Josef Garbáty
Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal (born June 27, 1851 in Lida , Wilna governorate ; † June 29, 1939 in Berlin-Pankow ) was a German cigarette manufacturer .
The family
Josef Garbáty and his wife Rosa Rahel had two sons, Eugen Garbáty (1880–1970) and Moritz Garbáty (1892–1965). The name "Garbáty" comes from Belarusian and means "the hunchback". The family emigrated to Prussia from the town of Lida, which used to be predominantly Jewish and has belonged to the Russian Empire since 1795 . At the end of the 19th century Garbáty opened his first cigarette factory in Schönhauser Allee with the successful brand "Queen of Sheba". From 1906 the production moved to Hadlichstrasse in Berlin-Pankow , where it was one of the largest Pankow companies producing until the end of the 1930s.
The Jewish Garbáty family emigrated to America in 1939 , after the Garbáty property was forcibly sold to the Cologne- based Jacob Koerfer Group and the Hamburg Reemtsma cigarette factories in the course of the “ Ordinance to Eliminate Jews from German Economic Life” in 1938 . Josef Garbáty stayed in Pankow and died in 1939 two days after his birthday at the age of 88.
The grandson of the company founder, the philology professor Thomas J. Garbáty (born January 10, 1930 in Berlin; † July 29, 2009 in Ann Arbor) lived in the USA until his death . Until recently he was a member of the board of trustees of the Association of Patrons and Friends of the Former Jewish Orphanage in Pankow eV
The Berlin cigarette empire
As early as 1879, Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal and his wife Rosa Rahel began producing cigarettes and tobacco products as a homeworker. In 1881 Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal founded his cigarette company on Schönhauser Allee , which he moved to Pankow in 1906 . The factory buildings were erected according to plans by Paul Ueberholz on Berlin and Hadlichstrasse in the immediate vicinity of the Pankow S-Bahn station .
Extensive social rooms, such as the company canteen, break rooms, bathrooms, a company laundry and a company library were already planned when the company buildings were set up. The workers at Garbáty also had a company newspaper, an unemployment benefit scheme, a company choir and a company sports club.
In 1918, nine years before state unemployment insurance was introduced , the company's 1,000 employees were already covered by unemployment insurance . From 1908, breakfast and lunch were offered in the canteen. The company organized regular balls for its employees until the 1930s, such as the Alpine Ball or the Kirmesball, each February at the Deutsches Hof. Garbátys (canteen money) were used to pay for services from the company canteen.
After the first factory building in Hadlichstrasse went into operation in 1906, a second building was built in 1912 on Berliner Strasse. When the third factory building was built in 1931, Garbáty had almost 1,600 employees, a large proportion of whom were women. They were used in particular in the banding room .
Garbáty had established branches in many European countries before the First World War . Garbáty cigarettes were also available in the German colonies of that time, in America and Asia . Garbáty's cigarettes were also valued in Russia as Garbáty Papirossi . Garbáty became the ducal Saxon purveyor to the court and a supplier for the government of the then Italy . The most famous cigarette brand of the time was the Queen of Sheba , the first Egyptian cigarette in Berlin. Garbáty had the trademark registered in 1887 and in 1898 it was also protected by patent. The cigarettes were brought to the dealers by the drivers in Saba trucks. From 1928 the Kurmark was added as a very successful brand.
At that time, cigarette pictures - collecting pictures in cigarette packaging - were very popular. The Garbátyfabrik also had collections on a wide variety of topics, such as the series created in the 1930s
- German Homeland - A collection of images that testify to German history and the economic strength of the German people with 144 images in the format 1.5 "× 2.5",
- the international series Gallery of Modern Beauty with 300 color print images in the format 2 1/16 "× 2 7/16" or
- Rail miracle - a true fairy tale from the wonder world of the rail line, of luxury trains, rail zepps and torpedo buses ,
- From Frederick the Great to Hindenburg - 255 glorious German coats of arms ,
- Sports crest I football with 645 images of club crests and other collection series.
For each series of cigarette pictures there was a suitable scrapbook with the pre-printed pictures, which you only had to collect or exchange.
The Garbáty cigarette empire was responsible for the manufacture of the packaging for cigarettes. On the commercial property at Hadlichstrasse 19/20, which was acquired by the paperboard and paper processing company founded in 1919 as a subsidiary of the Garbáty cigarette factory, the most modern machines were used to produce packaging material and posters for a wide variety of customers. The cigarette packaging was only a partial product from the extensive range. Around 1927 the company employed around 800 people.
The brothers Eugen and Moritz Garbáty were the sole owners of the Pa-Pa-Ge shares. In 1929 the company was sold to the Reemtsma company from Hamburg. Josef Garbáty's two sons took over the Garbáty cigarette factory from 1929. It now operated as Garbáty Cigarettenfabrik GmbH. Reemtsma ceased operations at Pa-Pa-Ge in the early 1930s, after which the Northeast Labor Office was housed here.
At the beginning of the 1930s, competition in the tobacco industry intensified and a process of monopolization took its course: 50% of the company, Eugen Garbáty's share, was taken over by the Reemtsma Group. Moritz Garbáty was now the sole manager of the factory until 1938. But he had to go to Hamburg every month for meetings at the Reemtsma headquarters.
When Hitler came to power , a difficult time began for the Garbáty family. In 1935 the GmbH was converted into a limited partnership with the name Zigarettenfabrik Garbáty KG, which was then forcibly sold in 1938. As a result, the Garbáty family lost their entire Berlin property of around 45,000 square meters.
The Garbáty family also sold their recreational seat, the Altdöbern Castle (Lausitz), which had been in family ownership since the beginning of 1900 , to a noble family, which in turn was expropriated after the war in the Soviet occupation zone .
As an old man, Josef Garbáty did not leave the country with his sons, but stayed in the “Garbáty” villa until his death , cared for and looked after by Sophie Boroschek from the Rosenthal suburb . Garbáty was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee , Sophie Boroschek was gassed in 1943 in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp .
The patron
Moritz Garbáty initiated the Garbáty sports club "GSC", which he chaired. The club's club colors were blue and yellow. The sports club's cyclists wore jerseys with the Garbáty logo on them. The Garbáty company was also a sponsor of various sporting events such as running events, cycling races and football tournaments. In 1925, for example, the company donated the Garbáty Cup to the Zurich - Berlin international long-distance cycle tour organized by the Association of German Cyclists .
When the Olympic Games were held in Berlin in 1936 , the company sent postcards to its business partners.
Right next to the Garbáty cigarette factory was a Jewish orphanage at Berliner Straße 120/121. This was generously supported by Garbáty until it was evicted by the Nazis and then used as the Pankow branch of the Reich Security Main Office .
After the Second World War
The factory buildings had survived the Second World War relatively unscathed. Since smoking was an unbroken need even after the war, it was in the interests of the occupying powers to restart cigarette production. The factory buildings of the cigarette factory, which at that time still existed as a limited partnership, were looted and burned out on May 1, 1945, and were put back into operation.
Back then, cigarettes were available on the black market in the western sectors of Berlin or on “brands” in the Soviet occupation zone . Even the “intelligentsia” in the Soviet occupation zone could not do without cigarettes. So it said in a petition from the poet Johannes R. Becher from April 27, 1946 to the then Pankow mayor Mätze:
“So far we have received a small number of cigarettes from the Garbáty cigarette factory, Mr. Limberger, for the close employees of the Kulturbund, but as Mr. Limberger let us know, this delivery should be stopped in May. We kindly ask you, Mr. Mayor, to influence Mr. Limberger to continue the kind donation. "
After the founding of the GDR , the Garbátysche Kommanditgesellschaft became public property and was now called " VEB Garbáty". One year before the construction of the Berlin Wall , the state-owned companies "Garbáty" and VEB "Josetti" were merged to form the "Berlin Cigarette Factory" (Bezifa). From that moment the name Garbáty no longer existed in the Pankow townscape. Until the “ Wende ” there was the “VEB Vereinigte Zigarettenfabriken, Werk Berlin” with almost 500 employees in the GDR. From its modern production facility on Berliner Straße, this plant supplied smokers in the GDR with cigarettes of the “ Club ”, “ Cabinet ” and “ Karo ” brands .
The "Garbáty-Villa" at Berliner Straße 127 was used as the residence of the Bulgarian ambassador in the GDR . The Cuban embassy was located in the building of the Jewish orphanage until the fall of the Wall .
After the turn
In good time, namely one day before the German unification, the "Noch" -DDR sold the right to the cigarette name "Club", which was very successful in the GDR and which had previously been produced in the Berlin plant of the "VEB Vereinigte Zigarettenfabriken" to "Reynolds Tobacco GmbH Cologne" . Since nothing else was sold apart from the name, production in Pankow was suspended from October 3, 1990. In 1993 there was an attempt by "Lübecker Zigarettenfabrik GmbH" to continue production in Pankow, which ended in 1995 when the company went bankrupt and the plant was closed. The cigarette production in Pankow was now, after about 100 years since it began, history. Empty listed buildings remained. By 2012 the factory building had been converted into a residential building with more than 160 residential units.
The former tobacco store behind the building of the Jewish orphanage now houses a school.
The buildings in Hadlichstrasse 19/20 are used in a variety of ways as the “Forum Pankow” commercial area.
After several years of vacancy, Wolfgang Seifert, the operator of a Berlin temporary employment agency and treasurer of the right-wing extremist Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Bildungswerk , acquired the Villa Garbáty and its premises in 1998. There was more media-relevant excitement in this context, since the new owner cited the property from 1999 the Pankow Republicans rented for five years. However, they gave up the villa again in 2003. It is now the seat of the Lebanese embassy in Berlin.
The building of the former Jewish orphanage has been reopened since 2001 with a new usage concept by the "Friends of the Former Jewish Orphanage" and again receives donations, this time from Josef Garbáty's grandson, Thomas Garbáty. From 1999 to 2009 there was Café Garbáty at Breite Straße 43, which then moved to Mühlenstraße 30 and bears this name in memory of the Garbáty family.
Honor
In connection with the extension of the U-Bahn line 2 from Vinetastraße to the S-Bahn station Pankow and the resulting redesign of the station forecourt, the square was named on September 16, 2000 in honor of the Jewish cigarette manufacturer and Berliner Josef Garbáty " Garbátyplatz ”. The name was given after the opening ceremony for the Pankow underground station.
On June 29, 2002, the text "Garbáty", a design by the Berlin artist Susanne Ahner, was placed on Garbátyplatz in honor of his social commitment beyond his work as an entrepreneur. In addition to this work, a plaque was embedded in the floor, which refers to the social commitment of the entrepreneur Josef Garbáty.
The lettering and the writing board have not been visible since April 2011, as the square was built on with a trade and medical center. At least the lettering should be legible again after further renovation work has been completed. Problems with the facade design of the building still have to be resolved in 2013 (→ see Garbátyplatz ).
literature
- "The Jewish Orphanage in Pankow" - Association of the supporters and friends of the former Jewish Orphanage in Pankow e. V. 2001.
- "Circle of Friends of Chronik Pankow e. V. ". Dietzgenstrasse 42, 13156 Berlin.
Web links
- Pankow website for the Garbáty cigarette factory
- Thomas Garbáty in the Jewish orphanage
- Website of the Café Garbáty in Berlin-Pankow
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Bölke: Certificate of inheritance from the concentration camp , article in Spiegel from May 19, 1997 , accessed on August 26, 2011.
- ↑ Obituary notice Berliner Zeitung 15./16. August 2009, p. 16.
- ↑ Obituary at mlive.com , accessed on 16 August, 2009.
- ↑ Planning screen ( 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. , accessed January 24, 2012.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Garbáty, Josef |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Garbáty-Rosenthal, Josef (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German cigarette manufacturer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 27, 1851 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lida , Vilnius Governorate |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 29, 1939 |
| Place of death | Berlin-Pankow |