Pious

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Logo of the registered word and image trademark

Fromms has been the world 's first branded condom since 1919 . Today condoms of this brand are produced by MAPA GmbH in Germany.

history

Julius Fromm built a small production facility in Berlin in 1912 and, as far as is known, started the first series production of condoms worldwide. In 1919 he decided to bring out a condom pack under his name as the Fromms Act . The condom is so good that he vouches for it with his name, so Fromm. This created the world's first branded condom. At that time, condoms were preferred to be bought from hairdressers, drugstores and pharmacies.

In 1921 Julius Fromm had his company registered under the name "Fromms & Brandenburg". Two years later he opened another production facility in Berlin-Friedrichshagen on a 16,000 m² site, plus a sales office between Gdansk and Sopot . In 1930, Fromms Gummiwerke commissioned the most modern diving rubber production for condoms in Berlin-Köpenick . This company was considered exemplary in every respect. Control tests have already been carried out for every single condom, which the well-known sexual psychologist Magnus Hirschfeld found so convincing that he said after a tour of the factory: “The condom, widely known as the Fromms Act, perfectly fulfills all the preconditions for an appropriate protective and preventive agent. “The sales success of the Fromms condoms in the 1930s was unprecedented. A total of 500 people were employed in the Köpenick and Friedrichshagen plants. Sales took place through main agencies that were established in twenty cities, and there were also numerous city agencies. Export also played an important role, so that foreign missions were maintained in nine countries.

The himmler police ordinance of 1934 banned the advertising of contraceptives, especially condoms. At that time, the Fromms company provided the hairdressers and druggists with enamelled advertising signs with the inscription “Request the real Fromms rubber sponges”. These signs were mounted on the walls of the shops. The consumer was thus signaled that Fromm's condoms were available in these shops. Because of their Jewish descent, the Fromm family no longer felt safe in Germany, so that Herbert and Edgar Fromm, the sons of the company founder Julius Fromm, left Germany in 1935. They tried to set up a condom distribution from London . The goods were delivered by Fromms Gummiwerke Berlin. The condoms were now marketed under the MORFJ brand (a twist on the name J. Fromm). When Edgar Fromm came to an internment camp in Australia as a foreigner with the outbreak of war, the company collapsed, also due to the interruption of contact with Berlin. In 1938 Julius Fromm was forced by the Nazis to “sell” his work for 300,000 Reichsmarks because of his Jewish religion. The buyer was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's godmother Elisabeth Edle von Epenstein-Mauternburg. Hermann Göring received the Veldenstein and Mauterndorf castles from the baroness for this business .

In 1945 the Fromms' main plant, the Gummiwerk in Berlin-Köpenick, was bombed immediately before the end of the war and burned out completely. Julius Fromm, who experienced the end of the war in London as an asylum seeker, did not survive the end of Nazi Germany and the anticipation of the rebuilding of his company. On May 12, 1945, he died of heart failure.

In 1947 the company Hanseatische Gummiwerke Bachmann & Co. KG was founded in Zeven . The aim was to manufacture rubber goods, especially rubber aprons. However, the military government at the time only issued an operating license on the condition that condoms were produced to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Until the license is later taken over by Fromms, the condoms will be sold under the name SYMPATHIE .

In 1948, Edgar and Herbert Fromm built a small factory in London to sell condoms, HERBERT FROMM LTD., LONDON, from the proceeds of their Berlin father's house. The brothers try to build on their pre-war success with the MORFJ brand. The attempt ended in fiasco, however. The Fromms factories were meanwhile out of order in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany. Herbert Fromm bought back the rights to his own Fromms trademark for 50,000 marks and signed a license agreement with the Hanseatische Gummiwarenfabrik Zeven (HGF) for the use of this trademark. The Fromm brothers only had condoms from Zeven supplied to them for the distribution of Morfj condoms in England for a short time. In 1950 they gave up operations in London.

In 1962, the Hanseatische Gummiwarenfabrik launched its first wet-coated condom - Fromms FF. In the first few years (until 1967) this product had no reservoir, which made it difficult to launch. In addition, there was a breakdown in the production of the first series: The dosing pump for the wet coating failed unnoticed, so that only dry condoms were delivered. The return or the exchange became a major handicap for the planned success. Only at the end of the 1960s was the Fromms FF product able to establish itself in the desired form on the market.

The negotiations of MAPA SA that have been held since 1963. Manufacture Francaise de Latex with the companies Blausiegel, Richter ,kauf & Co., Hanover, and the Hanseatische Gummiwarenfabrik, Bremen, led to a merger in 1967 to form the new Fromms-Blausiegel Gummiwarenfabrik, Hanover, which two years later was renamed MAPA Gummi- und Plastikwerke has been. The company is based in Zeven.

Products

With the variants "transparent" and "classic", Fromms offers the user conventional and classic condoms. The Fromms range includes:

  • Fromms FF
  • Fromm's Classic.

literature

Web links