 sole proprietorships with 4,500 employees, which made a loss of 30 million DM with a turnover of 2 billion DM.

The company, which was founded in 1929, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 . The reason was that the earnings of the group of companies had turned negative and had consumed equity. A reorganization concept that Dresdner Bank had worked out with the suppliers and credit insurers failed because not all owners agreed to the upcoming capital increases.

The last branch to close in 2002 was the former Hamburg headquarters on Spitalerstraße, which had been taken over by some members of the management after the bankruptcy and continued as "Brinkmann GmbH".

In the place of the original first branch on Wilstorfer Straße in Hamburg-Harburg, there is still a bicycle and toy shop that operates under the name "Ernst Brinkmann", but was no longer economically linked to the former KG.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ernst Brinkmann KG  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. manager magazin online: Brinkmann - The vultures are already waiting from February 2, 2001
  2. ^ Private page of a former employee ( memento from September 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) accessed January 6, 2013
  3. Brinkmann - Aufbruch in aller Stille , Hamburger Abendblatt No. 234, p. 19 of October 7, 1994
  4. spiegel.de of February 2, 2001 , accessed on June 24, 2018
  5. Article in the Spiegel: Brinkmann bankruptcy , accessed on January 5, 2013.
  6. SPON: Brinkmann is broke on February 2, 2001
  7. ^ Hamburger Abendblatt: New insolvency at Brinkmann from April 24, 2002


Coordinates: 53 ° 33 '7.2 "  N , 10 ° 0" 8.2 "  E