Large purchasing company of German consumer associations

The following important information is missing from this article or section:

History after 1945 is missing - in contrast to Gepag , the GEG was re-established after the Nazi era and existed at least until the 1960s.

Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

GEG administrative center at Besenbinderhof in Hamburg

First GEG central warehouse in Hamburg in 1902

The Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine mbH (GEG) was, as a public enterprise, the goods and economic center of consumer associations of the so-called Hamburg direction from 1894 until the end of the Weimar Republic .

founding

"Get everything in the consumer association!" Historical advertising poster of the GEG in the Hamburg cooperative museum

The first founding meeting of the large-scale purchasing association of German consumer associations took place on April 6th and 7th, 1893 in Leipzig . 94 representatives from German consumer associations were present. 53 representatives spoke out in favor of the corporate form of a company with limited liability (GmbH) and 17 for that of a “registered cooperative with limited liability”. The second founding meeting of the large purchasing company took place from May 26th to 28th, 1893 in Hamburg . 55 clubs were represented.

Due to differences with the registry court, a formal justifying meeting of the large purchasing company of German consumer associations with limited liability in Hamburg took place on March 16, 1894 by the authorized representatives Carl Haber and Ewald Fritsch . An official notarial protocol was recorded.

The articles of association of March 16, 1894 specified Hamburg as the seat of the company. The object of the company: "Consumers associations and other economic associations, colonial goods, products and makes in the food industry, living and household and economic needs to be procured well and inexpensively through purchase or other commercial transactions." Original deposits were made by 47 consumer associations and the like. or their representative taken over; Share capital 34,500 marks. Ernst August Scherling was appointed managing director . On March 29, 1894, the company was entered in the commercial register in Hamburg. On April 1, 1894, the shop was opened in Hamburg at Sandtorquai 14.

On April 6th, the first issue of the price list appeared .

In 1902, the company acquired its own warehouse in Hamburg, Engelstrasse 31. The GEG's first central warehouse went into operation here on October 1st.

From 1918 the members' newspaper "Genossenschaftsfamilie" was published every two weeks with the children's supplement "Der kleine Genossenschafter" and displayed in the sales outlets of the cooperatives.

In-house production

Company sign of a GEG fish goods factory in the Hamburg cooperative museum

On April 29, 1899 the England trip began, which the managing director Ernst Scherling undertook with seven members of the GEG supervisory board and another consumer cooperative at the invitation of the Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited (CWS) to get to know the organization and operations of the CWS. This gave rise to significant impulses for business expansion and the start of in-house production.

In May 1903, the subject of the company was added to the articles of association to include manufacturing and manufacturing .

On April 15, 1903, in-house production began in the Engelstrasse warehouse in Hamburg. There were six rapid roasters in a large coffee roastery . The roasted coffee was selected and packaged. Tea, cocoa and spices were also packaged.

On September 22, 1903, the board of directors approved the establishment of a soap factory. The GEG submitted its plans for the Aken site on June 25, 1904, but did not receive the necessary permits. The project in Zerbst / Anhalt also failed . But construction began in Riesa-Gröba on May 3, 1909. Production started in August 1910.

The GEG had already taken over a cigar factory in Hamburg, Frankenberg (Saxony), and Hockenheim (Baden) from the tobacco workers' cooperative eGmbH (TAG) with its managing director Adolph von Elm on January 1, 1910.

Before it came to power in 1933, the GEG had 58 production companies for food, luxury goods and other consumer goods:

The former GEG cocoa and chocolate factory in Hamburg-Hammerbrook after being converted into an office building in 2006

Former central warehouse of the GEG on the Peute in Hamburg, demolished in 2014 despite the existing monument protection

GEG brush factory in Stützengrün

• 5 mills in Magdeburg, Duisburg, Bochum, Mannheim and Reichertshofen
• 2 pasta factories in Riesa -Gröba and Mannheim
• 9 meat factories in Oldenburg ( Bölts Fleischwarenfabrik ), Elmshorn , Altona , Bremen , Chemnitz , Düsseldorf , Erfurt , Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart
• 1 bacon salting and smokehouse in Berlin
• 1 fish goods factory in Altona
• 1 fish dispatch in Wesermünde
• 1 cocoa and chocolate factory in Hamburg
• 1 coffee roastery in Hamburg
• 2 malt coffee and chicory factories in Mannheim and Chemnitz
• 1 tea packing facility in Hamburg
• 1 winery and liqueur factory ( spirits in general) in Altona
• 2 large cheese dairies in Wangen im Allgäu and Gouda (Holland)
• 1 vegetable and fruit canning factory in Stendal
• 1 food factory in Magdeburg
• 1 cider factory in Chemnitz
• 1 honey bottling plant in Hamburg
• 1 spice mill in Hamburg
• 1 oil bottling plant in Hamburg
• 5 cigar factories in Hamburg, Frankenberg (Saxony) , Hockenheim , Östringen and Altlußheim
• 1 chewing tobacco factory in Nordhausen
• 2 Rauch tobacco factories in Hamburg and Burgsteinfurt
• 1 cigarette factory in Altona
• 2 soap factories in Riesa-Gröba and Düsseldorf

Former chemical factory of GEG on the Peute in Hamburg

• 1 chemical factory in Hamburg
• 2 match factories in Riesa-Gröba and Lauenburg
• 1 large printing and paper goods factory in Hamburg
• 1 brush factory in Stützengrün (still owned by Zentralkonsum eG today )
• 1 wood industry (mainly shop fittings) in Dortmund
• 1 sawmill and box factory in Riesa-Gröba
• 1 weaving and dyeing mill in Oppach
• 1 abrasive cloth weaving mill in Leupoldsgrün
• 1 clothing factory in Seifhennersdorf
• 1 clothes and shoe factory in Dresden
• 1 lingerie manufacturing company in Chemnitz
• 1 poultry farm in Oldenburg
• 1 estate in Osterholz

GEG as a trademark

The annual report for 1904 states that from now on GEG is a trademark for all goods manufactured in its own factories. In 1907 it was reported that some packs of malt coffee with the trademark GEG were introduced as innovations. The GEG mark was intended as a defense against monopoly claims by the brand industry. It stood for monopoly-free, cooperative branded goods.

As a trademark from the mid-1920s, the letters "Geg" were placed in a circle. The upwardly tapering letters were supposed to be reminiscent of the warehouse gables of the trading house.

Commercials

The GEG had advertising films produced between 1926 and 1930 that advertised both the GEG's products and the consumer cooperative movement in general. The producers were Julius Pinschewer and Gertrud David . Vera-Filmwerke also worked for the GEG, among others .

• How do I become a member of the consumer association? (1926)
• The Smoker (1926)
• The Match (1926)
• Land of milk and honey (1927)
• Yes cake! (1927)
• The GEG-Fleischwarenfabrik Oldenburg in Oldenburg (1929)
• Canned food for the winter - but only from our own company (1930)

Co-ordination of the consumer cooperative movement

With establishment of a state commissioner on May 4, 1933 - Gau-inspector of the NSDAP , Erich Grahl - started the DC circuit of the JIT.

The GEG was renamed on August 14, 1933 from Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine mbH to Reichsbund der Deutschen Konsumvereine GmbH. The central cooperative organizations were now summarized here: the Central Association of German Consumers , the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine mbH., The Verlaggesellschaft deutscher Konsumvereine mbH., The Reichsverband deutscher Konsumvereine eV, based in Cologne, the " Gepag ", large-scale shopping and production Aktiengesellschaft deutscher Konsumvereine, based in Cologne. The joint venture of the German Labor Front ( GW ) took over the business operations of the former consumer cooperatives and their large purchasing companies on April 1 on the basis of the ordinance on adapting the consumer cooperative institutions to the wartime economic conditions of February 18, 1941 .

From November 1940 to February 1945 Ludwig Strobl was managing director in Hamburg.

Term of office of the GEG managing directors who were elected up to the point of conformity

Years Surname 1894-1914 Ernst August Scherling 1900-1902 Georg Fell 1902-1920 Adolf Gustav Seifert 1903-1930 Heinrich Lorenz 1914-1917 Eduard Würfel

Years Surname 1914-1930 Emil Berger 1914-1926 Robert Assmann 1918-1927 Hermann Petzold 1921-1935 Henry Everling 1926-1933 Georg booklet

Years Surname 1927-1934 Friedrich Hain 1929-1937 Josef Bodden 1930-1940 Gustav Borgner 1930-1934 Friedrich Albert 1930/1931 Andreas Mirus

literature

• Heinrich Kaufmann : The large purchasing company Deutscher Consumvereine mbH GEG. For the 25th anniversary 1894–1919 . Hamburg 1919
• Heinrich Sierakowsky: Work in progress . 3. Edition. Self-published by the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine mbH, Hamburg 1931
• Walther G. Oschilewski : Will and Action. The way of the German consumer cooperative movement . Hamburg 1953
• Wilhelm Fischer : 60 years versus 60 years of service to consumers. 1894-1954 . Festschrift. Hamburg 1954. 362 pages.
• Burchard Bösche , Jan-Frederik Korf: Chronicle of the German consumer cooperatives. 150 years of consumer cooperatives in Germany. 100 years of the Central Association of German Consumer Cooperatives Hamburg 2003

Web links

• August Müller : A quarter of a century of cooperative wholesale purchasing in Germany [Electronic ed.] In: Sozialistische Monatshefte , 25, 1919, H. 4, S. 243-252, library.fes.de accessed April 10, 2009
• To DC circuit and company inventory see also the judgment of the Federal Administrative Court of 25 April 2007, bverwg.de (PDF; 89.6 kB)
• Chronicle of the consumer cooperatives and the ZdK. ( Memento of December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.7 MB) accessed April 7, 2008
• Chronicle of the consumer cooperatives and the ZdK - Text only. (PDF; 170 kB) accessed April 7, 2008
• The small cooperative - the children's supplement of the "cooperative family"
• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Heinrich Kaufmann for the further development of the price list for goods
2. ^ NDR: Now the Peute demolition begins. Retrieved May 27, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Walther G. Oschilewski: Will and Action. P. 100 f.
4. ↑ For company holdings regarding the estate, see also the judgment of the Federal Administrative Court of April 25, 2007, bverwg.de (PDF; 89.6 kB).
5. ^ Wilhelm Fischer: 60 years against 60 years of service to the consumer. 1894-1954 . Festschrift. Hamburg 1954, p. 199.
6. ↑ Overview  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at filmportal.de, accessed March 31, 2009  
7. ↑ Peter Höfferer, Florian Jagschitz, Siegfried Rom: 160 Years of Consumer Cooperatives in Austria, Publisher: Research Association Development and History of Consumer Cooperatives, Vienna 2016, 2nd edition p. 29, ISBN 978-3-9501499-7-5 .