Friedrich Wilhelm Gantenberg

Grave site of the Gantenberg family in the municipal cemetery

Friedrich Wilhelm Gantenberg (born November 14, 1848 , † August 5, 1924 in Aue ) was a textile entrepreneur and industrial pioneer in Aue and in 1920 received honorary citizenship of the city for his services.

Live and act

Job advertisement for the Gantenbergs linen factory from 1889

After completing commercial training, Gantenberg opened a linen factory with eight employees in Aue on October 1, 1874 . The small manufactory initially produced collars and cuffs for women's clothing and soon began to produce more and more men's clothing. In 1875 Gantenberg purchased and installed a steam engine from France to drive the looms , thereby doing pioneering work in the introduction of this drive force in the Au factories. According to the local history researcher Siegfried Sieber from Au , Gantenberg was the first entrepreneur in Saxony to use steam power in the laundry industry. Within a few years, Gantenberg increased its production both by purchasing innovative machines, such as the first cutting machines and a buttonhole machine in 1879 , and by hiring additional workers. The laundry factory occupied an area between Schulstrasse, Bahnhofstrasse and the right bank of the Zwickauer Mulde . In the early 1890s, Gantenberg employed 250 laundry workers in his company, and another 350 people worked from home for his company. Skilled workers were trained in the factory, including the later entrepreneur Johannes Caßler .

In the neighboring town of Neustädtel (today a district of Schneeberg ) Gantenberg opened a branch in 1899. On the occasion of the company's 25th anniversary in 1904, he founded the König-Albert-Stiftung , which looked after and financially supported employees and their family members in domestic distress and illness. Around 1910 Gantenberg employed 1,300 workers. His hometown appointed him as a city councilor in the municipal administration, where he gave active support in setting up a cooking and sewing school in the old rectory on Neumarkt (1902) or building a secondary school in Aue -zelle. In preparation for the Auer industrial and trade exhibition in 1907, Gantenberg arranged for an equestrian statue to be cast for King Albert of Saxony and erected in the center of Ernst-Geßner-Platz.

The steadily growing lingerie production and the flourishing sales of the products led to the conversion of the company into a stock corporation (AG) in 1912 . The son Wilhelm Gantenberg joined the board of directors of the AG at the beginning of the First World War and gradually took over the business of the father. In the time of the global economic crisis after the death of the company founder, the demand for Gantenberg laundry decreased. In 1927, the son Wilhelm acquired all the shares in the factory and thus dissolved the AG. He was now running the production again as a private entrepreneur, but had to file for bankruptcy in 1937 . The newly established financial institutions Dresdner Bank and Deutsche Bank moved into the two shipping buildings on Bahnhofstrasse .

former Gantenberg linen factory in Bahnhofstrasse

former Villa Gantenberg

Residential and factory buildings

Due to the rapidly increasing demand, a structural expansion was necessary, especially in the areas of administration and shipping. In 1897 his residential and commercial building at Bahnhofstrasse 9 was built with a richly structured facade made of a mixture of historicizing elements, based on designs by the Berlin architect Albert Gessner , who came from Aue . After that, Gantenberg had a four-story multi-purpose building built in place of his older house at Bahnhofstrasse 7 in 1901/02. The building was given an elaborate sandstone cladding , the horizontal lines are emphasized by copper-drifted friezes, the vertical lines by pilaster strips , and on the roof was the lettering Linen Factory FW Gantenberg . The project and construction management was in the hands of the architect Max Fricke from Leipzig. The building, as it is shown in the picture, was expanded to include three window axes in 1913. Gantenberg's commission to Max Fricke also included a steel bridge over the Zwickauer Mulde and the Art Nouveau villa on Ernst-Geßner-Platz (today's Postplatz), which he had built in 1906. The property was on the left bank of the Zwickauer Mulde opposite his factory and had a large garden.

With another new building, a residential and commercial building on the Schulbrücke (Schulstrasse), the company headquarters was expanded again in 1922. A well-known architect was again entrusted with the design, Gustav Hacault from Zwickau. Wilhelm Gantenberg had sold the house on Ernst-Geßner-Platz to Max Adler, a cinema owner from Oelsnitz , who in turn left it to the Auer NSDAP headquarters. The premises of the laundry factory were acquired by Ebert und Kropp , which opened a branch here.

After the end of the Second World War , most of the manufacturers were expropriated as a result of a referendum in 1946 . The Gantenberg family's residential villa became the property of the city. After several changes of users it now serves as a community center Aue diverse social and cultural purposes. The former production buildings were modernized by the city administration in the 1950s, received new technical equipment and were renamed the Polytechnisches Kombinat “A. S. Makarenko ” opened. This combine served the education and upbringing of children through work on the basis of the recommendations of the Soviet educator Anton Semyonovich Makarenko . Students from all educational institutions in the city of Aue acquired practical skills in operating machines and other technology here. The combine existed until the end of the GDR in 1990. The Erzgebirge GmbH Education Center is currently working there , which is dedicated to the qualification of retraining students and organizes internships for trainees.

The administration and later bank buildings on Bahnhofstrasse also saw a number of changes in use. After the fall of the Wall in 1990, the banking companies got their houses back. They had the buildings that had remained undamaged renovated and used them again. The first Gantenberg administration building and the residential villa were added to the list of cultural monuments of the state of Saxony.

Honor

Friedrich Wilhelm Gantenberg was given honorary citizenship in 1920 for his services to the development of the city of Aue.

swell

• Information from Jana Hecker, press spokeswoman for the city of Aue, from May 2009
• Homepage of the Bürgerhaus Aue with the history; Retrieved June 2, 2009

1. ^ Siegfried Sieber: Festschrift for the 750th anniversary of the city of Aue in the Ore Mountains on May 7, 1923. 1923, Reprint 2007, p. 81
2. ↑ Information on the branch in Schneeberg-Neustädtel; here p. 2; accessed on June 2, 2009 (PDF; 575 kB)
3. ↑ Claudia Kromrei (AG historicism): Albert Gessner ; Retrieved on June 2, 2009 ( Memento of November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
4. ^ From the building files on Bahnhofstrasse, evaluated by citizen Gerd Reich in November 2009
5. ↑ List of the Monuments Office Saxony from 2006, No. 08957330: Architectural monument formerly linen factory F. W. Gantenberg and No. 08957327: Architectural monument formerly Villa Gantenberg

literature

• Denny Krietzsch: Office building architecture at the beginning of the 20th century - The Gantenberg mail order company in Aue / Erzg. of the Leipzig architect Max Fricke ; Master's thesis at the 'Institute for Art History' at the University of Leipzig ; 2008, 74 pp. And 74 ills.