Graetz (company)

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Graetz

logo
legal form OHG (1866 to 1919)
KG (1919 to 1922)
AG (1922 to 1945)
KG (1948 to 1961)
founding January 1866
resolution 1961 Merger with Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG
Seat Berlin (1866 to 1945)
Altena (1948 to 1961)
Branch Electronics manufacturer

Graetz was a German company that was best known for building radios and televisions .

history

founding

Advertisement from Ehrich & Graetz from 1913
Petromax 834 hanging lamp (1930s)
The former Graetz factory building on Elsenstrasse in Berlin-Alt-Treptow , built in 1899, is now owned by Siemens .
Graetz AG share dated June 1942 for RM 1000

The company was in 1866 by the master plumber Albert Graetz (1,831 to 1,901) and the merchant Emil Ehrich († 1887) as Lamp Factory Ehrich & Graetz OHG in Berlin founded and introduced originally lamps , burners , boiler and furnaces for liquid and gaseous fuels ago.

The sons Max (* December 6, 1861 - September 8, 1936) and Adolf Graetz († 1909) took over the business in 1897. The company soon had its own factories in the US , France , Austria and the UK . The newly built factory building on Elsenstrasse in what was then the rural community of Treptow was moved into in 1899.

In 1907, the Liststraße leading to the company premises was renamed Graetzstraße (today Karl-Kunger-Straße). From 1908 Graetz produced electric light bulbs for the first time . In the following year, Max Graetz's services to the German economy were recognized with the award of the title of Kommerzienrat . In 1910, Max Graetz developed the Petromax high-intensity lamp , which Graetz built until the 1960s. In addition, household appliances such as kettles and electric irons were produced on a large scale .

After the beginning of the First World War , the company initially benefited from switching production to armaments. Mainly cartridges, fuses and machine guns were produced. The workforce grew from around 3,000 (1914) to around 7,000.

After the First World War

"Cornet" television receiver with a 43 cm picture tube, 1956

After the end of the First World War, the branches in France and Great Britain were confiscated. Of the 5,500 workers who were employed at the end of the war, 4,500 had to be laid off.

Production of radios began in 1925 . Fritz Graetz, a son of Max Graetz, took over the management in 1928; From 1933 the company was continued as Graetz - Radio AG .

Gas lamps and piston valve carburettors , especially for motorcycles, were also manufactured under the Graetzin brand , and electrical heating and cooking devices and hot water storage tanks under the Graetzor brand .

In 1941 Graetz employed 3,500 people, eventually even 7,000 people. In September 1940 several hundred Jewish forced laborers came to Graetz in Berlin-Alt-Treptow . Russian, French and Dutch forced laborers followed, a total of around 1,100 people. François Cavanna reported about it in the autobiographical novel "Das Lied der Baba". When the Red Army took the district in April 1945, all Jewish workers had long since been deported; the last transport took place on February 27, 1943. The forced labor in the era of National Socialism is the darkest chapter in its history. In April 2004 it was taken up by an exhibition in the Jewish Museum Berlin .

After the Second World War

Top transistor case radio "Super Page", 1966
Graetz microphone for answering machine (1960s)

After the Second World War , the company resumed production in 1945. The Berlin operating parts in the Soviet occupation zone were expropriated by 1948 at the latest , they started producing as VEB Graetz-Werk from February 8, 1948 and from 1950 as VEB Fernmeldewerk Treptow ( RFT ) .

Erich and Fritz Graetz founded Graetz KG in Altena in Westphalia in 1948 and began producing radios with the machines that were brought to Bregenz before the end of the war . During the so-called economic miracle in the Federal Republic, the company began with the production of televisions, music chests and radiation measuring devices ( particle detectors ). Until 1966, coffee machines were also manufactured using the percolator principle with the name Graetzor . In addition, the Petromax strong light lanterns were manufactured in Altena .

In 1961 Erich Graetz sold the company with thirteen production locations, including the Bochum location , to Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL) AG. Hans-Heinz Griesheimer (* 1925), board member of Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG , took over the chairmanship of the management of Graetz KG . The Graetz company was integrated into the audio video division. The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia took over this area in 1987 .

Graetz Italia Srl was founded in 2016. Since then, in the tradition of the former family business, the company has been selling televisions and other small electronics on the Italian market.

Others

The Graetz Bridge - a rectifier circuit that is often found in AC power supplies - is named after the physicist Leo Graetz, who was not related to the Graetz family in Berlin .

The Bochum-Riemke stop on the Bochum – Gelsenkirchen railway was called BO-Graetz from its opening in 1958 to 1993 and then, until 2009, BO-Nokia .

literature

Web links

Commons : Graetz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Radiomuseum.org: Cornet F27. Retrieved March 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Jens Dehne: The Graetz brand through the ages. ( Memento of April 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at: del-service.de , as of August 6, 2009.
  3. ^ Radiomuseum.org: Super Page 47F. Retrieved March 17, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Who is who? The German who's who. Founded by Walter Habel. Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin. 24th edition. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1985, ISBN 3-7950-2005-0 , p. 407.
  5. ↑ Erich Graetz . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 1958, pp. 64 ( online - September 17, 1958 ).
  6. ↑ Railway television: The battery lightning bolt - From the end of a railway legend on YouTube , June 1, 2019, accessed on March 6, 2020.