Merkel hunting and sporting weapons
| Merkel Jagd- und Sportwaffen GmbH
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| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1898 |
| Seat | Suhl , Germany |
| management | Olaf Sauer (Managing Director) |
| Number of employees | 126 |
| sales | 11.8 million euros |
| Branch | Weapons manufacturer |
| Website | www.merkel-die-jagd.de |
| As of December 31, 2017 | |
The Merkel hunting and sporting guns GmbH is a German hunting weapons manufacturer in Suhl , Thuringia . The company refers directly to the tradition of the Suhl gunsmiths that goes back to the 15th century . Merkel is the last major manufacturing and industrial company that remained at the historic hunting weapons location in Suhl. The company has a high level of vertical integration for traditional handcrafted hunting weapons (stocks, locks, systems, barrels and engravings made in-house). Merkel manufactures a whole range of modern hunting weapons. In these, Merkel explicitly refers to technologies from the gunsmith's past in the Suhl region.
Merkel offers a wide range of single shot rifles for hunting in the product groups cross arms (double rifles, shotguns), triplets and under guns (shotguns, rifles and Bock Double Bock combined weapons). For some time, Merkel also has a bolt-action rifle, the KR1 (Kurzrepetierer) and originally with Heckler and Koch developed automatic rifle SR1 in the program.
Merkel divides its product range into masterpieces (traditionally manufactured rifles) and MEM. MEM stands for the culture gene Mem - in the figurative sense for the "Suhl gene". MEM rifles are manufactured in a modern way - with reference to the Suhl gunsmith tradition, for example using a light metal receiver in combination with the Suhl tilting block lock from gunsmith Franz Jäger (patented 1906).
history
Albert Oskar Merkel, Karl Paul Merkel and Gebhard Merkel founded the company Gebrüder Merkel Suhl in 1898 . They began in 1905 with the special manufacture of rifles with superimposed barrels (over-and-under rifles). Albert Oskar Merkel left the company in 1907.
During the First World War , the production of hunting weapons collapsed and many foreign markets were lost. In the 1930s, the company established the “Bock” trademark for double-barreled hunting and sporting weapons (Bock weapons). The co-founder Gebhard Merkel died in 1933. The company received the Grand Prix for its rifles at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 . In 1938 Adolf Schade and Ernst Merkel took over the management.
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the company produced carbine, engine and device parts as well as rangefinders. Up to 370 people worked at Merkel. The Reichsjägermeister Hermann Göring ordered a hunting piece engraving in 1940. The shotgun was captured by the United States after World War II and is on display in the NRA Rifle Museum in Fairfax. Karl Paul Merkel died in 1942. Due to war production, hunting rifle production came to a complete standstill around 1943.
Post-war period and the time of the GDR
After the end of the war, Merkel started again in 1945 under the trustee Adolf Schade, Karl Paul Merkel's son-in-law, with 125 employees. In 1948, the founding families were expropriated without compensation by the Soviet military administration in Germany . At that time, around 165 employees were producing 1,021 hunting rifles a year.
From January 1950 the company traded as VVB MEWA Gebrüder Merkel Jagdgewehrfabrik Suhl. The company grew again: in 1952 Merkel employed 200 people who manufactured hunting rifles in 1872. The American President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the party leader of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev were each given a Merkel hunting rifle by the GDR leadership in 1953.
At the beginning of 1968 the plant was merged with VEB Fahrzeug- und Gerätewerk Simson Suhl , whereupon the company was called VEB Fahrzeug- und Jagdwaffenwerk "Ernst Thälmann" from then on . In 1970 the engineer Gerhard Grüber developed a range of luxury weapons for Merkel, which became a global export hit. The 150,000th over-and-under rifle since 1945 was manufactured in 1987: a model 203 E. The manufacture's rifles were an important source of foreign currency for the GDR and were sold in more than 70 countries.
Start-up after the fall of the Wall
The Jagd- und Sportwaffen Suhl GmbH emerged from the vehicle and hunting weapons factory "Ernst Thälmann" in 1989 , but had to file for bankruptcy in 1993. In 1994 the company was re-established as Suhler Jagd- und Sportwaffen GmbH with the continuation of the Merkel brand. The Heckler & Koch hunting and sporting guns GmbH, Oberndorf am Neckar , in 2003 took over the company. The brand and production location remained the same.
In 2004, the classic product range was consolidated and re-engineered. In 2005 the company presented the bolt action rifle KR1 and in 2006 the self-loading rifle SR1. Merkel Jagd- und Sportwaffen GmbH, Suhl / Thuringia, including its international sales subsidiaries, was sold to Caracal International LLC (Abu Dhabi) in 2007 . Management, commercial administration, sales and production remained unchanged in Suhl. In 2008, the company presented a three-lock triplet family in the traditionally manufactured masterpiece category, matching the basic 96K treble.
present
In 2010 Merkel presented a completely newly developed bolt-action rifle that combines the classic rotating head lock with a transmission gear to create a very fast straight-pull bolt action rifle and calls it the RX Helix (R stands for bolt action, the Roman number x stands for the development year 2010). According to the company, the novel helix locking principle, in which the locking lugs move along an imaginary multi-spindle helix, combines very fast reloading with a completely safe traditional locking principle. In the same year, the company invested heavily in production and representation capacities at the Suhl location: an extension on Schützenstrasse creates 1,600 square meters of additional space and houses a customer and visitor center, as well as new training and production rooms.
Merkel turned 120 in 2018. On the product side, the Helix Speedster is presented, a linear repeater with a new type of plastic thumbhole stock, the hole of which is open at the top. Another new feature is a hydraulically extending comb with a memory function, which ensures a reproducible stop.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Gazette: Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2017 and management report , accessed on September 5, 2019.
- ↑ Every detail checked . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1993, pp. 93-94 ( online ).
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 34 ′ 47 " N , 10 ° 43 ′ 14" E