Gebr. Laumans brickworks
| Gebr. Laumans GmbH & Co. KG
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Limited Liability Company & Compagnie Kommanditgesellschaft |
| founding | 1896 |
| Seat |
Brüggen-Bracht Germany
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| management | Thomas Piper Gerald Laumans |
| Number of employees | 78 |
| sales | EUR 11.4 million |
| Branch | Building material manufacturer |
| Website | www.laumans.de |
| As of December 31, 2015 | |
Gebr. Laumans GmbH & Co KG Ziegelwerke is a German manufacturer of fired clay roof tiles based in Brüggen-Bracht in the Viersen district . With 85 employees, the company produces around 11 million roof tiles (flat and shaped tiles) annually .
history
prehistory
Even before 1850, pottery and brick kilns were established in the Dutch municipalities of Tegelen , Venlo and Swalmen , which used the clay deposits found there as a starting point for their trade. The copper beater and innkeeper Jacob Laumans (1799–1836) began producing roof tiles in Tegelen in the Netherlands in 1835 . Tegelen was the center of the ceramic industry in North Limburg; There were extensive clay deposits in the municipality. After Jacob Laumans' early death in 1836, his widow Maria Josepha Laumans-Janssen and her second husband Peter Benders continued the business under his name. After the death of the stepfather, Jacob's son Quirinus (1827–1900) took over the business with his brother Caspar in 1864 and named him Gebr. Laumans. This roof tile on Industriestraat in Tegelen was still operated by hand painting. Under Quirinus, the factory was the first to be mechanized in Tegelen.
Hand-streaked bricks have not been produced since 1880, only machine interlocking bricks , around 200,000 pieces per year, which were burned in six Kassel ovens. The machine interlocking tiles had interlocking on the long sides and on the head, which interlocked and provided better sealing against dust, snow and rain. They no longer required mortar and straw docks, which reduced the risk of fire. The demand for the then innovative machine interlocking tiles was great because many hot plants in the Ruhr area (such as coking plants, steel works, foundries, forges and rolling mills) wanted a heat-resistant, incombustible and inexpensive roof covering.
In order to protect German industry from products from abroad, Otto von Bismarck introduced a protective tariff on roof tiles in 1885 , so that Dutch products became too expensive. But this duty did not apply to the clay, only to the finished product. Therefore built in 1885 a. a. the Gebr. Teeuwen brickworks, also from Tegelen, had a factory in Kaldenkirchen, which was in Prussia (and thus on the customs territory of the German Empire). The clay was mined in the Netherlands and processed in Prussia. This bypassed the Prussian import duty for roof tiles and was able to offer roof tiles inexpensively in Prussia.
By dividing the property in 1889, the Teeuwen brothers' business founded in Kaldenkirchen an der Steylerstraße was transferred to Quirin Laumans, while the Teeuwen brothers built a new business right next to it. This is how the Laumans brothers came into possession of their first German brick factory. Quirinus Laumans and his wife Maria Petronella, b. Teeuwen, had five sons: Paul and Quirin studied in Delft and became engineers, Jacques (actually Petrus Jacobus Hubertus, * 1863, † 1943), Stephan (Stephan Johann Caspar, * 1866, † 1942) and Caspar (* 1871, † 1938 ) should run the various businesses of the family - in addition to three roof tile factories, a timber trade, a small farm and an inn. Jacques got the timber trade and the roof tile factory in Reuver, Stephan and Caspar the roof tile factories in Tegelen and Kaldenkirchen. In the meantime, roof tile factories had also been built on the German side in the municipalities of Brüggen , Kaldenkirchen and Elmpt and brought employment, taxpayers' money and income from clay sales to the border region, which was shaken by the home weaving crisis.
Establishment of the first Brachter steam roof tile factory
In 1896 the roof tile boom also spread to the Mayor's office in Bracht . Stephan Laumans built the first Brachter steam roof tiles on Stiegstrasse in Bracht, other company owners were his brothers Caspar and Jacques. The approval for this first Brachter steam roof tile, which was called Stephan Laumans and Co, was granted on December 2, 1896. Father Quirinus provided the capital, at least 36,000 gold marks. That was the starting shot for the roof tile industry in Bracht. In the years to come, up to the turn of the century, six more roof tile companies were founded in Bracht.
Ownership, change of ownership and management
Already in 1898 the Tegelener, Kaldenkirchener and Brachter companies of the Laumans family merged under the company name Gebr. Laumans to one company. The partners were the brothers Caspar, Stephan and Jacques Laumans. After the father died in 1900, Stephan in Bracht took over the management, Caspar was the leading head in Kaldenkirchen and Tegelen. Jacques concentrated on his own steam roof tile factory, which he had been running in Reuver , the Netherlands, since 1893/94 . In 1903, he left the Laumans Brothers as a silent partner.
Stephan moved to Bracht in 1897, in 1906 he built a befitting house for himself and his family, the Villa Lucia, on Stiegstrasse. In 1910 he applied for German citizenship, and from 1914 he sat on the Brachter municipal council. In 1926, the A. Baehren company in neighboring Brüggen went bankrupt. The factory was bought by the Laumans brothers in November 1926 and put back into operation in January 1927. The family company Gebr. Laumans now owned four plants in Tegelen, Kaldenkirchen, Bracht and Brüggen. A few months later - in April 1927 - the company was split between the two branches of the family. Caspar - previously responsible for Tegelen and Kaldenkirchen - took over the Tegelen parent plant and the Kaldenkirchen company under the name of C. Laumans with his son Lambèr (February 18, 1903 to May 8, 1980). Stephan operated the Brachter factory and the new acquisition of Brüggen under the previous name Gebr. Laumans together with his sons Quirin (October 25, 1901–1988) and Lambert (March 9, 1903–1989).
After Stephen's death in the middle of World War II, the Laumans brothers were continued by the brothers Quirin and Lambert Laumans, who managed the business until the early 1970s. In 1970 Gebr. Laumans became a GmbH & Co. KG. Then the next generation joined the company management, Quirin's son Stephan (* 1935) became managing partner for Brachter and Lambert's son Lambert (1941–2013) for the old Brüggen plant. Gerald Laumans (* 1967), son of Stephan jun., The fourth generation of the Bracht dynasty, has been involved in the company's management since 2003. In 2004, the Danish Piper Group became a partner in Gebr. Laumans GmbH Co KG.
Development of the main factory in Brachter by 1927
The Brachter work was created on the path that led to the Honschaft Stieg, later called Stiegstraße. Today it is the main one of the roads opening up the Brachter industrial park.
The community of Bracht owned a community forest of around 2000 hectares, which had extensive clay stores and thus the necessary raw material for brick production. In the weaving village of Bracht almost all looms were idle around 1890 and the men and their families were dependent on state support, which put an enormous strain on the community budget. Nevertheless, the older weavers were not available for the new brick industry, as their physical constitution did not allow the hard work in the brick factories. In this way, workers could mainly be recruited from the previous farm workers and farmer's sons and the younger male members of the weaver families; workers also came from the Netherlands. The Bracht industrialists jointly countered the lack of connection to the rail network by supporting the construction of a small railway to the state train station in Kaldenkirchen, which was completed in 1901 by the Continentalen Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebsgesellschaft. From now on, the raw material was transported from the clay pits in the community forest to the factory by narrow-gauge railways.
The Laumans factory built in 1896/97 was still very simple. The clay cut in the clay pits in the Brachter Forest was brought to a clay storage area for storage by horse and cart. There weren't any pan mills for mixing, it had to be done by hand. With the help of max. Two revolver presses, which were driven by a steam engine, were pressed into lumps of clay into interlocking tiles, which were dried in open drying sheds before firing. The drying process was dependent on the outside temperature. In winter, this "summer operation" could not be used. The bricks were burned in only four single chamber ovens, so-called Kassel ovens, and after the lengthy firing process were stored outdoors. Before the construction of the small train, they had to be transported to the Kaldenkirchen train station on horse-drawn wagons.
In the second year of production, Stephan Laumans assumed a production of 650,000 roof tiles, in the following years the output was around 850,000 roof tiles per year. This was made possible by building additional ovens. In 1899, a new two-story furnace building, eight additional furnaces and a single 35 m high chimney were built, so that the Bracht plant operated with 22 furnaces at the beginning of the century and thus had an annual capacity of 4 million bricks. The capital increased accordingly from 36,000 (gold) marks to 120,000 marks in 1902. The waste heat from the ovens was used in the new building on the upper floor to dry the bricks, so that production was independent of the weather and the operation became "winter operation" . The fire in the new kiln house in November 1905 was a major setback, but since the building was insured, it was quickly rebuilt and enlarged so that 24 kilns could already be produced in the coming spring.
In general, the Brachter made work Muldenfalzziegel , Bouletziegel were from Kaldenkirchen and hollow bricks offered from Tegelen. The silver-gray steamed hollow interlocking tiles, which were very popular with customers and a specialty of this region due to the ferrous clay of the border region, could only be fired in the energy-intensive single-chamber kilns. When the Laumans brothers built the first Brachter ring kiln in 1911 , other brick models were added. With 75 workers, the company now produced 6 to 8 million roof tiles annually, making it 1.1 to 1.5 percent of the total German production of around 527 million tiles. The sales area of the Laumans brothers went to Posen and Königsberg in the east, Aurich in East Friesland or Bremerhaven , Kiel and Hamburg in the north, but also to Ulm and Würzburg in the south of the empire.
1914 to 1927
The outbreak of war in 1914 put a stop to the company's positive development, and at times operations had to be completely shut down due to a lack of manpower and fuel.
After the end of the war, coal and roof tiles remained under compulsory cultivation, further restrictions were brought about by the so-called Ruhr War and the increasing devaluation of money. Despite the comparatively low production figures, business was not bad due to the large demand for building materials, especially since Gebr. Laumans also exported to the reconstruction area in northern France. Foreign exchange and German marks were used in the further automation of the operations, e.g. B. plugged by rolling mills, conveyors and new presses. In addition, the company remained solvent because it had part of the amounts received from the French business converted into guilders and was therefore not so exposed to German inflation. This financial strength was also evident in the takeover of the Brüggen Falzziegelwerk A. Behre in 1926.
Development of the Laumans Brothers in Bracht and Brüggen from 1927
After the family business was split up in 1927, the new company, Gebr. Laumans, employed a total of 95 workers in both plants in 1928, with only a quarter of the workforce working in the Bruges plant. The two plants also produced in a corresponding ratio; in 1930 Gebr. Laumans produced a total of 6 million roof tiles. Investments were made in both companies before the global economic crisis.
In 1930 the Brachter Tonwerke (formerly Tonwerk Ideal) burned down, which was located directly next to the Brachter Laumans factory. The Laumans brothers bought the property and the remains of the building and, after the renovation, added the complex to the Brachter factory. The Brüggen plant, which had been shut down in 1932/33, burned down as much as possible in December 1936, but was able to be put back into operation in March 1937. The annual production of the Laumans brothers in the last years of peace was 12.5 million bricks with a total turnover of 1.1 million Reichsmarks. During the Second World War , the company produced, albeit to a lesser extent, until September 1944. In November Bracht and Brüggen were evacuated, making any production impossible. In the war winter of 1944/45, the Brachter factory was hit by British bombers shortly before a planned relocation, and operations could only be resumed in autumn 1945 after the end of the war.
Development after the Second World War
In the following two decades, which were shaped by the reconstruction of Germany, all roof tile plants in the region flourished. The Laumans Brothers also benefited from the boom in the construction industry. From 1951 to 1979 the Laumans brothers also operated the TZW clay and brick factory in Schwandorf in the Upper Palatinate . a. Lattice bricks, hard-fired bricks, facing bricks and drainage pipes. The Laumans Brothers company employed up to 160 workers in Bracht and Brüggen, despite increasing automation. The operations were modernized by building tunnel kilns, clay processing plants and drying systems. When the boom in the construction industry declined after 1960, the company added Poroton backing bricks to its product range in 1969 .
After a major fire in the Brachter plant, a fully automatic plant for Poroton bricks and a new plant for roof tiles were built in 1972/73 , which resulted in a considerable increase in production and an improvement in quality. A central clay processing plant in Bracht, a new packaging plant in Brüggen and a new plant for glazed and engobed roof tiles with new kiln technology in the anniversary year 1996 were the milestones of the following years. In the same year, the old, 40-meter-high chimney was blown up on the Brachter site; it was no longer necessary for modern furnace technology. The company Gebr. Laumans also set an innovative example in 1996 with a solar roof tile, which served as a carrier for solar modules and could be integrated into the roof covering so that the overall impression of the house was not impaired. Since this brick could not establish itself on the market, it has not been produced since 2004. As early as 2001, the Laumans brothers gave up the Poroton business area and concentrated again entirely on roof tiles.
present
development
In 2004, the group of shareholders of the Laumans brothers was expanded to include the Piper Group, the leading supplier of wall and roof ceramics in Scandinavia . With this, Gebr. Laumans reacted increasingly to the requirements of the European market. Gerald Laumans and Thomas Piper share management today. In the Alt-Brüggen plant, production was completely stopped after the explosion of a furnace in 2008, and in March 2017 the plant including the chimney and the clay transport bridge that characterizes the townscape was canceled. A residential area will now be built there. In 2017, the company employed 85 people at the traditional location in Bracht-Stiegstraße and produced around 11 million roof tiles annually (market share in Germany 3 percent) with an annual turnover of € 12.5 million (2014).
Monument preservation
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Gebr. Laumans sees a special task in supporting the preservation of monuments by providing historical brick models. For example, the company still produces classic tower interlocking bricks or the scale interlocking brick from Ludowici including the associated fittings in many surface variants , so that old building fabric can be preserved in its original design language. Also hollow pans in can still be produced "muted silver gray." The renovation of large roofs in accordance with historical monuments, for example at the new North Rhine-Westphalian State Archives, could be implemented with Laumans bricks.
Roof cult
Laumans is one of the co-founders and a member of "Dachkult - The Pro Steep Roof Initiative". Here the advantages of sloping roofs are to be brought back more to the attention and the cultural and historical background is to be communicated and supported. In this initiative, 17 leading manufacturers of the German and international building materials industry (medium-sized companies and corporations) work together with a common interest in craft and trade in the roofing market. The initiative is aimed at planners and architects, professional builders such as property developers and prefabricated house manufacturers, private builders and municipalities as well as colleges and universities specializing in architecture and civil engineering.
literature
- Bender, Willi (ed.): Lexicon of bricks. From the eel ceiling tile to the partition wall tile in words and pictures. Bauverlag, Wiesbaden, Berlin 19952, ISBN 3-7625-3156-0 .
- Germes-Dohmen, Ina: The steam roof tiles of the Laumans family in Kaldenkirchen, Bracht and Brüggen. Part 1, The development of the companies in Kaldenkirchen and Bracht from their foundation to the outbreak of the First World War, in: Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen 47, 1996, pp. 120–130, ISSN 0948-6631.
- Germes-Dohmen, Ina: The steam roof tiles of the Laumans family in Kaldenkirchen, Bracht and Brüggen. Part 2, The Development of Companies from 1914 to the Second World War, in: Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen 48, 1997, pp. 186–205, ISSN 0948-6631.
- Germes-Dohmen, Ina: It depends on the tone. History of the West German roof tile and pipe industry (series of publications of the district of Viersen 43), Viersen 1999, ISBN 3-931242-14-5 .
- Germes-Dohmen, Ina: Bracht. History of a community on the Lower Rhine from the early days to the present. Brüggen 2015, ISBN 978-3-944146-81-2 .
- Naß, Wolfgang: The small train Kaldenkirchen-Brüggen. A railway in the Schwalm-Nette border region (series of historical rail traffic, volume 8), Schweers + Wall publishing house, Aachen 1986, ISBN 3-921679-36-2 .
- Sophie. Niets bijzonders, gewoon Gelefd, Utrecht 1997.
- PJM Teeuwen: Uit aarde geschapen. Aspecten van bedrijfsbeleid in de ceramische nijverheid in het oude industriegebied van Noord-Limburg 1815–1965 (Maaslandse monografen 51). Eisma BV, Leeuwarden / Mechelen 1991, ISBN 90-70052-92-X .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Annual financial statements in the Federal Gazette
- ↑ Uit aarde geschapen. P. 22 f.
- ↑ The two brothers married the sisters Lucie and Sophie Gitmans. See: Sophie Laumans: Niets bijzonders, gewoon Gelefd. Utrecht 1997.
- ↑ It's all about the sound; Brings. History of a community on the Lower Rhine from the early days to the present.
- ^ Business registration on April 27, 1897, municipality of Brüggen.
- ↑ It's all about the sound, pp. 59–64, p. 471.
- ↑ partnership agreement of 25 February 1898 NRW State Archive, Not.Rep.1720 Güntzer, s. It all depends on the tone, p. 72.
- ↑ Viersen district archive, Bracht municipal archive, file 843.1.
- ↑ It's the sound that counts , p. 317.
- ↑ It's the sound that counts , p. 317.
- ^ Lambert was promoted to Dr. rer.pol. PhD.
- ↑ It's all about the sound, pp. 179–185; Brings. History of a community on the Lower Rhine from the early days to the present.
- ↑ The steam roof tiles of the Laumans family in Kaldenkirchen, Bracht and Brüggen. Part 1, pp. 123f .; It's the tone that counts, p. 156ff.
- ↑ Steaming the bricks is a reduction process in which oxygen is removed and additional energy is supplied. The red iron oxide (Fe2O3) contained in the clay turns into black iron oxide (Fe3O4), the entire body takes on a silver-gray color.
- ↑ It's the sound that counts , p. 163 ff.
- ↑ rp-online.de
- ↑ baulinks.de ( Memento of the original from August 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. baulinks.de
- ↑ https://dachkult.de/
