Friedrich Erler

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Friedr. Erler

logo
legal form one-man business
founding 1847
Seat Leipzig
management family members
Branch Tobacco shops, skinning

The fur and tobacco shop named after the founder Friedrich Erler (born January 17, 1820 in Leipzig; † July 23, 1898 in Leipzig) . Together with the tobacco goods company Thorer, Erler was one of the most important companies in the German fur industry and one of the largest taxpayers in Leipzig until the Second World War . Members of the family were particularly involved in the industry beyond the company.

Company history

1847 to 1914 (First World War)

On September 28, 1847 the furrier Johann Gottlob Friedrich Erler founded the Leipzig tobacco goods trading company Friedr. Erler founded. He ran a skinning business and the fur trade. Erler had worked as a journeyman dresser in Frankfurt am Main, and with this previous knowledge he also connected himself to the chemist and fur finisher Friedrich Adolf Sieglitz in Leipzig-Lindenau in 1876 . Gottlob Friedrich Erler was instrumental in founding the Association of German Furriers , of which he became the first chairman (later the Reichsbund deutscher Furriers ). The future company owners also held a wide variety of positions promoting the fur industry .

The store opened in the right place at an opportune time. The Leipzig Brühl , around which the fur industry gathered, began to develop rapidly along with the emerging modern fur fashion. Up until the Second World War it had the reputation of being the “world street of furs”, it was the most important street in the city and contributed significantly to Leipzig's world reputation as a trading metropolis. For some time, the tobacco industry companies located there generated the largest share of Leipzig's tax revenue. Erler finally established his company on the Brühl, at the corner of Reichsstraße, in the house "Zum Roten Löwen."

The FA Sieglitz & Co. dye works founded by Erler and Sieglitz was originally operated in the old barefoot mill, which is historic for Leipzig . In 1881 the dye works were relocated to the newly created factory in Leipzig-Plagwitz, Nonnenstrasse 7. The operation was successful very quickly. Its black coloring was of such outstanding quality that, for example, of 65,000 lynx skins that were sold in 1886, more than 35,000 were dyed by Sieglitz & Co. as an imitation of the silver fox skin . The extremely rare variant of the completely black silver fox, i.e. without the typical silvering of the guard's hair, was rated very highly in the first decades after the company was founded. Many orders came from America for American skins traded through Garlick Hill in London, although 20 percent import tax had to be paid for the return import. When there was no longer enough space for the increasing workload on Nonnenstrasse, the factory site in Leipzig-Lindenau, Angerstrasse 30, was acquired and expanded. In 1910, both companies on Angerstrasse were merged. There on the bank of the Kleine Luppe , a tributary of the White Elster , various other important fur processing companies and dressing shops had settled next to each other. Sieglitz tried, as far as possible, to rationalize manual work by means of machine work. After acquiring the latest machines and systems and registering a number of own patents, this was at the time “probably one of the most important tobacco dye works of all tobacco dyes in the world”.

A price catalog from the year 1888 lists 225 products that were manufactured by the Erler company; the company referred to itself here as "Fur Goods and Confectionery". All types of fur known at the time were processed . The range of goods is divided into:

Women's items
Travel and driving coats, overcoats and visits , borders, Radmäntel , Pelerines and Camails [festive scarves, capes] for theater and ball house jackets, berets and hats, fur lining for women's coats, trimmings, capes
Men's articles
Travel furs , hunting and riding skirts, coachman furs, hats, coachman collar , driver caps, hunting collars , fur boots, Fußkörbe , footstools , traveling rugs, carpets of all kinds, tarpaulin, blankets sled .

In 1912 the Friedr. Erler bought the Steibs Hof building in Leipzig, Nikolaistraße 28/30 for her business premises . A specialist address book from 1938 also mentions house number 32.

Title of a price list, around 1900
( → the price list )

The company's founder, Friedrich Erler, had four sons, of whom Paul Erler continued the tobacco wholesale business. Like his father, he first trained as a furrier, then went to Marseille to learn the French language.

Max Erler business premises

Another son took over the skinning business and continued it as " Max Erler " . This company on Grimmaische Strasse No. 21 became one of the leading fur houses in Leipzig, and was later awarded the title of “purveyor to the court ”.

Another son, Otto Erler († 1911), founded his own tobacco shop under his name, which for decades also proved to be very efficient in international business. His successor was Rudolph Erler (* 1877 - March 16, 1931) for two decades. After completing his "old-style" apprenticeship at Goerlitz & Machhauer , Rudolph went to the then very important London company Hirschel & Meyer and, after almost a year in Paris, to the American sister company H. Eulenstein, New York. His main focus was, in addition to the close contact with Friedrich Erler's company and the Stieglitzschen dye works run by his brother and co-owner, to which he was also a co-owner, the "Erler fox specials" and, in recent years, the Argentine tobacco business. In contrast to the other family members, he was not involved in offices or similar positions.

The fourth son, Richard Erler , became a music teacher in Munich and married a chamber singer there.

Following the trend of the times, the second generation of the company, Paul Erler, specialized in certain types of fur. The company had representatives in all places important for the tobacco trade; there was a branch in New York from 1907 until the forced liquidation in the First World War. Before the First World War, the USA was one of the most important foreign customers on the Leipzig market. After the World War, the company was expanded considerably through the incorporation of the muskrat and rabbit specialty store Max Schmidt, which had been in existence for years, and its move to the business building now known as Erler's Hof by the owners.

1914 to 1945 (end of the Second World War)

In the third generation, wholesaling predominated, but still in connection with the production of furs. The main customers were foreign wholesalers and wholesalers. Above all, the company was a leader in all types of foxes , red fox skins and noble fox skins . Friedrich Erler founded the “victorious run of the fox” when, supported by his sons Otto and Paul, he and Adolph Sieglitz had European red fox skins so attractively dyed that they were no longer used only for lining. With the initial imitation (1886/87) of the expensive black fox, the sister company Sieglitz & Co. achieved a worldwide reputation in the fur industry as early as the 1890s. When it was possible to bleach the skins, it was then possible to dye them on all common fabric colors for collars and other trimmings. In the 1930s, three tobacco chemists were employed in addition to the other employees, “in order to be able to color the countless numbers of incoming red foxes, and also white foxes, in the most varied of nuances. A large number of orders were also carried out for the Balkan countries ”. The long-lasting fashion of fur necklaces , fur collars in the shape of animals, favored this business area. Further special products were the sheared and black colored sealbisam and sealcanine . There were also a few other popular varieties, such as half- Persian , Persian and Indian lamb .

Lieutenant Alfred Erler at the time of the First World War
Recept-book for learning & Co . Two pages of handwritten dye recipes for “English Seal” and a “French Tunk Color” (undated)
→ the whole dye book

Before the First World War, Alfred Erler (* 1881; † October 5, 1967 in Frankfurt am Main), tobacco merchant, joined the company as a general partner. He had acquired his knowledge of goods at leading tobacco shops in London, the second of the two major European fur markets, and was considered one of the best experts in the various fox origins. In the emerging silver fox breed in Europe and Norway, he was repeatedly appointed as a judge by the breeders. In 1930 he bought a North American red fox fur of the finest quality for 32 English pounds, this was probably the highest price paid for this variety up until then, the average price being four to five pounds. Just as the Erler family let their descendants gain experience in various branches in the industry, leading companies abroad sent their sons to Friedr as volunteers. Erler, which contributed significantly to the consolidation of foreign business relationships. The contacts were strengthened by the customer magazine "Erlers Rauchwarenberichte" published from 1933, probably the first in-house magazine in the tobacco industry.

Another partner in the company alongside Paul and Alfred Erler was Walter Krausse (* 1876; † August 30, 1957 in Oberstdorf ), a son-in-law of Senior Paul Erler , since November 29, 1906 . Krausse, who came from the banking branch, took over the organizational and financial management of the company. He was particularly committed to the industry. As a result of his relentless endeavors, the Reich Central Office for Fur Animal and Tobacco Research was brought into being, and he subsequently managed its business. Closely connected with this are his advocacy and his preparatory work for the creation of a higher tobacco goods school , a tobacco museum and the establishment of a tobacco shop, which was to unite the offices of the leading associations of the Leipzig tobacco industry, as well as auction rooms, etc. Since 1925 he was the executive chairman of the Reichsverband deutscher Silberfuchs- und Edelfurztierzchter e. V. As the head of the experimental fur farm Deutsche Versuchszüchterei edler Pelztiere GmbH & Co (later renamed the German Society for Small Animal and Fur Breeding GmbH & Co. ) in Hirschegg- Riezlern , Austria , he repeatedly negotiated with delegations from the Soviet Union who were responsible for the establishment of Soviet fur farming and the delivery of breeding animals.

At the largest external presentation of the fur industry ever shown in 1930, the International Fur Exhibition , the employees and management of the Erler company belonged to the presidium and board of directors of the IPA .

Since 1922 Paul Schöps (born January 6, 1895 in Apolda ; † December 1986) worked as a lawyer and co-owner of the Friedrich Erler company in Leipzig, soon after the Second World War as an economic consultant. Since 1926 he also worked as a publisher and was the owner of the Hermelin publishing house; including editor of the magazine Das Pelzgewerbe (last edition 1973) and many other, mainly fur trade publications, he was also an important specialist author in the industry. The Leipzig fur museum is said to have been located in its rooms (probably only the remains of the collection destroyed by the Second World War).

From 1945

As a result of a hearing impairment, Walter Krausse withdrew from the Leipzig business in February 1945 and relocated to Hirschegg-Riezlern. The fur farm there was converted into a holiday pension some time later. His son, who had also learned the fur industry, had already left the company a few years before 1941 and switched to agriculture, with the reasoning, quoted by his father, “he just couldn't manage it with Jews forever and haggling dealers ”.

In 1948 Krausse tried again to start over in the new fur trade center around Frankfurt's Niddastraße , but his increasing hearing loss and other health problems forced him to give up his job after a few years. An industry member remembers that Walter Krausse ultimately died impoverished and that two Frankfurt colleagues took over the funeral costs. The company was continued for some time as a small commission business by a nephew.

Alfred Erler died after a long illness on October 5th, 1967 in Frankfurt am Main, in his home on upper Niddastraße , in the middle of the fur industry, where he had spent his old age for years.

Works

  • Alfred Erler: South American tobacco products . In: Rauchwarenkunde. Eleven lectures from the product knowledge of the fur trade Leipzig 1931. → Table of contents .
  • Walter Krausse: Fifty years as a businessman in the trade fair city of Leipzig . 1941 → front page

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Erler Rauchwaren, Leipzig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Otto Erler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Max Erler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d German biography: Erler, Johann Friedrich Gottlob . Retrieved January 4, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Without mentioning the author: Zu D Rauchwarenhandel . In: IPA, Official Catalog, Leipzig, May-September 1930 , pp. 304, 306. → Table of contents
  3. ^ Paul Hirschfeld: Leipzig's large-scale industry and wholesale , chapter Die Rauchwaarenfärberei by FA Sieglitz & Co. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887.
  4. ^ FA Sieglitz & Co. In: Biographical review of the German fur industry , publisher Arthur Heber & Co, Verlag für Gewerbe und Industrie Leipzig, folder with individual sheets, approx. 1925 → cover .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h "Mn.": Over a century of Leipzig fur industry. In memory of the Erler family . In: Rund um den Pelz , 1968, Issue 1, pp. 40–43.
  6. ↑ Business communications . In: Kürschner-Zeitung No. 25, Leipzig December 8, 1912, p. 1610.
  7. ^ In: Guide through the Brühl and the Berlin fur industry . 1938, p. 40.
  8. ^ A b Friedrich Erler Leipzig In: Biographical review of the German fur industry , publisher Arthur Heber & Co, Verlag für Gewerbe und Industrie Leipzig, folder with individual sheets, approx. 1925 → cover .
  9. ↑ a b Without naming the author: Rudolph Erler † . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , Leipzig, March 24, 1931, p. 3.
  10. ^ Walter Fellmann: The Leipziger Brühl . VEB Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig 1989, p. 102.
  11. ↑ a b Paul Schöps (Hsgr.): A century of fur economy. Commemorative publication on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Friedr. Erler, Leipzig 1847–1947 . → Title page of the memorial
  12. ↑ Winckelmann International Fur Bulletin No. 2068 of February 13, 1987, eds. Winckelmann Publications LTD.
  13. ↑ Ludwig Brauser: Dr. Paul Schöps 70 years old . In: Rund um den Pelz No. 1, January 1965, p. 38.
  14. ^ JK: Dr. Paul Schöps 80 years . In: Pelz International , January 1975.
  15. ↑ Without indication of the author: Walter Krausse. 25 year industry anniversary at Friedr. Erler . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 139, Leipzig, November 26, 1931, p. 5.
  16. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Walter Krausse †. The last member of the "IPA" presidency died with him . In: Hermelin No. 9/10, 1957
  17. ↑ a b Without naming the author: Walter Krausse. 25 year industry anniversary at Friedr. Erler . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 139, Leipzig, November 26, 1931, p. 5.
  18. ^ According to information from Mathias Becker, Rauchwarenfirma Hermann Kanus, Frankfurt am Main v. April 8, 2016.
  19. ^ Walter Krausse: Fifty Years of Merchant . Pp. 80-81.
  20. ^ Mathias Becker: The burial costs were taken over by the Frankfurt companies Arno Uhlig and Johannes Schulze. Information from April 8, 2016.