John Greve

Calculating machine Astra model B, ca.1922.

John E. Greve (born May 14, 1880 in Altona , † 1967 in Düsseldorf ) was a German designer and entrepreneur.

The trained mechanical engineer worked after a stay in the USA from 1909 to 1919 as chief designer at the Wanderer-Werke in Chemnitz , before opening his own mechanics workshop and developing his first, innovative calculating machine, the “Astra”. With the financial support of banker Wilhelm Nicolaus Dannhof , he founded Astrawerke AG two years later and started production. The factory developed rapidly and by the end of the 1920s was already considered the European market leader for booking machines , a further development of calculating and typing machines. In 1929 a new plant was inaugurated in Chemnitz-Altchemnitz ; by 1944 the workforce had risen to 2,600. During the Second World War , the Astrawerke also increasingly produced armaments and also employed forced labor from the Flossenbürg concentration camp . Shortly before the end of the war, the factory was partially destroyed in air raids.

After the war, Greve was expropriated and dismissed by the Soviet occupying forces . In 1948 he moved to West Germany, where he tried a fresh start with Exacta Büromaschinen GmbH, later also with the formal relocation of the Astra works to Cologne . In court he fought for the sole rights to the Astra brand, whereupon the Chemnitz products were sold under the name Ascota .

Greve could not build on his earlier successes. In 1963 he withdrew from his company and died a few years later.

literature

• Alice Vogel: John E. Greve . In: The coffee grounds in blotting paper. Saxon Industry Stories , Zweckverband Sächsisches Industriemuseum, Chemnitz 2006, ISBN 978-3-937025-27-8 , pp. 77-80.

Web links

• About the Astra adding machine and its inventor John E. Greve