Mahala Problem Cigarettes
Mahala-Problem was one of the well-known Berlin cigarette factories before and after the First World War , which was closely linked to the architectural and cultural history of the emerging cosmopolitan city. It was founded in 1889 by Szlama Rochmann in Berlin. 1930 bought Reemtsma the problem oHG on and stopped the operation.
History of origin
The Jewish cigarette manufacturer Szlama Rochmann (June 17, 1857 - December 17, 1925) founded the Mahala-Problem cigarette manufacturer in 1889 at Alexanderstraße 13/22 (Alexanderhof) in Berlin, after his brother Baruch Rochmann (* 1863 - 1926) had already In 1881 the cigarette company Namkori-Phenomenon was taken over by his father Israel Jacob Rochmann (* June 22, 1837 - July 31, 1881).
At the beginning of the 20th century, he commissioned various commercial artists such as Louis Oppenheim , Ernst Deutsch-Dryden , Hans Lindenstaedt and Lucian Bernhard to design posters . The German commercial artist Hans Rudi Erdt made the Fez- wearing Muslim with the rising smoke rings the trademark of problem cigarettes .
On March 25, 1914, the well-known Problem cigarette factory celebrated its 25th anniversary.
In 1914, Szlama Rochmann acquired the property in Greifswalder Strasse 212/213 in front of the Königstor in Prenzlauer Berg from the owner of a black and bone coal factory, Gustav Magnus, in order to expand it as a production site for his company Problem-Cigarettes . Between 1914 and 1929, he and his sons had production and storage buildings built by the German Jewish architects Moritz Ernst Lesser and Ernst Ludwig Freud ( Sigmund Freud's son ). The Rochmann family with their four children also lived at Greifswalder Straße 212/213.
After Szlama Rochmann's death, his two sons Heinrich and Carl continued their father's business in the industrial estate Greifswalder Strasse 212/213. The graves of Szlama Rochmann, his parents and his brother Baruch are in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .
The end of the cigarette factory problem
After a bad harvest year for Turkish tobacco , the higher taxation of larger quantities of tobacco, as well as the worsening economic crisis, the family first had to sell the name in 1930 and the entire business in 1932 to the Hamburg company Reemtsma. Szlama's wife Hanna and the three sons moved to the west of Berlin. Daughter Erna had married the lawyer H. Stern and lived on Prager Platz .
While Heinrich Rochmann was able to emigrate to England around 1934, Carl Rochmann and his wife Else were deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and murdered after the family property had been foreclosed in 1943.
From 1935 Reemtsma rented the factory buildings in Greifswalder Strasse to the Reichsarbeitsdienst clothing office. The production rooms became sewing rooms.
Stumbling block for Carl Rochmann
Stumbling block for Else Rochmann
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Textile production in Greifswalder Straße 212/213
After the clothing company P. Opalla had sewn police and Wehrmacht uniforms there until after the war , the VVBB ( United People's Own Companies Light Industry Berlin ) took over the property for the VEB Textile Company Progress after the GDR was founded in 1948 . The available resources were used to manufacture men's clothing.
1953 was then in the Greifswalderstraße 212/213 of VEB Treffmodelle "severe Women's Outerwear" for manufacturing (DOB) was established, until the turn of this and three other locations in Berlin produced (Wall Street 15, Island Road 2, Möllensdorf road).
Samples were also produced for the GDR fashion institute on Brunnenstrasse . 40% of the production was exported to the SU (socialist brother countries) and to the "NSW" ( non-socialist economic area ), in particular to Neckermann , Quelle , Otto-Versand and Schickedanz . 20% were sold as "BV" with a surcharge for their own population.
In 1985, as part of the reconstruction on the street, a six-storey front building was built that closed the gap in the block edge on Greifswalder Straße for the first time , as well as a new side wing using the ceiling lift method. The machine park has also been modernized. Around 800 production workers were employed at Greifswalder Straße 212/213. Treffmodelle was still producing as Greiber-Classicmoden GmbH (Greifswalder-Berlin) the West Berlin company Max Schröder until 1992 at this location.
In the mid-1990s, the trust property company took over the property and rented the rooms in need of renovation to artists and creative start-up companies for affordable rents. An initial sales effort by TLG failed in the mid-1990s because the property value was set too high , which did not take into account the huge maintenance backlog and the associated expenses for the necessary renovation measures. After the Miles music club , the nationally known Magnet Club rented space in the front building and the side wing. The Eigenreich theater established itself in the former tobacco store, the so-called “glass house” .
Most of the rooms have been vacant since the commercial tenants gave notice in October 2005. The tenants' initiative Treffmodelle tried unsuccessfully in 2006 to establish a user-oriented rental model together with the new owner.
After the renovation of the buildings around the first courtyard from 2007 to 2008, the commercial park is marketed under the label " Factory ".
Types of cigarettes
- element
- esquire
- ethics
- Imperial Lodge
- Royal Box (originally Royal Box)
- Mahala
- Muslim
- National
- Passer-by (en passer-by)
- Socrates
- Trans
See also
- Jewish Museum Berlin Rochmann Collection, gift of two grandchildren and a great-granddaughter of Szlama Rochmann.
- DEFA film <SIE> about the workers in VEB Treffmodelle by Gitta Nickel in 1970.
- Award-winning photo series from 1984 with 12 portraits of workers in the VEB Treffmodelle by the Berlin photographer Helga Paris
swell
- Research project in cooperation with the HUB The history of the development of the industrial area Greifswalder Straße 212/213 from 1826 to 2006 by D. Eberding, architect 2006
Web links
- The factory , commercial center in Greifswalder Strasse 212/213 in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
- Objects on Szlama Rochmann and the Mahala problem in the holdings of the Jewish Museum Berlin.
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '55.1 " N , 13 ° 25' 39.5" E