Hammerbrotwerke
| Hammerbrot
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| legal form | |
| founding | 1909 |
| Seat | Vienna , Austria |
| Branch | food industry |
The Hammerbrotwerke were factories of a large bakery of the Viennese workers in Vienna and the surrounding area, which existed from 1909 to 1969.
Starting position
High bread prices and frequent wage disputes with the commercial bread factories, above all the anchor bread factory, caused the Viennese workers to call for their own bread production around 1900. In addition, there was the tendency towards politicization of the consumer cooperative system based on the model of Belgium, such as the Vooruit (Gent) , a tendency that was represented in Vienna by the consumer association Vorwärts and the newly founded large purchasing company for Austrian consumer associations ( GöC ). On the part of these party-affiliated sections of the cooperative movement, the Hammerbrotwerke, which opened in 1909, were founded in Vienna.
The “First Viennese Workers' Bakery” already existed and supplied some consumer associations, but it could not meet the bread needs. The general assembly of the First Lower Austrian Workers Consumption Association on January 6, 1898, decided to set up its own bakery. However, given the rapidly increasing number of workers in Vienna, this could not long meet the demand.
After 1900 the cost of living rose to such an extent that even the chambers of commerce complained about the situation of the workers. With wages barely increasing, there was hardly any money left for other consumption after basic needs were met.
preparation
At the turn of the century, the Social Democrats had to worry, willy-nilly, about numerous troubled consumer cooperatives. Several weak cooperatives merged to form the party-affiliated consumer association Vorwärts , and an overall attempt at a forward strategy, in which the Vorwärts functionary Benno Karpeles was installed in 1905 as head of the newly founded GöC . As part of this expansion course, an efficient bread factory was also to be built in Vienna. Karpeles presented this project in September 1906. Parts of the cooperative movement, however, viewed it with the utmost skepticism, and the Christian-Social faction under Mayor Karl Lueger in the local council , linked to the small business, protested violently. A negative decision from the municipal council was successfully appealed to the administrative court and construction could begin - not, however, as planned in Vienna, but in neighboring Schwechat , which turned out to be a significant logistical disadvantage.
Naming
Since the hammer, unlike the sickle, is the symbol of the workers, it was no wonder that it - surrounded by a wreath of ears - became the trademark of the hammer mill's products. Both were kept in red, another symbol of the workers. The delivery vehicles were also painted red.
history
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In 1906 Ferdinand Skaret , Ferdinand Hanusch and Benno Karpeles founded Skaret, Hannusch & Co. Production of foodstuffs and trade with such open trading company in Vienna. In the course of the establishment of the manufacturing plant, this OHG moved to Schwechat in 1909 and changed the company to Hammerbrodwerke and Dampfmühle Skaret, Hannusch & Co. The Hammerbrotwerke were profit-oriented (although initially rather loss-plagued ) and relied on intensive advertising. This made them a competition for their own workers' consumer associations. In particular, the already mentioned, traditional and solid First Lower Austrian Workers' Consumption Association was not very pleased with the party company.
Before the beginning of the First World War , the project threatened to lead to a financial catastrophe, but the seller's market of the war-related shortage situation led to a temporary restructuring of the company. The Hammerbrotwerke leased 24 smaller bakeries in Vienna to meet their needs. During this time, military rusks were also added to the product range, making a profit.
In 1919 a second plant was opened in Floridsdorf in Schwaigergasse, and shortly thereafter a third plant in the former military catering establishment in Leopoldstadt . In 1923, under the leadership of Siegmund Bosel, the previous OHG was converted into a stock corporation with 30 sales branches in Vienna and the surrounding area and around 1,400 employees.
With the establishment of the Marietta pastry shop in 1930, the range was expanded, but the general economic situation forced the management to reduce the workforce by around 700 by 1937. Also in 1937 the Wiener Kronenbrotwerke were taken over and shut down. After the owners had changed several times, the Hammerbrotwerke came into the possession of the wholesale and banking house Schoeller & Co in Vienna, which later became Schoellerbank .
In 1959/1960 production was concentrated in the Floridsdorf plant and the plant in Leopoldstadt was closed. After a merger in 1969 with the anchor bread factory in Favoriten , which was also controlled by the Schoeller Group, the business in Floridsdorf was closed in 1972. The official name of "Vereinigte Nahrungsmittel Industrie Aktiengesellschaft" comes from this merger.
Schwechat plant
As mentioned, the new large bakery was not allowed to be built in the working-class district of Favoriten, but in Schwechat . The architects Hubert Gessner and his younger brother Franz Gessner were commissioned to plan the building . Construction took place from 1908 to 1909 at Innerbergerstraße 28 on the former site of the Austrian Alpine Mining Company , which operated a steelworks from 1870 to 1902 .
In addition, on the advice of Benno Karpeles, at a cooperative meeting on February 26, 1909, it was decided to set up an own mill . Although this caused additional costs of 1.6 million crowns, it was feared that if the building was not built, profitability problems would arise.
The bread factory, which opened on June 20, 1909 together with the steam mill, was state-of-the-art not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of hygiene.
During the Second World War, according to an excerpt from the “Schwechat War Diary 1944-45”, the factory had an army bakery , an army equipment office including warehouses and the “ replacement catering store III” (EVM III) with 4 warehouses.
In July 2018, the site was sold to the Carinthian entrepreneur brothers Erwin and Hanno Soravia ( Soravia Group ) for four million euros. Apartments are to be built on the site.
Floridsdorf plant
In 1919, the second bread factory of the Hammerbrotwerke was opened in Floridsdorf at Schwaigergasse 19. As for Schwechat, Hubert Johann Gessner was hired as the architect. The capacity of this plant exceeded that of the Schwechat plant.
literature
- Johann Brazda , Siegfried Rom (ed.): 150 years of consumer cooperatives in Austria , Vienna 2006
- Felix Czeike (Ed.): Hammerbrotwerke. In: Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 3, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-218-00545-0 , pp. 38–39 ( digitized version , entry in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna).
- Siegmund Kaff : The usury, its causes and its opponents. a contribution to the economic history of our time , Vienna (M.Perles) 1925
- Helge Zoitl: Against the usury! The foundation of the Wiener Hammerbrotwerke , In: Zeitgeschichte, 1988/16, 3.
Web links
- Hammerbrotwerke. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
- Pictures of the hammer bread factory in Schwechat
Individual evidence
- ↑ Central sheet for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1906, page 595 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 595 )
- ↑ Zentralblatt for entries in the Austrian commercial register 1909, page 518 (direct link via ZEDHIA on p. 518 )
- ↑ Compass 1924, Volume I, Financial Yearbook, page 988 (direct link via ZEDHIA on page 988 )
- ↑ Gertie Schalk: Soravia wants to save Hammerbrotwerke. In: Austria Press Agency . August 27, 2018, accessed September 5, 2018 .
- ↑ http://www.architektenlexikon.at/de/166.htm