Joh. Anton Lucius
| Joh. Anton Lucius
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | |
| founding | 1763 |
| resolution | 1950s |
| Reason for dissolution | expropriation |
| Seat |
Erfurt , Germany
|
| Branch | Textile company |
Joh. Anton Lucius was a large textile company in Thuringia . It was founded in 1763 by Johann Anton Lucius (1742–1810) in Erfurt . The company grew steadily under his son Sebastian Lucius (1781–1857) and his descendants. The company remained in family ownership for another three generations until it was expropriated by the communist rulers in 1952.
Johann Anton Lucius
Jacob Lucius, Johann Anton Lucius' great-grandfather, had come from Seehausen to Erfurt, where he acquired citizenship as a baker in 1691. His son Johannes Hieronymus Lucius (1693–1756), a self-employed master weaver, in turn transferred his woolen goods business to his son Johann Michael Lucius (1719–1806), the father of Johann Anton Lucius , who finally founded the woolen goods factory named after him on the Langen in 1763 Bridge 57/58 in Erfurt. In 1782 the company was expanded to include a cutting business. When Johann Anton Lucius died in 1810, his brother Johann Jakob and his son Sebastian took over the business.
Sebastian Lucius
When the indebted company was taken over, bills of exchange were due and profits had to be made quickly. Sebastian Lucius therefore ventured into the risky arms business - faster and safer transport of weapons and ammunition. He worked successfully for a Parisian and a Mainz company and made high profits. The company was saved in this way, and Sebastian Lucius expanded it considerably as a result. In the sense of a partially industrial production, in 1815 he acquired the spinning and weaving plants of the manufacturer Liebich, which were located between the Erfurt streets of Pilse and Junkersand. He set up a gingham factory there . He also maintained a large dyeing, in which the particular for weaving yarns were dyed: linen, wool and cotton yarn twist , towels and dress, Nanking , nettle , Drell , damask and gingham. The company produced hats and stockings, among other things, and employed around 1,000 workers, who often worked from home in the rural area of Erfurt. The most important branches of the Lucius company in the 19th century were the manufacture and wholesale of cloth, ribbon and hosiery. In the 1830s, Lucius began importing English products, mostly yarn.
The abolition of the inner German customs borders by the German customs union in the mid-1830s and the connection of Erfurt to the central German railway network favored the textile wholesale trade and the growth of the company, so that further branches of business could be taken over. In 1837, Lucius handed over the gingham factory to a nephew for his relief.
House Dacheröden became the place of business
During the time of Sebastian Lucius, the company headquarters in Erfurt, which still exists today, was acquired. He had initially inherited one half ("Am Anger 38", formerly "Haus zum Güldenen Hecht") of today's Dacheröden house from the widow H. Chr. Spoenlas (possibly also from Spoenla ), a born Lucius. In 1833 he bought the second half of the house ("Am Anger 37", formerly "Haus zum Großen und Neuen Schiff"), the former residence of the Karl Friedrich von Dacherödens family , and had both parts functionally merged into one building with a newly designed interconnection. In addition to apartments, this was also the place of business and the dispatch of imported English yarns and self-produced textiles. For this purpose, extensions were built in the 1830s.
Ferdinand Lucius
According to a will, the company went to his widow Marianne Lucius, b. Lever over. After the mother's death in 1862, the management was taken over by the fourth oldest son Ferdinand (born May 10, 1830 in Erfurt; † August 2, 1910 there ). He was initially supported by his older brother August , who had previously received the Stoedten manor near Straussfurt as a severance payment from his father in 1848 .
The wholesaling of yarn and woolen goods expanded under his leadership and grew into one of the leading companies in Erfurt. In 1886 Ferdinand Lucius was fourth among the highest-income entrepreneurs in Erfurt with an income of 180,000 marks. In 1906 he was the richest citizen of the city, his fortune at that time was around 8.5 million marks, his annual income was 500,000 marks. From 1867 to 1871 he was President of the Erfurt Chamber of Commerce . From 1890 to 1893 he was a member of the German Reichstag and from 1886 to 1903 a member of the Prussian House of Representatives . In the year he died in 1910, he was made an honorary citizen of the city of Erfurt. Since 1859 he was married to Wilhelmine Wirth. The couple had no male descendants, and after his death there was no longer any named Lucius in Erfurt.
Walter von Nathusius
Sebastian Lucius' daughter, Henriette Marie Lucius (1823–1886), married the manor owner Gustav Buhlers, with whom she had four children, including Marianne Buhlers, who in turn married the Prussian stable master Hans von Nathusius on October 28, 1869 in Erfurt , and her mother the last owner was. On January 1, 1906, her son Walter von Nathusius , great-grandson of Sebastian Lucius, took over the management together with the previous authorized signatory Carl Bender. Since Ferdinand Lucius himself had no male descendants, the family agreed to transfer the business to his niece's descendants.
In the year the company was taken over, Erfurt passed the 100,000-inhabitant threshold and was now a large city. The company's name at the beginning of the 20th century was: Johann Anton Lucius knitting yarn wholesale and stocking manufacture .
Nathusius had recognized that the transition to own production on a larger scale than before would be necessary and promising. Therefore, on June 1, 1906, a branch for the production of fine cotton and silk hosiery was founded in Chemnitz . In the same year, the “Pilz” brand for hosiery and yarn was protected. In 1909 a large stocking factory for the production of woolen stockings was built in Schleusingen . The stockings made here were also sold under the Pilz brand .
Hans Joachim von Nathusius
After Carl Bender's death in 1913, Nathusius appointed his brother Hans Joachim (1884–1946), who had studied engineering at the University of Darmstadt, to take over the technical and organizational management of the company, which was growing ever larger, and later transferred the partnership to him . His marriage to Maria Anna, geb. Freiin von Giovanelli zu Gerstburg and Hörtenberg (1886–1960) remained childless.
The company survived World War I , subsequent inflation and the economic crisis . The hosiery business was soon flourishing again. A haberdashery trade that had also started was abandoned after a few years. The business concentrated on the wholesale of knitting yarn and the manufacture of hosiery. Sales in the main sales areas of Pomerania , Mecklenburg , Silesia , Saxony and Brandenburg worked with the help of a well-organized logistics network. Up until the beginning of the Second World War, 15 sales representatives visited customers with their own vehicles, and specialized trade fairs were attended. The orders of the traveling salesmen were received in the Dacheröden house , were made ready for dispatch and sent by horse-drawn carriage and then by train. The annual production reached around 1 million pairs of stockings.
Franz Xavier of Nathusius
In 1922 the third brother and future partner, Franz Xaver von Nathusius (1880–1953), took over the financial business as the successor to the resigned general manager Hugo Besler. After completing his officer career (Rittmeister retired ) in 1910, he was the owner of Mgohori-Cotton-Gesellschaft mbH on the Rufiji River in German East Africa . Later he took part in the colonial war against the English under Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck . His wife Antonie, b. He married Tiedemann († 1950) in Dar es Salaam in 1908 .
The factory in Schleusingen accounted for around 46% of taxable income (2,111 Reichsmarks) in 1931, and the Erfurt business for 54%. In 1938 the company celebrated its 175th anniversary in the Kossenhaschen house , part of the Erfurter Hof hotel at the main train station.
The decline
The Second World War led to a drop in sales, both in production and in wholesale. In 1943 Walter von Nathusius died, his brother Franz took over the management. An air raid on Erfurt in November 1944 caused damage to the street Am Anger and also to the Dacheröden house.
In 1945 the wholesale business came to a standstill due to a lack of transport links. Although Franz von Nathusius and his brother Hans-Jochen tried to get the business going again, the remaining service vehicles were requisitioned by the occupying forces. After the death of Hans-Jochen von Nathusius in 1946 and the currency reform in the Soviet occupation zone in 1948, the Erfurt business came to an end due to a lack of commercial activity. In 1951 the last owner, Franz von Nathusius, was forced to sell land and buildings in Erfurt. In the Dacheröden house, the later VOB Zentrag , an association of SED's own printing companies and publishers, set up a form printing system.
Production facilities and branches
In addition to the production sites in Chemnitz and Schleusingen , the company Lucius had branches in Hanover , Kiel and Breslau .
Stocking factory in Schleusingen
In 1909 Walter von Nathusius had built the stocking factory in Schleusingen. In this Lucius factory all types of knitted stockings (baby, children's, men's and women's stockings) were produced. In addition, the silk women's stockings from the production site in Chemnitz were dyed and made up here. Further sales were carried out via the headquarters in Erfurt. In addition to the glass industry, this stocking factory on Suhler Strasse offered work in Schleusingen, especially for women and girls.
In 1952 the Schleusinger factory was expropriated without compensation, which marked the end of the Lucius company. The VEB mushroom stocking factory Schleusingen was created . In 1955 the textile machines were dismantled and relocated to factories in Eichsfeld , Thuringia . Machine tools were installed in their place and the former stocking factory became VEB Elektromotorenwerk Schleusingen (EMS). This company later had over 900 employees.
The Striker Campaign
Before the Second World War, Schleusingen was home to the famous Müller & Schwab fashion house that belonged to two Jewish families. After the National Socialists seized power, this company was increasingly attacked by non-Jewish competitors. Campaigns against the company aimed to reduce sales through defamation or intimidation and thus drive the business into bankruptcy. Thanks to good contacts, the Nazi propaganda paper Der Stürmer could be used for this purpose. The newspaper published the following text on the front page of Issue 3 in 1934:
" Lucius stockings - what people talk about in Schleusingen
In Erfurt (Thuringia) there is a company called Joh. Anton Lucius, Erfurt-Chemnitz . This company has a stocking factory in Schleusingen (Thuringia), in which it employs around 70 women. They are required to wear only stockings that are made in the Lucius factory. The Jewish company Müller & Schwab is the sole distributor of Lucius stockings in Schleusingen. The workers at the Lucius company are therefore forced to buy their stockings at the Müller & Schwab Jewish house. A German businessman asked the Lucius company to transfer the sale of the Lucius stockings to him too.
The German businessman then received the following notification:
November 7th, 1933, Hans Dunst Company, Schleusingen (Thuringia)
I received your honorable friend on the 28th. Mts about my Schleusinger house and considering the very pleasant long-term relationship with Müller & Schwab, I regret to refuse to make you an offer. Messrs. Müller & Schwab have been buying from me for many years; their business is on the same street and I don't compete with old customers. Yours faithfully
, signed signature
The German businessman took the
liberty of giving this answer: 11/10/33
I received your letter of 7th cr. And tell you that in my shop it was told that one of your authoritative gentlemen from Erfurt, while inspecting the local factory, also checked the stockings that your workers wear and said that they were only allowed to wear your products, you had to be Also support companies as employers. I think that's right, but you can't force your staff to buy from the Jews. When you receive your letter, it is clear that you consider it right that your products will continue to be bought from Müller & Schwab instead of me. I reserve the right to forward your letter to the Kampfbund, of which I am a member, for comment.
Sincerely, signed signature
The director of the Schleusinger Lucius plant is a certain Mr. Bockenstein. He is a Freemason and a Stahlhelmer and is known for being very reluctant to accept Nazis into his business. It must be expected that there will be someone in Thuringia who will ensure that the Lucius Bockenstein methods are stopped. The workers can demand that one refrain from restricting their personal freedom. Stocking controls may have been a matter of course in Jewish Germany yesterday. In the new Germany, the Lucius Bockenstein people were advised to adapt to the changed circumstances as soon as possible. "
As a result of the publication of the article in the four showcases in which the striker was displayed in Schleusingen, all shoppers who entered the Müller & Schwab store were photographed from across the street. The intimidation campaign was successful; the sales of the business fell so far that the company was listed in the commercial register as expired in January 1939.
Sales of Lucius products were also disrupted by the Stürmer campaign. In a letter to the mayor of Schleusingen, Alfred Syré (* 1890) dated January 20, 1934, the then managing director Hans Jochen von Nathusius referred to the threat of job loss with reference to the Stürmer article.
In the local section of the Erfurter Stadtnachrichten in the issue of February 3, 1934 under the title The stocking controls of the Lucius company. German workers are supposed to buy from Jews , the striker's article is printed in full.
literature
- Lilly von Nathusius: Johann Gottlob Nathusius (1760–1835) and his descendants as well as his nephew Moritz Nathusius with his descendants . Detmold 1964, p. 57 ff.
- Wolfgang Ollrog (arrangement): Johann Christoph Gatterer, the founder of scientific genealogy . In: Archives for kin research and all related areas with practical research assistance . Volume 47, issue 81/82, February 1981, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg 1981, No. 3.4.1.3.3, 3.4.1.3.5 and 3.4.1.3.6, p. 72 f.
- Werner Voigt, Haus Dacheröden, a house full of cultural history (s) , City of Erfurt, Kulturdirektion (Ed.), Erfurt 1998
- Jochen von Nathusius. In: Georg Wenzel: German business leader . Life courses of German business personalities. A reference book on 13,000 business figures of our time. Hanseatic Publishing House , Hamburg / Berlin / Leipzig 1929, DNB 948663294 .
- Robert von Lucius: The Erfurt family Lucius. Erfurter Heimatbrief No. 37 (1978), pp. 28-37
Individual evidence
- ↑ according to the genealogical family website Luciusnet.de , currently offline
- ↑ tradition. Journal for Company History and Entrepreneur Biography , Volumes 3–4, Association of German Works Archivists (Announcements), F. Bruckmann, p. 78
- ^ City chronicle at Erfurt-Online
- ↑ according to Nassau Annals. Yearbook of the Association for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research , Volume 105, Association for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research (ed.), Verlag des Verein für Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, 1994, p. 150
- ↑ according to Hans-Werner Hahn, Werner Greiling and Klaus Ries: Bourgeoisie in Thuringia. Lifeworld and ways of life in the early 19th century , Hain Wissenschaft, 2001, p. 168
- ↑ according to Article Who Was Sebastian Lucius? ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Sebastian-Lucius-Schule in Erfurt, accessed on January 27, 2010
- ↑ according to Yearbook for History, Volume 10, Institute for History, German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (Hrsg.), Central Institute for History, Academy of Sciences of the GDR , Akademie-Verlag, 1974, p. 353
- ↑ Franz Xaver von Nathusius used the first stick motor plow in Africa , named after its inventor Robert Stock , according to The Planter, Journal for Agriculture and Forestry in German East Africa , Biological-Agricultural Institute in Amani (ed.), German-East African Newspaper, 1913, p. 283 ff.
- ↑ according to Supplements, Volume 13, p. 152
- ↑ according to Breakdown of the basic amount according to the trade income over several communities (manor districts) , form dated September 8, 1931 relating to Joh. Anton Lucius in Erfurt , entrance to the city of Schleusingen on September 11, 1931, available in: Hildburghausen district archive
- ↑ a b according to Stock no. 807: Johann Anton Lucius Erfurt, Schleusingen branch (494807) , at the Thuringia archive portal
- ↑ according to Yearbook for History, Volume 10, Institute for History, German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (Hrsg.), Central Institute for History, Academy of Sciences of the GDR , Akademie-Verlag, 1974, p. 353 , he did not build an existing one himself, but acquired an existing one Production. It could be the former mechanical weaving mill Schwarz, which had the city's first steam engine installed in 1868.
- ↑ a b according to Article wall paintings - glass and stocking factory ( Memento of the original from 23 August 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of Schleusingen city administration, accessed on January 27, 2010
- ↑ a b according to Kerstin Möhring, ..., p. 26 f.
- ↑ according to Entry / note A No. 351
- ↑ according to Original at the Hildburghausen district archive, signature Schl.817 / 1
- ↑ according to Original at the Hildburghausen district archive
