Xetma Vollenweider
| Xetma Vollenweider GmbH
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1850 |
| Seat | Aue-Bad Schlema , Germany |
| management | Peter Baumann, Olaf Neumann |
| Branch | mechanical engineering |
| Website | www.xetma.com/unternehmen.html |
Today's Xetma Vollenweider GmbH emerged from the textile machine factory Ernst Gessner in Aue (Saxony) in 1850 and the textile machine factory founded in 1880 as Samuel Vollenweider AG in Switzerland . With the unification in 1991, the company gave itself the name Gematex and later changed to the current company name.
Gessner's factory is built in Aue and is making a name for itself
Heinrich Ernst Geßner , a trained cloth maker, acquired a cloth bleaching shop in the city of Aue that was opened in 1826 and continued to run it under his name as a cloth maker from 1850. The factory site was right in the city center on the Zwickauer Mulde , which was favorable both for textile production and for driving manufacturing machines acquired abroad. The company owner was constantly working on improvements to his in-house technology and soon designed new machines himself.
His first great success was the universal raising machine , patented in 1853 , which accelerated the finishing process of fabric ( raising ) several times.
Geßner refined the machine at short intervals and had it newly patented, like the cloth raising machine in 1854 . Now he has added the manufacture and sale of machines for textile processing to his production range. He was particularly successful in selling another improved variant of the hoisting machine, the beltless ball-bearing scraping machine . At all large and small industrial shows such as the world exhibitions in Paris (1855) and Chicago (1893) or the industrial and commercial exhibition in their own location in 1907, the Geßner machines were shown and supply contracts were concluded. In 1872, production was finally completely converted to mechanical engineering, and cloth production was given up.
The factory was now called the textile machine factory and iron foundry Ernst Geßner . From the middle of the 19th century, the industry in all German states and abroad experienced enormous growth, so that Geßner was also able to increase the production and sales of textile machines. He set up a branch in Chemnitz and even produced railway wagons for a time. More and more people worked in his factory in Aue, in 1888 there were already more than 300 employees. The documents in the company archive document an export to Austria, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and countries in South America.
Expansion of the factory and expansion of the range in the 20th century
After Geßner's death in 1897, his son Ernst (1851–1920) successfully continued the textile machine factory and survived the First World War . Soon Franz Josef Brunner (1885–1945), the husband of the granddaughter of the company founder, inherited Ernst Geßner. Under his leadership, the company was converted into the textile machine factory Ernst Geßner Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in 1921 . The establishment of the interest group and sales organization Unionmatex by the companies C. H. Weisbach from Chemnitz , A. Monforts and Schlafhorst & Co from Mönchengladbach , Zittauer Maschinenfabrik AG and Ernst Geßner AG in Chemnitz was particularly significant . By 1923 another three textile machine factories had joined this association, which was now called Unionmatex Association of German Textile Machine Factories and had its administrative headquarters in Berlin . With strict specialization of each company, Unionmatex was able to deliver complete solutions for the entire textile sector. Above all, the factories survived the global economic crisis together . By 1925 the Geßner factory had delivered more than 10,000 room machines to customers all over the world. Developments in spinning and laundry machines completed the production range and cemented the company's innovative reputation. In the 1930s, more than 600 people were employed in the Geßner company. During the Second World War , the company had to manufacture equipment for military use, presumably machines for tents, parachutes and military clothing.
Auer textile machine factory between 1945 and 1990
After the referendum in Saxony on June 30, 1946 , the textile machine factory Ernst Geßner AG, along with six other companies, was placed under administrative administration and control by SMAD . During this time, production facilities were dismantled, but production was carried out with around 30 workers. With the formation of state- owned companies (VEB), the Geßner textile machine factory became state-owned in 1948, and VEB Textima Aue was created . The engineers at this plant continued to develop technical innovations. The range soon also included equipment for the laundry industry such as large ironers and ironing machines. For 40 years, Textima was a well-known factory and partly responsible for the nickname industrial city of Aue .
Change of name and continuation from 1990
With the turn of a re-privatization took place from Textima under the new brand name GEMATEX (derived from Gessner Machines Textiles ). New products in the areas of roughing , sanding and shearing were a multi-system broaching machine (1991), special reels with internal cleaning (1997) or a new reel sanding system (1998), which are successfully sold worldwide.
In 2000 the Sam merged. Vollenweider AG (Switzerland) and Gematex Textilveredlungsmaschinen GmbH (Germany) under the name XETMA VOLLENWEIDER. In 2001 the new production and administration building was built at the company's headquarters in Aue / Germany. |
After the sale, an investor was found for the fallow company premises and the machine shops in the city center. He had the listed historical building substance renovated and redistributed inside. A shopping complex was built at Wettinerstraße 4 .
Source and references
- Website of the Gematex company with the various stages in the Gessner company history and numerous images
- In the Deutsches Museum in Munich some company documents are archived by Ernst Gessner.
- Michael Schäfer: Family businesses and entrepreneurial families: On the social and economic history of Saxon entrepreneurs. 1850-1940. CH Beck Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56211-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 8-page patent specification in the Ludwigslust State Archives
- ↑ a b Aue, Mosaiksteine der Geschichte , ed. Stadtverwaltung Aue, printer and publisher Mike Rockstroh, Aue 1997, p. 78.
- ↑ Saxon Biographies: Details on Ernst Geßner ; accessed June 11, 2009; Retrieved January 17, 2016.
- ↑ Website with information on Unionmatex ; Retrieved June 11, 2009.
- ↑ Website with information about various historical buildings in Saxony. Here, p. 7: Simmel. Shopping center, Wettinerstraße . ( Memento of April 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ); accessed on June 11, 2009 (PDF; 1.8 MB), checked on August 31, 2018.
- ↑ Aue, mosaic stones .... P. 187.
- ↑ Xetma Vollenweider GmbH
- ^ Landesdenkmalamt Sachsen, monument number 08957376: former Holbergsche bleaching and finishing institute; formerly Ernst Gessner textile machine factory, Wettinerstraße 4, Aue (581/3), consisting of a brick factory hall before 1900 with a staircase water tower and an older outbuilding with a former horse stable (1st half of the 19th century); Significance in terms of building history and local history
- ↑ Company publications by Ernst Gessner; Retrieved June 11, 2009