Otto & Kaiser

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The house at Happelstrasse 59

Otto & Kaiser was a food manufacturer in Heilbronn . The product range included soup products, dried vegetables, egg noodles and animal feed.

history

The Heilbronner Nahrungsmittelfabriken Otto & Kaiser oHG, the original name of the company, was founded in 1900 by the pharmacist Hermann Otto (born September 14, 1849 in Nürtingen ; † April 11, 1932 in Heilbronn) and the businessman Karl Kaiser (1869–1933) . Kaiser was married to Hermann Otto's daughter Else (1878–1957) and had previously worked for the Heilbronn food company Knorr . Otto & Kaiser was initially based in Heilbronn at Werderstrasse 160 and 162 as well as Pfaustraße 35.

In 1902 Otto & Kaiser succeeded in completely outperforming their competitor Knorr for food deliveries to the German military with competitive prices. As a result, Knorr disclosed its product calculation to the military leadership. Investigations of the delivered goods showed that Otto & Kaiser had omitted the required meat extract in the products and halved the fat content. As a result, Hermann Otto and Karl Kaiser were sentenced in March 1904 to eight months in prison for fraud and to fines for unfair competition. In addition, the Knorr Executive Board's suspicion of industrial espionage was confirmed: A former Knorr engineer had passed documents and plans on to Otto & Kaiser. Therefore they had to return a stolen recipe book to Knorr and pay compensation.

In 1908, Hermann Otto retired from the management team after his son Hermann Hans Eberhard Otto (born April 9, 1886, † July 24, 1927 in Landshut) had joined the company shortly before. In 1910 Otto & Kaiser had around 130 employees. In 1915 the company moved to the newly built Kaiser Otto building in Happelstrasse.

The years of the First World War were marked on the one hand by high demand for army and naval provisions, and on the other by forced exploitation and shortages. In particular, there was always a lack of raw materials, coal and transport capacities. At Otto & Kaiser, like many other German companies, there were several production stoppages, for example in the period from September 1, 1917 to February 1, 1918. This was to continue in the post-war years, including in the business year 1920/21 the company stood idle for a long time due to a lack of raw materials.

In terms of corporate policy, the year 1918 brought major changes: Kaiser-Otto AG, Vereinigte Deutsche Nahrungsmittelfabriken , was founded and provided with a capital of 4 million marks. This took over the Otto & Kaiser United German Food Factory . Kaiser-Otto AG was listed on the stock exchange in Stuttgart and Mannheim. In addition, in 1918 the company took a share in the Landshut biscuit and biscuit factory HL Klein AG (founded in 1912), which was renamed Landshuter biscuit and food factory AG . This expanded the range of products to include biscuits, waffles and rusks. This stake was gradually expanded, but this factory was sold again in September 1925. In addition to the main factory in Heilbronn, Kaiser-Otto AG had a branch in Hameln , in which macaroni and egg pasta were produced, as well as factories in Mannheim-Friedrichsfeld and Miltitz in Saxony. In addition, vegetables and spices were grown on leased fields in Miltitz and on the Saxon manors Körtzschlitz and Günthersdorff. The company's administration was relocated to Berlin during the 1920s. There worked there with Karl Kaiser (1900–1986), a son of the same name of the company founder, who was later to be active as a resistance fighter in the Kaiser / Riegraf group during the National Socialist era .

Share for RM 20 in Kaiser-Otto AG from April 1, 1928

The financial years 1925/1926 and 1926/1927 were characterized by sales difficulties and the company ended with operating losses. In February 1928 the share capital was combined in a ratio of 5: 1 and then increased again to 600,000 RM. In the banking crisis in July 1931, the Evangelical Central Bank, an important donor of Kaiser-Otto AG, went under, and another, Deutsche Verkehrsbank , was hit hard. In the course of the global economic crisis, Kaiser-Otto AG got into trouble and was placed under forced administration in October 1931. In the spring of 1932, Karl Kaiser senior managed to get the Heilbronn factory of Kaiser-Otto AG going again. He had "founded the food factory Kaiser und Co., GmbH, Heilbronn and taken over the business on a lease from the administrator." In July 1932 the company went bankrupt. The Heilbronn site and factory building was acquired in December 1932 as part of the foreclosure auction from local rival Knorr, whose own factory site is not far from Happelstrasse. Karl Kaiser sen. had tried to convince Knorr to continue the lease, but could not offer a sufficient basis for negotiation or security. As a result, these negotiations failed and operations were finally ceased.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ City of Heilbronn (ed.): Address book of the city of Heilbronn , 1903
  2. ↑ Alexander Knorr: Knorr Chronicle 1838 to 1959. Volume I - 1838 to 1938 . Deutsche Maizena Werke GmbH, Hamburg 1959, pages 17 and 19
  3. ^ Uwe Jacobi : 150 Years of Knorr: 1838–1988 . Maizena Gesellschaft mbH, Heilbronn 1988, page 28
  4. ^ The development of the Heilbronn industry (1986), pages 29, 60 and 69
  5. ↑ a b The development of the Heilbronn industry (1986), page 70
  6. ^ Friedrich Dürr, Karl Wulle, Willy Dürr, Helmut Schmolz, Werner Föll: Chronicle of the City of Heilbronn . Volume III: 1922-1933. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1986, p. 201 ( Publications of the Archives of the City of Heilbronn . Volume 29).
  7. ^ The development of the Heilbronn industry (1986), page 118
  8. ^ Friedrich Dürr, Karl Wulle, Willy Dürr, Helmut Schmolz, Werner Föll: Chronicle of the City of Heilbronn . Volume III: 1922-1933. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1986, p. 584 ( publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 29).
  9. ↑ a b The development of the Heilbronn industry (1986), page 126

literature

  • Armin Wankmüller (Ed.): Contributions to the Württemberg pharmacy history . Volume XII, 1978-1980, pp. 34 and 36
  • Götz Meidinger: The development of the Heilbronn industry. From the First World War to the beginning of the eighties. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1998, ISBN 3-922661-27-0 ( Publications of the Heilbronn City Archives. Volume 30).
  • Markus Dieterich: It can cost us our heads. Anti-fascism and resistance in Heilbronn 1930–1939. Distel-Verlag, Heilbronn 1992, ISBN 3-923208-35-9 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 7 '56.8 "  N , 9 ° 13' 28.6"  E