Coffee substitute factory Otto E. Weber

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The coffee substitute factory Otto E. Weber was an internationally recognized manufacturer of coffee spices and cube tea in Radebeul , Saxony , who also supplied the royal court in Dresden. The company founded in the 19th century was " Aryanized " in 1937 and expropriated in 1946. In 1952 it was forcibly merged with the also expropriated parent company of today's Teekanne Group to form today's Teehaus GmbH .

The factory of the Teehaus in Radebeul, on the right the factory owner's villa of Otto E. Weber

history

Poster for Weber's Carlsbad Coffee Spice , color lithograph around 1900
Poster for Weber's Carlsbad Coffee Spice , color lithograph around 1902
Weber's Carlsbad Coffee Spice

E. Weber's tea factory was founded in 1864 . In 1873 the coffee substitute factory Otto E. Weber in Berlin was added. The company, which specializes in production and sales, not only produced tea in pressed cubes ( cube tea ), but was also the first and, for a long time, largest German company for the production and sale of fig coffee . This extract from roasted figs, invented at the time of the continental barrier in Austria, was used to replace coffee beans that had become scarce ( coffee substitute ). Weber developed the machines required for production himself and had them protected by patents.

Otto E. Weber (1840–1914) moved his company to Hamburg in 1878 "because of customs conditions" and to Radebeul in 1881 to his 13,000 m² industrial site, which was acquired in 1875 at today's Meißner Straße 45 (production halls) and 47 (villa) in the factory district there . From Radebeul, Weber, with more than 50 employees, sold his cubed Chinese tea, which was obtained in large quantities from the German army, and exported his award-winning products, including Weber's Carlsbader Coffee Spice and Weber's Prima Fig Coffee , in cubes and bars to to Russia, South Africa and the USA.

The Radebeul construction company FW Eisold built a villa for Otto E. Weber in 1889 based on plans by the architect Carl Käfer, a little back on Meißner Strasse, right next to his factory . Since Weber wanted to retire, he looked for a suitable successor, whom he found in the Augsburg banker August Gerstle (1854–1899). In 1894, the company was converted to Otto E. Weber GmbH on January 1, 1895, while retaining the established name , whose main partner was Gerstle with 70% of the share capital, along with his Swiss brother-in-law Friedrich Guggenheim (10%) and Weber (20%). Guggenheim took over the management in Radebeul. The Otto E. Weber GmbH was one of the Saxon court purveyors , who could lead the central crest of Saxony publicly.

Weber gave weekly "tea companies" in his retirement home, the villa on the company premises, which gave his house the name Teehaus , the namesake for the later name of the GDR tea brand and today's production company.

The Jewish Friedrich Guggenheim (1854–1923), who had lived in Radebeul since 1895, submitted an application for naturalization to Saxony as a Swiss citizen in 1902, which was rejected by the responsible district administration in Dresden and subsequently by the Ministry of the Interior, with reference to ministerial ordinances from 1893. The ministry approved the second application three months later, which was again rejected by the district administration, probably because the Swiss citizen was a respected and taxable member of Radebeul.

Gerstle died on May 1, 1899 in Augsburg after a flu and left his shares to his widow Anne Gerstle. Weber died in 1914 and, as contractually agreed, also left his shares to Anna Gerstle. In the same year 1914, the company advertised with the slogan "50 Years Proven", referring to the year the original tea company was founded in 1864.

Guggenheim was a co-founder of the trademark protection association and its vice chairman until his death. He died in 1923 after a brief, serious illness. The management was taken over by the son of August and Anna Gerstle, Hans Jakob Gerstle (1884–1942), a trained commercial scientist from the University of Zurich . The sole shareholder Anna Gerstle died in 1924, she left her shares in the company to her two surviving children, Hans and Grete, who lived with the Dresden lawyer Dr. Friedrich Salzburg was married. The younger son had died on the German side as a volunteer pilot lieutenant in northern France.

The company grew under Hans Gerstle's management, it was modernized, and healthy working conditions and exemplary social standards were introduced. Around 160 employees received Christmas bonuses and support in emergencies.

In 1933 it suddenly became important that the Gerstle and Salzburg families were Jewish. As early as March 1933 the police raided their villa in Dresden's Tiergartenstrasse in search of a son of the Salzburg family who was arrested for ten days for alleged communist activities. In the years that followed, the Otto E. Weber company was targeted by the striker as an “un-German” company.

From 1935 Weber's Extra , a concentrated coffee spice for mixed and malt coffee, and citric acid were added to the products . Up to 1000 tons of figs were processed for fig coffee per year. In the same year the owners decided to withdraw from their company and emigrate . Above all, Hans Gerstle was concerned about the future well-being of the employees and their workplace, so that he spent two years on it. On November 1, 1937, he gave his farewell address to the assembled workforce.

On November 2, the Dresden businessman Johannes Wilhelm Löhr, who acquired a third of the shares at a price well below the asset, was appointed managing director with sole power of representation, while the other two thirds were appointed by Kathreiner GmbH in Berlin (see also Kathreiner's Malzkaffeefabriken ) the Aryanization were acquired. The Gerstle and Salzburg families managed to emigrate to London on December 31, 1937 after, under pressure from the German authorities, they not only paid the Reich flight tax and transferred their German assets to a non-transferable domestic account to which they no longer had access from abroad but also delivered their stakes in a Swiss stock corporation to the Reichsbank and a Swiss life insurance to the Golddiskontbank in Berlin. Hans Gerstle died in London in 1942, his sister Grete moved with her family to California in 1940.

Before the Second World War, in 1939, the company had 200 employees. Soup cubes, powdered eggs and coffee substitutes were also made during World War II .

After the end of the war, Otto E. Weber GmbH was expropriated again in 1946 and renamed VEB "Otto E. Weber" . In the first time of need, citric acid was produced and soup herbs were packaged.

In 1952 it was united on its own site with the parent company of today's Teekanne GmbH , which was also relocated from Dresden to Radebeul in 1946, to become VEB Kaffee-Weber - Teekanne , today's Teehaus GmbH .

Quotes

“The Karlsbad coffee spice is one of the best, but also one of the most expensive coffee substitutes. One tablet is enough for about 4 cups of coffee. "

literature

Web links

Commons : Coffee surrogate factory Otto E. Weber  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Otto E. Weber
  2. ^ Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. City archive, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 .
  3. ↑ They met in the tea house ...
  4. ↑ Curt Reuter; Manfred Richter (arrangement): Radebeul chronicle . Radebeul 2010, p. 49 f . ( home.arcor.de/ig-heimat ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] First edition: 1966).
  5. ↑ from: Cooking school and advice for family and home . Published by Th. Schröter 1903–1905; after: Weber's Karlsbader Coffee Spice . liveauctioneers; accessed June 13, 2008

Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 55.4 "  N , 13 ° 41 ′ 20.1"  E