Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik

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The Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik Rudolf Wächtler & Lange KG, Mittweida i. Until the end of the Second World War, Sa. was one of the leading manufacturers of medals , orders and decorations in Germany. Therefore, the no longer existing company is internationally known among collectors of decorations, orders of merit and the like.

Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik

history

On January 5th, 1895, the engineer Ernst Rudolf Wächtler founded an engraving workshop in Mittweidaer Pfarrberg. The company experienced a great boom after the "brilliant inventor" Ernst Rudolf Wächtler teamed up with the Mittweida merchant Bruno Walter Lange. On April 17, 1902, they changed the legal form and name to “Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik Rudolf Wächtler & Lange KG, Mittweida i. Sa. ".

From then on, the company was run as a family business by the Wächtler and Lange families. As a result of rapid growth and the use of new, state-of-the-art machines, the company had to move several times and expand constantly. The company premises soon extended over 7 hectares on Leipziger Strasse in Mittweida .

Metalworking products of various kinds, especially awards such as orders and decorations , badges (e.g. medals and crosses of honor ), office supplies , luxury goods, bath and display items, festival signs and saints were exported and thus known all over the world. Good business abroad and income from foreign exchange ensured the company's survival during the First World War, the recession, inflation and thereafter.

At its peak at the end of the 1920s, the plant had up to 420 permanent employees and an additional 160 temporary workers . There were also a number of representations at home and abroad. Married employees were given an allotment garden after they had been with the company for 10 years .

The Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik became the leading manufacturer of medals and other decorations in Germany during the Nazi era due to the solidity of the products.

The company used the following manufacturer abbreviations on its products:

  • MM - gen.
  • W. & L., M. - gen.
  • L / 55 - Manufacturer LDO (Performance Association of German Order Manufacturers)
  • M1 / 35 on the emblem of rule ordered by the Reichszeugmeisterei
  • M5 / 94 on uniform accessories ordered by the Reichszeugmeisterei
  • 100 on badges ordered by the presidential office

No prisoners , forced laborers or prisoners of war were used in the company. Despite the critical days after the end of the war, production continued. Initially, belt locks were primarily produced as reparations for the Soviet Union, as well as essential items such as energy-saving stoves, horseshoe nails, kitchen scales, etc. in the following period.

Due to the production of medals, the company was classified as a war-winning company after the Second World War and expropriated without compensation. The then managing director Emil Walter Lange involuntarily spent his last years in Siberia .

The factory came under trust management on February 9, 1946 and became public property on June 30, 1946 . After that, production was completely realigned. In the "VEB Mittweidaer Metallwarenfabrik" from then on, ball and roller bearings in particular were produced. In 1957 the company was renamed “VEB Wälzlagerkäfigwerk Mittweida”.

With German reunification , most of the 600 employees at the time - the company now known as the rolling bearing cage factory - came to an end.

On June 1, 1990, the company was converted into a GmbH. The factory was taken over by FAG Kugelfischer in November and renamed DKFL - Deutsche Kugellagerfabriken. On September 1, 1993, the company was privatized and renamed MPT Präzisionsteile GmbH Mittweida.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Siegfried Göhlert / Industrial History  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.htwm.de  
  2. ↑ awards-online
  3. ↑ MPT Präzisionsteile GmbH Mittweida

Web links

See also