First Lower Austrian workers' consumer association

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The First Lower Austrian Workers Consumers' Association was a Viennese consumer cooperative founded on October 10, 1864 by 17 five-year- old wool weavers .

history

The establishment took place in the Gasthaus Zum Grünen Baum in what was then Schwanengasse (now Vienna 15th, Clementinengasse 17). Each of the cooperative members committed to dedicating 10 cruisers a week to shopping together. At the end of the first month, a first sack of flour could already be purchased together. The successful foundation already had more than 100 members in the spring of 1865. In July 1865 the smoked kitchen of an inn could be rented. In addition to flour, bread, rice, lard, candles, soap and fruit were also sold there. The sales force were volunteers, the opening times were every Saturday and Monday after work and Sunday mornings.

On October 9, 1865, an association within the meaning of the Association Act was created through official approval of the statutes. Each member committed to pay 5 guilders in weekly installments of 10 kreuzers.

The association stood with the Arbeiter-Spar- und Konsumverein Fünfhaus , an initiative of silk weavers, also founded in 1865 , at the beginning of the consumer cooperative organization of the Viennese workers, which has been successful for decades. Both clubs had their members primarily in Meidling , Fünfhaus and Rudolfsheim .

In 1866 the First Lower Austrian Workers Consumers Association set up its first sales point, and in 1869 a second. In 1870 a building at Herklotzgasse 31 in the 15th district was acquired and expanded as the headquarters. Most of the funds required for this came from donations - the emperor also granted the requested “most gracious support”.

The First Lower Austrian Workers' Consumption Association developed over decades in a prosperous and solid structure. In 1898, the general assembly of the cooperative decided to set up its own bakery at Wolfganggasse 58-60 in what is now the 12th district. The facility in Wolfganggasse became the center of the consumer association's in-house production.

In 1913 it was decided to build the consumer association building in Mödling, Neudorferstrasse 10. This building was built in Art Nouveau style and is one of the most famous works by Hubert Gessner, a pupil of Otto Wagner. It is the last remaining club house of the consumer association in Austria.

In the first decade of the 20th century, the established consumer association got into a sometimes aggressive competition with the more party-politically oriented consumer association Vorwärts , which, thanks to the management of Benno Karpeles, had the goodwill of the newly founded large shopping company GöC . The GöC also took part in the risky experiment of building the new Hammerbrotwerke , which was completed in 1909, practically at the same time as the expansion of the bakery in Wolfganggasse.

After the First World War it was possible to overcome this competitive phase. In 1920 the four large Viennese workers' consumer associations first merged in April to form a purchasing community and at the end of September to form a unified large cooperative. The consumer association Vorwärts , the workers' consumer association Fünfhaus and the workers' consumer association Donaustadt transferred their assets to the First Lower Austrian workers' consumer association . The members of the dissolving consumer associations joined the First Lower Austrian Workers' Consumption Association , which changed its name on November 1, 1920 to Konsumgenossenschaft Wien und Umgebung (KGW). At that time the KGW was the largest (workers) consumer cooperative in the world with over 100,000 members.

The merger with the bourgeois consumer cooperative Erste Wiener Consum-Verein , founded in 1862, did not take place until 1939 by the National Socialists as part of the process of harmonization and integration into the Vienna supply ring . In 1978 the KGW was de facto the takeover organization in the large-scale merger for Konsum Austria .

literature

  • Johann Brazda , Siegfried Rom (ed.): 150 Years of Consumer Cooperatives in Austria , Vienna 2006.
  • Andreas Korp : Stone on stone, 50 years of the wholesale buying company of Austrian consumer associations, a memorial book , Vienna 1955.
  • Andreas Vukovich : History of the large consumer cooperative purchasing in Austria , presented on behalf of the large purchasing company of Austrian consumer associations, publishing house of the large purchasing company, propaganda department, print "Vorwärts", Vienna V, no year (1931)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Vukowitsch: History of the consumer cooperative wholesale purchasing in Austria , presented on behalf of the Großeinkaufsgesellschaftischer Österreichischer Consumvereine, Verlag der Großeinkaufsgesellschaft, propaganda department, print "Vorwärts", Vienna V, oJ (1931), page 61.

Web links