Ferdinand Sichel

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The grave of Ferdinand Sichel and LA Rose-Teblée in the Bothfeld Jewish Cemetery

Ferdinand Sichel (born September 29, 1859 in Hanover ; † August 4, 1930 ibid) was a German master upholsterer , decorator and chemist from Hanover.

life and work

In his parents' business, Ferdinand Sichel had learned about the difficult production and handling of paste and glue from animal raw materials ( gluten glue ), the only material with which the wallpaper was glued at that time and the chalk paints of wall and ceiling surfaces that were common at the time. The paste had to be boiled anew for each use and then used up quickly, otherwise it would quickly turn sour and stain the wallpaper. The chalk painting was even more cumbersome, because first the animal glue had to be boiled and the surfaces had to be pre-painted with a soap solution ("pre-soap"), to which the glue paint only had to be applied warm and therefore quickly and without any attachment points. During his apprenticeship at the "Hannoversche Schmirgelfabrik" he got to know the hardship that also arose in this area from the use of animal glue as an adhesive and binding agent, as it only had to be dissolved hot and processed immediately and was hardly water-resistant.

Ferdinand Sichel had developed the incentive to find simpler glues, which he developed over years of experiments on the basis of plant starch, the sickle painter's glue. In autumn 1889 he founded his company as "Arabinwerk, Chemische Fabrik Hannover" in his parents' company in Hanover at Große Packhofstrasse 39.

Sicklework in Limmer

The great demand made it necessary to expand production. In the village of Limmer at that time , new production facilities were built in 1897 and the company was renamed "Ferdinand Sichel in Limmer". The two new materials produced there, "sickle painter's glue M" and "sickle wallpaper paste SK", revolutionized centuries-old, cumbersome working methods and significantly improved the work results. The two new materials were ready-to-use, could be processed cold, did not spoil and did not corrode the colors. The plant expanded and neighboring areas were purchased. In 1910, a completely new type of steam engine with 320 hp was installed centrally, which powered up to 30 agitators via 2 main transmission shafts.

In 1913/14 the branch canal from the Mittelland Canal to the Hanoverian industrial area in Linden , which leads directly past the extended Sichel property, was completed. Together with a rail connection, the transport options improved considerably. In the years that followed, sickle mills became the dominant market in Germany and in 1928 they had a market share of around 75% in cold glue.

Advertisements for the Sichel products in trade magazines made other industrial sectors, such as the still young paper processing industry and the cigarette industry, aware of the adhesives and turned to the Sichel company with new adhesive problems. In the 1920s, it became an important supplier of adhesives for Henkel, whose new detergent Persil was successfully launched on the market at the time, resulting in a corresponding need for adhesives for packaging. Linoleum was on the advance as a new type of floor covering , which required new adhesives for reliable and permanent installation, which could be developed and supplied by the Sichel company.

A cooperation with the chemist Dr. Friedrich Supf , who had existed since the First World War, initially led to the incorporation of his company, the “Chemical Factory Mahler & Dr. Supf ”in Neubrandenburg and Berlin-Wilmersdorf , in the Sichelwerke. After the death of Ferdinand Sichel, Dr. At the request of the heirs, Supf founded the company from 1936 onwards, thus avoiding expropriation through Aryanization .

The Sichelwerke - still on the main site in Hanover west of the branch canal between the Lindener Hafen and the Mittelland Canal - had a considerable size at the beginning of the 1960s with an extensive product range and around 700 employees. On the other hand, competition grew and the company's financial strength was low. The decision was therefore made to sell the company to an efficient group of companies that would continue to operate in the long term.

Takeover of the sickle works

In 1962, the Sichelwerke in Hanover were taken over by the Henkel AG & Co. KGaA group of companies based in Düsseldorf. The former sickle works were converted to the production of sealants in 2011, which secured the location with 200 employees, although the era of adhesive production at this location was to end. In 2017, however, Pattex as well as construction products (Ceresit) and wallpaper paste were produced again.

Honors

  • In 1979, the path west of the Hanover-Linden canal along the company premises was renamed Sichelstraße after the entrepreneur in order to commemorate the Sichel-Werke he founded .

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Sichel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Manfred Schöne: 100 years of Sichel - specialist in adhesives and sealants , writings from the Henkel works archive, vol. 25, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-923324-77-4
  2. ↑ 1896/97 Chemical Factory Sichel (Sichelwerke), since 1920 Ferdinand Sichel KG, today Henkel KGaA. www.postkarten-archiv.de
  3. ↑ Kristian Teetz: Henkel plant is secured as a location , Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ), Sep 30. 2010, accessed April 17, 2012
  4. ^ Pattex from Hanover . In: Niedersächsische Wirtschaft , issue 10/2017, p. 28
  5. ^ Helmut Zimmermann : The street names of the state capital Hanover , Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung , Hanover 1992, ISBN 3-7752-6120-6 , p. 228
personal data
SURNAME Sickle, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and inventor u. a. of the wallpaper glue
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1930
Place of death Hanover