Loeser & Richter
| Loeser & Richter
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Limited partnership |
| founding | March 5, 1874 |
| resolution | 1992 |
| Seat | Löbau , Germany |
| Branch | food industry |
The company operating under the name Loeser & Richter produced branded noodles under the trade and trademark Anker . It was the first German factory to wrap pasta in cellophane . Before the Second World War, the company also supplied the US market. The company's headquarters were in Löbau in Saxony . The history of the company is closely related to the construction of the Schminke house .
Company history
The first years
The company Woldemar Loeser & Co. was founded with the signing of the articles of association on March 5, 1874 by the Dresden businessman Georg Woldemar Loeser and the landowner and businessman Stephan von Keszycki from Ilgen near Fraustadt. In the following year, on October 20, 1875, Stephan von Keszycki left the company as a co-owner. The Löbauer rentier Herrmann Lange became the new partner on October 23, 1875 . He also left the company a year later, on October 2, 1876. The new co-owner was now the Löbauer businessman Julius Richter. Together with the name of the new partner, the company name Loeser & Richter was created until 1946 . Woldemar Loeser died at the age of 41 on November 23, 1888 in Löbau.
As early as 1881, pasta products were given the Anker trade and trademark , with which Löbauer noodles quickly developed into a world-famous brand.
In 1890, the company with the number 42 already had one of 44 telephone connections of the Löbau telephone exchange.
While the company initially only produced in rented rooms, shortly before the turn of the century, they started building their own buildings. In 1899 it finally acquired a suitable piece of land on the outskirts of the city and had its own factory buildings built on it, which they moved into on March 28, 1900.
On July 1, 1908, the Löbauer businessman Max Richard Urban was granted power of attorney.
Sale to Wilhelm Schminke
Presumably the Glauchau textile manufacturer Wilhelm Schminke came into contact with the company when it took part in the Glauchau Innkeeper Day in June 1904. A short time later, on July 4, 1904, he bought it from Julius Richter. Since the previous sales markets abroad could increasingly only be managed unprofitable, Wilhelm Schminke initially tried harder to conquer the domestic German market. This was the only way to ensure the continued existence of the factory. Thanks to clever advertising strategies, he contributed to securing the noodle next to the potato a permanent place in German kitchens. Wilhelm Schminke was aware that the German market could only be opened up with the best qualities. So he switched production to semolina, as was the case with larger southern German factories. The economic upturn, which was mainly due to the growing number of German customers, came to a halt with the First World War . However, the state authorities soon recognized the advantages of pasta for the troops' catering after a major order from the Reich Treasury, which had been received in the summer of 1906, to supply the protection force of German colonies was fulfilled. The increasing sales made it possible for the company to be further expanded and modernized. Between 1919 and 1920, the company also participated in the planning for the construction of an unloading track in the Bautzen suburb, which was to be built together with other companies. However, due to the inflation at the time , it dropped out of the project in 1920.
Modernization under Fritz Schminke
After the death of Wilhelm Schminke on April 28, 1920, his eldest son Fritz officially took over the management of the factory in the spring of 1920, which he had been provisional since 1918. He systematically transformed the company Loeser & Richter into a manufacturer of branded products . So he only had uniformly aligned folding box packaging in the colors blue and orange used, some with viewing windows. The new packaging machines made it possible for Loeser & Richter to be one of the first German pasta factories to offer their products on the market wrapped in cellophane.
After Fritz Schminke had a private house built by the Werkbund architect Hans Scharoun , he commissioned him to plan the renovation and expansion of the factory building. In the years 1934 to 1935, the factory facade on Äußere Bautzener Strasse was extensively redesigned. The planned complete renovation of the factory did not take place, initially due to financial constraints and later because of the outbreak of the Second World War.
social commitment
Schminke invested in numerous improvements for the workforce: for example, sanitary facilities with showers and flushing toilets, a company kitchen with a canteen, a break garden, but also a company library and a rental station for holiday items such as binoculars, tents and hiking maps. Such social improvements at the company level had been widespread since the 1920s; they served to motivate and retain the workforce in the company. Company outings by bus were also organized. In Schminke's humanistic view of the world, every single employee was an equal person and not movable capital. This is also proven by the fact that under National Socialism the factory employees were called the “anchor family circle”. This designation was a deliberate departure from the terminology of the National Socialists , who called the workforce "followers".
When the Second World War broke out, Loeser & Richter employed around 280 men and women. The “Ankerians” called up for military service now informed the “Anker Field Post” about all the news inside and outside the factory and its workforce.
Company magazine
From 1934 to 1939 the in-house magazine “After shop closing” was published for colonial and delicatessen dealers and distributed free of charge. The paper was primarily concerned with conveying product knowledge, sales customers, advertising opportunities and suggestions for increasing sales in the retail sector to the retail trade. "After closing time" reached a circulation of up to 10,000 pieces.
From 1939 Joachim Schminke, Fritz Schminke's younger brother, ran the company, as his brother was called up for military service. Under his leadership, anchor production rose sharply due to the war, as the Wehrmacht was also supplied. Because the lack of employees called up for military service was clearly noticeable in production, the range was significantly reduced.
Situation at the end of the war
At the end of the Second World War, a lack of flour initially prevented any further pasta production. Toys and handbags were therefore temporarily made to keep the workforce busy. It was not until the summer of 1945 that production started again with contract orders for the Red Army and individual private customers. The delivered flour was converted into pasta (often in small quantities of up to 500 g). Contract drying of fruit and vegetables has also been included in the existing drying cabinets.
expropriation
On July 1, 1946, the brothers Fritz and Joachim Schminke were expropriated. Because of the delivery of food to the Wehrmacht, the entrepreneurs in the Soviet occupation zone were considered war criminals. Fritz Schminke himself was still in Soviet captivity at the time, from which he was only released in November 1948.
publicly-owned business
After the expropriation, the company was converted to the state-owned company VEB Anker-Pasta . In the post-war years , the production volume gradually increased again and in 1948 it reached the highest output since the factory was founded. This was expanded and modernized again at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. In 1953 a large part of the building was added, as planned in 1934. This building project came close to the planning of the architect Hans Scharoun.
At the beginning of the 1950s, for the second time in the company's history, small packs were brought onto the market on a larger scale under the Anker brand and in the traditional company colors of blue and orange. At the same time, participation in the Leipziger Messe was carried out for the first time after the end of the war with relatively high expenditure . As a result of the restructuring of the GDR planned economy, the company grew by assigning other food companies, but this increasingly meant that the necessary modernization and value maintenance measures were not carried out in the main factory. The production volume therefore began to decrease again.
After the German reunification
After the German reunification , the anchor pasta factory was converted into a GmbH. Due to the GDR's economic policy, which had been unsuccessful for years, the Anker pasta factory was no longer competitive and in 1992 had to dismiss the entire remaining workforce. Efforts by the Schminke family to bring the factory back into family ownership failed because of the political resistance of the management and the lack of effective decisions by the Treuhandanstalt . In 1992 the company was liquidated.
In the 1990s, Sipo Lehrbauhof GmbH acquired the factory in order to expand it into a training and education center for construction professions. After this company went bankrupt, Lehrhof eV became the tenant of the building complex. The association moved out of the building on December 31, 2010. After the listed building ensemble had been vacant for several years due to the renovations by Hans Scharoun and was exposed to decay, it is currently (2019) owned by the City of Löbau. This intends to convert it into a city museum.
Product range
The daily production of 15 quintals in 1904 could be increased to 100 quintals by 1914. At the end of the First World War, the daily output was even 300 quintals.
Originally, the “anchor pasta” was made primarily from wheat flour with the addition of potato flour. In 1904, Wilhelm Schminke also introduced the production of egg pasta. In addition to normal domestic chicken eggs, lapwing , guinea fowl and Minorka eggs were also processed.
| Anker egg and thread noodles |
| Anchor eggs macaroni |
| Anchor egg pens |
| Anchor eggs spaghetti |
| Lapwing eggs macaroni |
| Minorka Finest egg noodles |
| Guinea fowl macaroni |
Advertising slogans
- "Anchors cook every week!" (Approx. 1920)
- "In the New Year - on every table for everyday life and at parties,
spaghetti, macaroni fresh from the anchor - are the best!" (1935)
Awards
- June 1904: Glauchau Innkeeper's Day : Silver Medal.
- April 1905: International Culinary Art Exhibition Leipzig : Golden Medal.
- October 3, 1905: Lower Silesian Trade and Industry Exhibition in Görlitz : Honorary diploma
- January 1906: International Culinary Art Exhibition Vienna : Golden Medal.
- July 1907: Jubilee Bakers' Exhibition in Dresden : Gold medal in the field of real, uncolored egg pasta
literature
- Martin Messer: Studies on the former Anker pasta factory in Löbau - Scharoun's conversions and a vision for the future . as well as renovation of the Anker pasta factory in Löbau - Anker Congress Center . (Diploma thesis, course architecture, University of Zittau / Görlitz 2003).
- Claudia Muntschick: Factory reanimated - industrial re-use of the former pasta factory "Loeser & Richter" in the context of the Schminke house, Löbau . (Master thesis, degree program Monument Preservation and Urban Development, TU Dresden 2008).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official communication of the Royal. Commercial court in the district court in the Saxon Postillon from April 24, 1874, No. 94
- ↑ Official communication of the Royal. Löbau Court Office in the Saxon Postillon of October 31, 1875, No. 253
- ↑ Official communication of the Royal. Löbau Court Office in the Saxon Postillon of October 6, 1876, No. 233
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of November 25, 1888, No. 275
- ↑ Print of the directory of the Oberl. Telephone switching office affiliated participants from Löbau u. Surrounded by , Sächsischer Postillon of October 4, 1905, No. 231
- ↑ Business advertisement in the Saxon Postillon of March 27, 1900, No. 70
- ↑ Official communication of the Royal. Löbau District Court in the Saxon Postillon from July 3, 1908, No. 151
- ↑ Communication in the Saxon Postillon of June 17, 1904, No. 138
- ↑ Supplement to the Saxon Postillon of October 10, 1926 50 years of anchor egg pasta
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of June 13, 1906, No. 133
- ^ Letter to the Löbau City Council dated October 23, 1920
- ^ Advertisement in the Saxon Postillon from July 31, 1937, No. 176
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of August 20, 1936, No. 194
- ^ Löbauer Zeitung in Sächsischer Zeitung from November 18, 2010
- ↑ Klaus Kürvers : Decryption of an Image , self-published, Berlin 1995
- ^ Saxon Postillon of June 17, 1904, No. 138
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of April 4, 1905, No. 78
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of October 4, 1905, No. 231
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of January 14, 1906, No. 10
- ↑ Saxon Postillon of July 9, 1907, No. 157
Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 59.2 ″ N , 14 ° 39 ′ 32 ″ E