Frankonia
| Frankonia
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH & Co. KG |
| founding | 1908 |
| Seat | Rottendorf , Bavaria |
| management | Jeremy lucky |
| Number of employees | approx. 650 (2018) |
| Branch | Hunting and sporting weapons, high quality fashion segment |
| Website | www.frankonia.de |
Frankonia Handels GmbH & Co. KG (also called "Waffen-Frankonia") is a German company based in Rottendorf, Franconia . The Frankonia sells hunting and sports weapons , including accessories and functional clothing as well as fashionable clothing and maintains in Germany 24 locations (as of 2018). In addition, the goods are means of mail order catalogs and online store through the mail distributed. The company operates its own gunsmith workshops at the company's headquarters in Lower Franconia and in every branch. Frankonia is one of the few companies in Germany that trains gunsmiths. In 2018, Frankonia employed just under 650 people. The company name, which has been changed several times since its existence, is derived from the Frankonia Fountain in the courtyard of the Würzburg Residence .
Company history
prehistory
On October 13, 1905, Martin Hofmann founded the “Eichfeld cartridge factory”. The cartridge factory in Eichfeld near Würzburg , which consists of a workshop and a sales point, was taken over by Martin Hofmann's son, the businessman Nikolaus Hofmann on May 26, 1906. A threatened bankruptcy of the business in March 1907 was averted in July of the same year.
Company formation
Today's company was founded by Nikolaus Hofmann in his home town of Eichfeld and entered in the commercial register on October 24, 1908 under the name Deutsche Patronen-Centrale 'Frankonia' Eichfeld (Bavaria) Bernreuther & Co. (The "Martin Hofmann Company Cartridge Factory", however, provided its Production of hunting cartridges in house No. 60 in Eichfeld on November 1, 1908). Hofmann was listed in the commercial register as the authorized signatory of the company dealing with the sale of ammunition and as a partner of the privateer Philipp Bernreuther and his daughter Sophie Bernreuther from Rüdenhausen, who married Hofmann on November 23, 1908 (their children Ella, Hedwig and Alfred were born in 1909, 1913 and Born in 1920). On February 26, 1913, the company, which in addition to selling ammunition, was also given the name "Waffen- und Munitions-Centrale 'Frankonia' Eichfeld (Bavaria) Bernreuther & Co." Sophie Hofmann and her father Philipp Bernreuther, who came from a farming family from Abtswind and supported the development of the company with considerable financial resources, remained shareholders. While Nikolaus Hofmann was doing military service from August 5 to November 26, 1918 during World War I, before he was discharged from the army on November 28, 1918, Sophie Hofmann managed the company.
According to the German "Disarmament Ordinance" of December 14, 1918, weapons had to be transferred to the state and from January 13, 1919, firearms and ammunition had to be handed in (a "Disarming Act" of August 7, 1920 also tended to completely disarm the population). On June 30, 1919, the company, now generally known as "Waffenfrankonia", moved its headquarters from Eichfeld to Würzburg at Randersackerer Straße 3, where the Hofmann family also lived in Sophia Hofmann's house. On October 31, 1928, Sophie Hofmann, as the owner of the company "Waffen- und Munitions-Centrale Frankonia, Bernreuther & Co", received the license to trade arms from the Würzburg city council. In 1930 the company's first export deals took place.
Development of the company
After the Second World War, the shop on Randersackerer Strasse that was hit with the residential building during the bombing of Würzburg on March 16, 1945, was reopened on March 10, 1946 as "Sporthaus Frankonia Hofmann & Co." (weapons and ammunition had to be ordered in January of that year of the Allied Control Council) and in 1949 the company moved to the center of Würzburg. Sophie (as the owner) and Nikolaus Hofmann (as authorized signatory and “first employee”) ran the company until 1950, and from 1950 their son Alfred Philipp Hofmann (who was born in 1920) (as the owner and general partner of the now “Waffen-Frankonia Hofmann und Co.” company ), who joined the company, which has flourished since 1924, in 1939 and, like his sister Eleonora "Ella" (* 1909), had become a limited partner in the company on January 1, 1943. After price lists and brochures had already been published from 1926 onwards, Frankonia published its first catalog ( Der Ratgeber für den Häger und Schützen ) in 1953 , at that time with a length of 160 pages.
The first branch of the family company was opened in Darmstadt in 1961 with the “House of Hunters”. Because of the steady growth, the parent company in Würzburg became too small, so the company moved to Rottendorf . In 1970 the head office in Randersackerer Strasse was completely rebuilt. From 1971 Frankonia expanded its range to include sporty and fashionable clothing and, according to Jürgen Vocke, became the leading hunting outfitter in Europe. In 1990 Frankonia founded a wholesale company in Austria, which in turn took over a company in Hungary. The trading company Heinrich Heine GmbH took over Frankonia in 2000 (50% of the company shares) and in October 2001 (100%). On April 1, 2007, Frankonia was spun off from the Heine Group and is now a direct subsidiary of the Otto Group mail order company .
Branches
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In addition to the headquarters in Würzburg, there are Frankonia branches in Berlin (1992), Bexbach (2003), Bielefeld , Stuhr-Brinkum near Bremen, Buchholz near Hamburg, Darmstadt , Dortmund (2003), Düsseldorf , Erfurt , Freiburg , Hanover , Kassel , Cologne (2003), Magdeburg , Mülheim-Kärlich , Aschheim b. Munich , Neu-Ulm , Nuremberg , Sanitz , Reiskirchen , Straubing and Stuttgart . There are also outlets in Würzburg, Mülheim-Kärlich and, for a limited time, in Straubing. In 1986 a foreign branch was opened for the first time in France.
literature
- Roland Zeitler, Klaus A. Heller, Thomas Krämer, Dieter Schoppe: 100 years of Frankonia. Every success has its own story. Frankonia Handels GmbH & Co. KG, Rottendorf 2008.