Otterbeck (shoe manufacturer)

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Between 1960 and 1985, men's shoes were produced under the Otterbeck trademark , named after the owner family, by the Wilhelm Otterbeck und Sohn KG shoe factory in Kervenheim . The older shoe factory founded by Ernst Otterbeck (1860–1925) in Mülheim an der Ruhr, however , sold its shoes under the Otter shoes brand, which was introduced by the founder shortly after 1900 .

Foundation and beginnings

The company's founder, Ernst Otterbeck, was born on June 23, 1860 as the youngest child of the shoemaker Franz Otterbeck (1814–1882) and Anna Schiffer in the Mülheim rural community of Broich . His older siblings Charlotte (* 1848), Gustav (* 1851), Maria (* 1856) and Franz (* 1858) all died early. The Catholic family originally came from the Westphalian Gescher , where a neighboring peasantry "Otterbeeck", first mentioned in a document in 1270, is assumed to be the namesake. This peasantry was shaped by a brook in which otters were native, so that the later trademark and symbol of the company is not only a so-called "speaking" symbol, but also has an authentic background.

The grandfather, Johann Heinrich Theodor called "Diederich" (Thierry) Otterbeck, was the youngest son of his parents, who ran a farm in Kirchhellen in Westphalia . In view of the threat of troops being raised, Diederich Otterbeck fled the Grand Duchy of Berg to the Roerdepartement on the left bank of the Rhine, which was annexed by France in 1792 and has since been part of the French Empire. Officially declared dead by his family, he started a new life in Orsoy on the Lower Rhine under the name Thierry Otterbeck and hired himself as a “journalier” (day laborer). His wife gave birth to two sons, the younger of whom, Gerhard, immigrated to New York after 1848. The older son Franz became a shoemaker , moved to the municipality of Broich of the rural mayor's office in Mülheim an der Ruhr and opened a shoemaker's workshop there in Fährstraße.

The date of moving to Broich and details of Franz Otterbeck's professional activities have not survived. The repair of shoes, the so-called "patchwork", was probably the main content of his work. Even before his death in 1882, his son Ernst (1860–1925) took over his father's workshop at the age of 22, which at that time already had several journeymen. Under his leadership, the pure repair of shoes was supplemented by the manual production of boots and orthopedic shoes.

In the United States, the mechanization of shoe manufacturing had begun in the 1860s. Special sewing machines for shoes opened up new possibilities in the field of production. This development reached Germany in the 1870s and led to Ernst Otterbeck also introducing the machine and serial production of shoes in his company in 1887. Felt slippers - “Otterbeck's Leisetreter” - were the first product that was manufactured in large numbers with the new machines. The shoemaker's workshop became a shoe factory.

The Otterbeck shoe factory was initially located on the Broicher Mühlenberg. In 1901 Ernst Otterbeck built a larger house in Schloßstraße, at the Broich bridgehead of the then Chain Bridge , which served as the production facility and residence of the family at the same time. Slipper production took place on the mezzanine floor and on the floors above, while a shoe shop was set up on the ground floor.

After finishing elementary school, the eldest son Wilhelm trained as a shoemaker with his father. To expand the customer base, he loaded half a day's production from his father's shoe factory onto a handcart in order to move to the surrounding communities and sell the goods at the front door. This daily direct sale was so successful that the handcart soon had to be exchanged for horse and cart.

In view of the increasing sales figures, the product range was expanded: robust work shoes made of leather were added to the tried and tested felt slippers. The family business transformed into a small business that around twenty years after its founding employed around twelve employees in addition to the family members and continued to grow. The house built in 1901 on Schloßstraße was soon too small. Ernst Otterbeck then relocated his production to a new location on Bergstrasse, in a former table factory, while the shoe shop remained at the old location on Schloßstrasse.

All family members were involved in the ambitious company, not only their own children but also their sons-in-law. Johann Bauckholt, who married Ernst Otterbeck's second eldest daughter Anna in 1914, originally worked as a trained shoemaker for the Duisburg company Hoselmann. After marrying "Änne" Otterbeck, he bought the shop from his father-in-law, which he continued under the name of "Schuhwaren Ernst Otterbeck Successor - Owner Johann Bauckholt". Son-in-law Karl Schmakeit, married to Christine Otterbeck since 1920, was a banker by training. He was later appointed as authorized signatory and worked mainly in the company's sales. Richard Reintges, master butcher and husband of daughter Katharina, was also involved in the company by Ernst Otterbeck. He entrusted him with a subsidiary business for leather seals, leather dyeing and leather cleaning.

In 1917 Ernst Otterbeck bought a former lacquer factory in Mülheim- Saarn , Quellenstrasse 64 (building demolished), in order to expand shoe production there. The company continued to grow and in 1922 already had around 70 employees. Gradually, senior boss Ernst Otterbeck, who was in poor health, withdrew from the company management, which his son Wilhelm led as authorized signatory. He died on January 7, 1925.

Expansion of the company

After the death of the father, the eldest son, the previous junior boss Wilhelm Otterbeck, was solely responsible for the company. After the production of work shoes in Saarn had run successfully for a number of years, he urged his two brothers-in-law Johann Bauckholt and Karl Schmakeit to restart the production of slippers. The new branch of the Otterbeck company, housed in the former Vorster'schen paper mill next to the family headquarters on Schloßstraße, only produced for two years. In 1927, production had to be stopped because both the old paper mill and the Otterbeck headquarters at the head of the castle bridge had to give way to the construction of the new Mülheim town hall.

Otterbeck Muelheim

When the global economic crisis hit Germany at the end of the 1920s , sales collapsed and the workforce fell to 20 employees. With the end of the economic crisis, the Otterbeck shoe factory also recovered and grew to a new size. The development of accident prevention shoes for industry played a major role in this. Otterbeck's product range included shoes for foundries, mules for powder factories, special shoes for quarry workers, shoes for agriculture, military boots and work shoes for coal mining. A metal cap on the tip of the shoe to protect the toes was the trademark of the miners' shoes. Wilhelm Otterbeck tested the prototypes of his shoes in mines and factories. The shoes were only released for production after a successful series of tests and practical experiments on site.

The sales areas extended over the whole of Germany. A branch was set up in Wroclaw to look after customers in the Upper Silesian mining industry . There was a branch in Königsberg for sales in East Prussian agriculture . The companies mostly issued authorization certificates for work shoes to their employees, which could then be redeemed in shoe stores. The companies then paid for the shoes directly. This practice of selling shoes was common until after World War II. The Otterbeck company also carried out major repairs to ironworks and mines.

In the year of its 50th anniversary - i.e. 1937 - Otterbeck was a healthy company again. Around 180 employees in production as well as an extensive sales network with independent representatives and wholesalers guaranteed a nationwide supply of the German Reich.

Otterbeck Kervenheim

The company's good sales figures made Wilhelm Otterbeck think about expansion. In 1936 the "Arbeitsfront" sought an entrepreneur for a depressed shoe factory in Kervenheim on the Lower Rhine , who was able to resume operations and to remedy the economic hardship of the place by creating jobs. When Wilhelm Otterbeck found after a probationary period that the business was economically viable, he decided in 1937 to be permanently involved on site.

Out of consideration for his younger brothers Carl, Wilhelm Otterbeck retired from the management of the Mülheim parent company in 1946 and left the company entirely as a partner in 1951. His severance pay consisted of machines and materials that he urgently needed for the reconstruction in Kervenheim. In order to avoid a competitive situation, it was agreed to delimit production: work shoes in Mülheim an der Ruhr, men's street shoes in Kervenheim.

In a tragic car accident near Rheinberg in 1953, at the age of 65, the senior partner Wilhelm Otterbeck, who had only been elected honorary mayor of Kervenheim the year before , died. The community thus recognized that the reconstruction of the war-torn town was largely due to the restart of the shoe factory since 1946. The eldest son Ernst Otterbeck (1918–1958) joined the company management in 1951 and in 1953 took over sole responsibility for the company Wilhelm Otterbeck und Sohn KG. However, he died a few years later, also in a traffic accident, near Limburg / Lahn. After years of expansion, the company had over 400 employees at three locations. The youngest brother Josef Carl (1930–2017) took over responsibility as a personally liable partner in 1958, while the operational management was for the first time in the hands of employed authorized signatories. GmbH managing director Theo Kothes (1912–1998), authorized signatory since 1941 and the last mayor of Kervenheim from 1953 to 1969, determined the business policy of the years since 1974 largely alone, with the focus on maintaining the (at the end almost 300) jobs. Declining profits with sales of more than DM 25 million as well as increasing competition and price pressure from low-wage countries meant the end of the Kervenheim branch of the Otterbeck company in 1984. Bankruptcy administrator Zirpins (Düsseldorf) had shoes made in Kervenheim until May 1985, as there were still considerable orders to be processed. The pledged property of the manufacturer Dr. Josef Otterbeck were sold to various investors, above all to the upholstery factory Martens (since 1987 in Kervenheim). The company was deleted in 1989 after bankruptcy proceedings resulted in a quota of almost 50% for the remaining creditors.

Development of the Mülheim shoe factories

Carl Otterbeck (1907–1969), the youngest son of the company founder, was entrusted with tasks within the company by his older brother Wilhelm at an early age. He had organized the transport for major industrial repairs and had worked in the company's field service since the 1930s. As a co-inventor of the OTTER protective shoes, he took over the management of the company in Mülheim alongside his brother from 1941.

In the 1960s, the German shoe industry began to die out, triggered by rising wage costs and cheap competition from abroad. Together with his authorized signatory Wilhelm Bremer, Carl Otterbeck overcame this crisis with fundamental innovations. A branch was opened in Gillenfeld (Eifel). The company Schuhfabriken Otterbeck KG replaced the rather simple work shoes with increasingly high-quality safety shoes and also started producing men's and children's shoes. Wage-intensive work began to be relocated abroad. In 1969, the year of his death, the cooperation agreement with a Romanian partner marked the beginning of a new blooming phase for the company. Production contracts with partners in Tunisia, Brazil, Portugal, China and Turkey followed.

As in Kervenheim, managing directors of the company in Mülheim also began to play a key role, including since 1970 Peter Verhuven, the temporary chairman of the German shoe industry association. In the year of the company's centenary - 1987 - the company was still one of the ten largest shoe factories in the Federal Republic of Germany, with annual sales of 150 million DM and a worldwide daily production of 15,000 pairs of shoes. Six years later - in October 1993 - the company's success story ended abruptly. The company had to file for bankruptcy and went into stranger hands as Otter Schutz GmbH by way of a restructuring transfer with the most successful company division, the production of protective shoes . In 2002 this company acquired the King's Safetywear Group from Singapore . Since 2012, the 125th year since Ernst Otterbeck's first factory was founded, OTTER has belonged to the US company that operates worldwide. Honeywell Group .

literature

  • Bernhard Meiners: Shoes from Kervenheim , in: Geldrischer Heimatkalender 1970.
  • Roswitha Otterbeck: Wilhelm Otterbeck on the 40th anniversary of his death , in: Geldrischer Heimatkalender 1993, pp. 201–205.
  • Franz Norbert Otterbeck: Work for Kervenheim , in: Geldrischer Heimatkalender 1993, pp. 206-207.
  • Leo Werry: The Bundesbahn also runs well with Otter shoes , in: Mülheimer Jahrbuch 1987, pp. 189–194.
  • Jens Roepstorff: From the shoemaker's workshop to global shoe production - The Otterbecks in: Horst A. Wessel (Ed.): Mülheim entrepreneurs: pioneers of the economy. Business history in the city on the river since the end of the 18th century . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2006, ISBN 3-89861-645-2 , pp. 111-119.

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