Small & Quenzer
| Klein & Quenzer AG | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | January 2, 1904 |
| resolution | 1970 years |
| Reason for dissolution | Change of company and relocation of company headquarters |
| Seat | Idar-Oberstein |
| management | Herrmann Klein and Alfred Quenzer |
| Branch | Costume jewelry and orders of war (small sheet metal products) |
The Small and Quenzer AG was on 2 January 1904 by Herrmann Klein and Alfred Quenzer in Idar-Oberstein founded, and was next to the Berlin-based company CE Juncker , the main producer of military medals and honors in Germany of the First and Second World War .
Company history
The company was initially conceived as a wholesaling company , but was converted into a manufacturing company for watch chains and women's jewelry as early as 1906. August 1912 the company expanded due to growing business success and moved into a factory building with 80 employees in Nahestrasse in Idar-Oberstein. Until the outbreak of the First World War, it was mainly active in the export business. After the start of the war, production came to a halt as a result of the decree that was issued. I gave gold for iron and had to be converted to replacement metals in order to be able to guarantee supplies to Germany and neutral states. To compensate for the foreign trade business with states such as the USA, etc., which had failed due to the war, the company switched to the production of medals and decorations and by the end of the First World War produced almost a million Iron Crosses 2nd Class in 1914 .
Co-founder Alfred Quenzer died in 1918. After the lost war, the company tried to get back into the international jewelry trade, which was slow because of the general scarcity of raw materials, inflation and economic depression in Germany in the interwar period, but succeeded and continued to expand. The company adapted to the economic situation and switched its production entirely to costume jewelery made of base metals. In 1928 the legal form of the company was changed to a joint stock company and a new factory for 300 workers was built. Initially, the shares were exclusively owned by the still living founder Herrmann Klein and Kollmar & Jourdan AG from Pforzheim .
As a result of the politics of the emerging Nazi regime , the company again lost its foreign markets, but in 1938 it took over the Berliner Record Metallwaren GmbH, which manufactured zippers , as a replacement , and also transferred them to Idar-Oberstein in 1939. This branch had to be forcibly shut down shortly afterwards as a result of the war management measures. In 1940 Herrmann Klein died and the company management was transferred to the directors Robert Stein and Alfons Schmidt († 1953). During the Second World War, the company took over the main production of medals and decorations, belt locks for the army and military effects .
After the war, the jewelry business, which had come to a complete standstill during the war years, had to be laboriously rebuilt, which was made more difficult by the fact that the company building had been significantly destroyed by two bomb hits. In 1952 the company switched its production back to costume jewelry. On January 1, 1959, Rolf-Robert Klein, son of founder Herrmann Klein, took over the majority of the shares. In the 1970s, Klein and Quenzer relocated their production facility from Idar-Oberstein and today it operates under a different company.
List of orders and decorations produced
The following medals and awards were made by Klein and Quenzer and marked with the LDO manufacturer number "65" and the license number "L / 26":
- Wound badge (black, silver, gold)
- Medal Winter Battle in the East
- War Merit Medal
- War Merit Cross 1st and 2nd class with and without swords
- Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class
- Medal October 1st, 1938
- German Schutzwall Decoration
- Loyalty service mark in silver
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939
literature
- Doehle, Heinrich: The awards of the Greater German Reich: medals, decorations, badges . 5th edition. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2000, ISBN 3-931533-43-3 .
- Previtera, Stephen Thomas: The iron time: a history of the Iron Cross . Winidore Press, Richmond, Va 1999, ISBN 0-9673070-0-7 .
- Weber, Christianne: Jewelry of the 20s and 30s in Germany . Arnold, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-925369-05-8 (Zugl .: Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 1989).
- Maerz, Dietrich: The Knights Cross of the Iron Cross . B&D Publishing, Richmond, Michigan 2007, ISBN 978-0-9797969-0-6 .