Leimbach & Co.

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The company Leimbach & Co. GmbH (from 1926 Basaltstein GmbH ) was a company operating in Germany and Switzerland that operated several basalt quarries and basalt works. The Jewish owners had to give up the company in 1936 due to Aryanization during the Nazi era .

Company history

In 1897 Georg Leimbach and Adolf Stein founded Leimbach & Co. GmbH and built a basalt plant in Nordheim with a cable car to Rothberg , which started producing in 1898. Both had a 50% share in the company. Leimbach was responsible for the technical area and Stein for the commercial area. In 1904 they opened the second quarry on Sodenberg with a basalt works in Morlesau and in 1905 the basalt works in Fladungen with the quarry on Pfeust.

In 1911, after the death of Hans Reidelbach , they took over the quarry opened by the Farnsberg with the plant in Oberriedenberg . In 1914 they opened up the quarry at Umpfen with the basalt works near Fischbach / Rhön .

The company founders recognized the increasing demand for basalt gravel , especially for railway construction, early on and built basalt works on these routes shortly after the opening of the new railway lines in the Rhön. They took a 75% stake in the new Billstein works near Seiferts on the railway line to Wüstensachsen , which was completed in 1916 . At the time, the company's plants were considered to be the most modern and efficient operations due to the consistent use of railways for removal and of cable cars for internal transport between the quarry and the siding.

In 1925 Georg Leimbach agreed that his share would be paid out in installments and left the company. Adolf Stein was then the sole general director and renamed the company Basaltstein GmbH in 1926 . From 1925 he took over the Buchs basalt works in Buchs SG near St. Gallen, which was converted into a stock corporation in 1929. Swiss shareholders were also involved in this. The basalt AG Buchs founded the subsidiary Hart Schotterwerk sweeping customs in Stansstad on Lake Lucerne in 1930 another Basatwerk with quarry. The local products are transported by ship across Lake Lucerne.

Adolf Stein died in 1932 and his sons Jakob and Fritz took over the management. As Jews , you suffered from the first boycott measures after the National Socialists came to power . Since they saw themselves as good Germans, also because of their participation in the First World War, they did not initially believe in the implementation of the plans. In 1934, however, state pressure increased and they no longer received any public contracts because they were not a “German company”. The first thing they did was to sell their 3/4 stake in the Billstein basalt works to co-owner Franz Carl Nüdling OHG for 250,000 RM . In 1935, politically instigated by the National Socialists, they were canceled and they were no longer able to find any money for their current expenses, so they sold the Umpfen basalt works to the Hammermühle Bischofsheim , which the Fichtel family owned as co-owners of the Fichtel & Sachs company belonged to.

On April 3, 1936, Jakob and Fritz Stein were arrested and interrogated in Lindau on the way to their factories in Switzerland . With the flimsy accusation of shifting the currency, for which even the National Socialist judiciary never found evidence, their authority to represent their own company was withdrawn on April 25, 1936. Without the already sold locations and the branches in Switzerland, Basaltstein GmbH had 600 workers in Germany at the time. The liquidator was Friedrich Ludwig Biermann, who used Erste Bayrische Basaltstein AG , a basalt mining company founded in Steinmühle in Upper Palatinate in 1880 , as the liquidation company . This later bought the quarries and works in Fladungen, Nordheim and Oberriedenberg. Hans Leimbach, son of the company's co-founder Georg Leimbach, acquired the Sodenberg quarry. In the course of the liquidation, the Stein brothers also had to give up their shares in the Swiss companies, which then came fully into the possession of local owners.

Former owners

Leimbach family

  • Georg Leimbach was born on September 7, 1859 in Straßbessenbach . From 1880, he attended secondary school in Aschaffenburg and , together with his brother Josef, ran his father's stone quarries, in which red sandstone was mined. In 1892 he moved with his wife and children into a newly built house at the train station in Hösbach , where he had built a sawmill . At an early stage he recognized the importance of the railroad , through which he made use of the transport links in various European regions. He imported wood from Slovenia and other European countries and processed it in Hösbach in order to then market it again with rail transport over long distances. Although there was a small economic crisis in 1892, he continued to expand and in 1892 began to mine basalt in the Rhön with Adolf Stein . He was the technician and Stein the merchant in the joint venture. In 1908 he moved into a newly built house at Schweinfurt train station , as he could reach all plants from there by train. He was appointed Commerzienrat by the Kingdom of Bavaria . In 1925 he agreed that he would leave the management and that his company shares would be paid out to him in installments. Shortly afterwards he died on January 18, 1926 in Schweinfurt.
    • Hans Leimbach was a son of Georg Leimbach. He was a graduate engineer and employed at Leimbach & Co. as technical director. His power of representation expired on the same day as that of the brothers Jakob and Fritz Stein on April 25, 1936. He operated the quarry on Sodenberg near Morlesau , for which he had to pay the Stein family 75,000 DM in compensation after the war. He died at the age of 53. The Sodenberg quarry was then operated by his nephew Herrmann Steinhard until 1958.

Stein family

  • Adolf Stein was born on November 14, 1864 in Nordheim vor der Rhön as the son of a horse dealer . As a successor to his father, he later also worked as a horse dealer in his hometown before working with Georg Leimbach to mine basalt. He was more responsible for the commercial area and Leimbach for the technical area. He was married to Henriette (née Isaak), with whom he had seven children. On June 17, 1903, he moved to Schweinfurt . At the time with four children. His brother Salomon Stein, who was born in 1866 and had been a district rabbi since 1890, also moved to Schweinfurt . From 1925 Adolf Stein was the sole owner of the company. In 1926 he renamed the company Basaltstein GmbH based in Schweinfurt. Adolf Stein was the sole general director of the company. On November 19, 1925, he received the honorary citizenship of the municipality of Nordheim and on November 17, 1929 that of the municipality of Oberriedenberg , whereupon he set up a generous foundation for the benefit of the municipalities. As early as 1928 he had been awarded the title of Commerzienrat . Adolf Stein died on September 21, 1932 after a long period of severe suffering. His son Max (1901–1964) and daughter Klara (* 1908) fled to Israel in 1933.
    • Jakob Stein was the eldest son of Adolf Stein and was born on May 16, 1896 in Nordheim before the Rhön. Together with his brother Fritz, he took over the management of the company after the death of their father in 1932. As a participant in the First World War , he initially believed he was safe from persecution during the Nazi era . As a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold he was considered by the National Socialists from the beginning as a declared opponent and, like the entire family, was defamed by them. On July 10, 1933, he, like his brother Fritz and two of his employees, was taken into protective custody on the grounds that they were "attempting to discredit the measures of the representative of the highest SA leadership through untrue machinations and circulating false rumors" . After three days they were released again, partly because there had been some actions against the arrest in Schweinfurt, on the grounds that they were “decent Jews (..) who were socially minded and even founded a pension fund for their employees in 1928. She always had an open ear for the little man who worked in her quarries ”. According to the Gestapo files, he traveled to Lindau with Fritz on April 3, 1936 , and the next day to travel on a spa boat across Lake Constance to Switzerland to visit their plants there. The Gestapo accused them of pushing foreign currency on the grounds that they had worn shoes with too high heels. On April 25, 1936, his authority to represent Basaltsteine ​​GmbH expired. Fraud proceedings brought against him and his brother Fritz by the Schweinfurt public prosecutor were closed on November 30, 1937. Although he had no previous convictions and he could not be accused of anything, "as a former member of the Reichsbanner he had clearly demonstrated his anti-state attitude and in the economic field too, one can certainly assume that he was involved in his business." its branch in Switzerland probably carried large assets abroad. Stone is a public enemy to look at, is not worthy even longer German citizens to be "together on December 3, 1938, his wife and their three children shared the German citizenship revoked. On May 5, 1936, he moved to Berlin. In December 1937 he emigrated to the USA via St. Gallen (Switzerland) . Jakob Stein died in exile there in May 1963.
    • Fritz Stein was the second son of Adolf Stein and was born on November 11, 1899 in Nordheim. He studied at the Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg Philology and a doctorate in 1922 as an economist . In 1932 he took over the management of the company with his brother Jakob and from 1933 to 1936 he was exposed to the harassment he described. Fritz Stein was the founder of the "Zionist local group Schweinfurt" in 1933 and chairman there until 1936. His wife Ruth Margot taught Jewish young people until 1936 in the premises of the religious community. After the company was stolen from him on April 25, 1936, he and his family moved to Hamburg on May 15 of this year. Due to problems taking foreign currency with her, her departure for Amsterdam was delayed until September 30, 1937. He was finally able to take 85,441 RM with him. He survived the Second World War with his family and contacted the successor companies on July 21, 1948 from Amsterdam. For the basalt works in Billstein he received 30,000 DM compensation from the company "Franz Carl Nüdling" and 75,000 DM for the basalt works in Sodenberg from Hans Leimbach. He died on December 30, 1956 in Amsterdam.

Basalt works and quarries

It is stated how long the works and quarries were operated by the company and how long they continued to be operated by the successor companies. Additional quarries for the basalt works in the following years are not recorded. Coordinates are only given where there are no separate articles or article sections for the respective business premises.

  • Basalt works and quarry on Sodenberg near Morlesau (1904 to 1936, continued until 1958)
  • Fischbach basalt works with quarry at Umpfen (1914 to 1935, continued until 1978)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfred Saam, p. 3/4
  2. ↑ Alfred Saam, p. 5
  3. ^ Alfred Saam, p. 4
  4. ^ Alfred Saam, p. 4
  5. ↑ Hans Dieter Nüdling: Rhon Basalt , Parzeller, Fulda, 2006, ISBN 978-3790003819 , page 61
  6. ↑ Alfred Saam, p. 5
  7. ↑ Alfred Saam, pp. 97-99
  8. ^ Alfred Saam: pp. 7/8
  9. ^ Alfred Saam, pp. 8/9
  10. ^ Alfred Saam, p. 98
  11. ↑ Alfred Saam, pp. 4/5
  12. ↑ Alfred Saam, p. 5
  13. ^ Alfred Saam, p. 8
  14. ^ Alfred Saam, p. 91
  15. ↑ Alfred Saam, pp. 4/5
  16. ↑ Hans Dieter Nüdling: Rhon Basalt , Parzeller, Fulda, 2006, ISBN 978-3790003819 , page 61
  17. ^ Alfred Saam, pp. 5 to 7
  18. ↑ Alfred Saam, pp. 7 to 9
  19. ↑ Alfred Saam, pp. 7 to 9
  20. ↑ Press release from Holcium AG ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holcim.ch
  21. ↑ The landfill on the website of the Association for Waste Disposal in Buchs / SG ( Memento of the original from July 26, 2015 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vfa-buchs.ch