Hermann Meyer (manufacturer, 1846)

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Hermann Meyer, 1900s
Meyer logo 1960s

Hermann Meyer (born January 12, 1846 in Posen , † July 12, 1913 in Berlin ) was a German spirits manufacturer and founder of the food retail chain Meyer ("No celebration without Meyer").

Life

Hermann Meyer was married to Rosa Meyer (1860–1933). Since the mid-1870s at the latest, he had been running a "grain product and commission business" in Berlin, later it operated temporarily as a "grain and banking business", but in 1888 retired to the business of a grain broker. In 1890 he founded Hermann Meyer & Co. KG, a spirit distillery, at Oranienburger Strasse 23 in Berlin-Mitte. Partners in this limited partnership (KG) were Louis Licht and Hermann Meyer's brother-in-law, Max Warschauer. Spirit was used, among other things, as a raw material for the manufacture of colors and essences and as fuel for engines and lamps. In 1892 he moved his factory to Usedomstraße 6, in 1894 it moved to Brunnenstraße 39.

In 1896, Hermann Meyer's alcohol factory at Fruchtstrasse 74 (today: Strasse der Pariser Kommune ) in Berlin-Friedrichshain started alcohol production. Soon afterwards Meyer opened a liquor and wine store with initially only a few branches "around the chimney" of his liquor factory. He also continued his grain trade until 1896. Other production facilities were quickly added to the distillery: mineral water bottling, jam and canning factory, fruit juice press and fruit wine cellar , succade and marzipan paste factory. In addition to alcoholic beverages such as wines, liqueurs, schnapps and brandies, the range of Hermann Meyer & Co. KG also included fruit juices and mineral water as well as jam and canned fruit.

Meyer founded a branch system to sell his products . As early as 1898, eight years after it was founded, the company had around 250 “defeats” (sales outlets) all over Berlin.

In addition to a sales-related commission, the operators of the shops received a fixed salary of 30 marks per month (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 185 euros). The shopkeepers were mostly women. Each of the Meyer stores, which were often located on the lower ground floor, had a small apartment that was rent-free for the shop owner's family.

Meyer's business model included a uniform appearance: white lettering on red tin signs, collector's pictures or the Meyer man with two liqueur glasses from 1922 formed the company's corporate identity, so to speak .

In 1907 Hermann Meyer & Co. KG was converted into a stock corporation (AG) and divided into several subsidiaries. The "Eastern Wine and Liqueur Society" at Wallnertheaterstrasse 9 in Berlin-Friedrichshain has now been responsible for sales in east Berlin (for Wallnertheaterstrasse see Blumenstrasse (Berlin-Friedrichshain) and Wallner-Theater ).

In 1907 Meyer AG began selling its fruit preserves in airtight, reclosable deposit jars with swing top.

In 1908 or 1909 Meyer brought out the beverage brand “Donnerwetter fadellos”, alluding to a Paul Lincke review in the Metropol Theater . According to Oppacher Mineralquelle , the drink was mineral water, according to Detlef Krenz, "Liquid from Friedrichshain", in: Friedrichshainer ZeitZeiger, Stories and Faces from the Kiez , but a schnapps.

In 1909 and 1913, Dr. Max Simonsohn Board member of Meyer AG, 1915 Theodor Muhr and Ludwig Warschauer, 1928 Dr. Felix Warschauer, Ludwig Warschauer and Martin Friedmann.

In 1911, Hermann Meyer acquired the Oppach mineral water spring from the Saxon entrepreneur Richard Wenzel (1857–1924) at a foreclosure auction .

The Meyer AG location at Wattstrasse 11-12 in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen included large cellar storage areas, a production building and administration.

Meyer died in 1913, before the outbreak of the First World War . He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .

He did not see the conversion of his company into a food retail chain. The famous slogan “No celebration without Meyer” was only coined in 1924, eleven years after Meyer's death.

The further development of the company after Hermann Meyer's death

Especially during the First World War, the chemical industry had a great need for alcohol, which on the one hand brought Meyer AG large profits. On the other hand, the fruit supply situation in the " turnip winter " was so poor due to the war that the production facility at Fruchtstrasse 79 started making jam from turnips.

After the First World War, Meyer-AG expanded its range to include groceries, coffee and cigarettes. The shops moved from the basement to the ground floor, the areas were enlarged, the decorations changed every four weeks.

The advertising department of Meyer & Co. AG created the slogan in 1924: “No celebration without Meyer”, whereby the Y in the name of Meyer was represented as a stylized champagne glass.

In 1924 Meyer AG had 268 branches across Berlin. In 1930 the number of Meyer branches was 600.

As early as November 12, 1928, the National Socialist Berlin newspaper “ The Attack ” had been inciting against the “Jewish Trust Meyer”. The fact that the company founder Hermann Meyer, who died in 1913, and two of his partners were Jews , did not otherwise play a major role before 1933. After the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, increasingly exposed to anti-Semitic attacks and branded the “gravedigger of the German people” with other companies defamed as “typically Jewish”, the company was “ Aryanized ” until 1938 , ie expropriated for anti-Semitic motives. Under the leadership of Robert Melchers (born December 30, 1889), delegate of the supervisory board, the AG was "Aryanized" on October 20, 1936 and renamed "Robert Melchers AG" in 1941.

The location Wattstrasse 11-12 in Gesundbrunnen was destroyed to 85 percent in November 1943 in an Allied air raid.

After the Second World War

Former company headquarters on Wattstrasse in Gesundbrunnen

After the Second World War, the Meyer company made a comeback in the western sectors of Berlin under its old name. In October 1945 "Robert Melchers AG" was renamed "Meyer".

After the Second World War, a new large distillery and a new administration building in Wattstrasse were built by the architect Paul Schwebes with funds from the Marshall Plan . Meyer turned into a pure grocery store.

Meyer's facilities were expropriated in East Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone.

In 1953, the first self-service supermarket in Berlin was opened in Steglitzer Schloßstraße , and the second self-service supermarket followed just a month later in Berlin-Moabit . The opening of the first self-service market began with the slogan: “Every purchase is a pleasure; choose casually; no waiting ". By 1965 92 of the then 120 branches in West Berlin had been converted to self-service.

A few years later, Dr. Oetker Meyer.

In 1977 Meyer moved to Montanstrasse in Reinickendorf.

The Beck trading group was a competitor to Meyer's until 1985; in 1986 the two brands merged under Dr. Oetker's roof to Meyer & Beck Handels KG . However, their sales have declined since 1997; Employees were laid off and branches closed. In 2003, Dr. Oetker sold Meyer & Beck Handels KG to MeMa Handelsgesellschaft (Mema - Mein Markt). Only five years later, in 2008, the Mema was dissolved; Kaiser's Tengelmann took over some branches. This grocery supermarket chain has now also disappeared from the cityscape; some stores were taken over by Edeka , others by Rewe .

literature

  • Inka Bertz: “No celebration without Meyer” - The history of the Hermann Meyer & Co. company 1890–1990 . Series of publications by the Berlin Museum on the history of trade and commerce in Berlin, ISBN 3-925653-03-1 .

Web links

Commons : MEYER BECK  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Inka Bertz: "No celebration without Meyer" - The history of the Hermann Meyer & Co. company 1890–1990 . Series of publications by the Berlin Museum on the history of trade and commerce in Berlin, ISBN 3-925653-03-1 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Detlef Krenz: Liquid from Friedrichshain - Friedrichshainer ZeitZeiger. In: fhzz.de. June 19, 2018, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  3. ↑ "No celebration without Meyer". In: zeit.de . May 15, 1959, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Helmut Caspar: "No celebration without Meyer" - The state has always made a lot of money from the devil's alcohol, but resistance was also stirred ", Geschichte, Zeitgeschichte, Ausstellung (2016). In: helmutcaspar.de. Accessed December 30, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Klaus Dettmer: Company history 1964. (pdf) HERMANN MEYER - Cheers to success. In: Berliner Wirtschaft No. 09/2016. Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2016, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Business. In: Friedenauer Lokal-Anzeiger, issue No. 273, 14th year. November 19, 1907. Retrieved December 30, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b Our company, history, 1911, Oppacher Mineralquellen. In: oppacher.de. Accessed December 30, 2019 .
  8. ^ Hermann Meyer & Co. Aktiengesellschaft . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1909, p. 1767.
  9. ^ Hermann Meyer & Co. Aktiengesellschaft . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1913, p. 2030.
  10. ^ Hermann Meyer & Co. Aktiengesellschaft . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1915, p. 2046.
  11. ^ Hermann Meyer & Co. Aktiengesellschaft . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1928, p. 2262.
  12. ↑ a b Tania Estler-Ziegler: Fireworks for our new holdings - archive mirror of the Berlin-Brandenburg Economic Archive. In: archivspiegel.de. December 31, 2018, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Philippe Zimmermann: Alles muss raus - Forum - Das Wochenmagazin. In: magazin-forum.de. February 8, 2017, accessed December 30, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German spirits manufacturer, founder of the food retail chain Meyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1913
Place of death Berlin