Paper mache dynasty Adt
The Pappmachédynastie Adt was a family business in the durable goods manufacturing , which in more than 200 years since the mid-18th century by the smallest manual production to the world market leader for Pappmachéprodukte grown and by the checkered history and ruinous economic policies in the Saar in the bankruptcywas driven. Several production facilities in Germany and France as well as the size of the workforce of several thousand employees led to the establishment of own hospitals, a savings bank and a company health insurance fund. At the height of its success at the beginning of the 20th century, the company belonged to "one of the largest employers in the Saar region". The product catalog listed over 10,000 products: from buttons and snuff boxes to cardboard sleeves for grenades , paper wagon wheels and insulation for power lines, the company produced almost everything that could be made from paper mache. It owned several patents and is considered to be the inventor of synthetic australite .
In the main plant in Saarbrücken-Ensheim ( ▼ ), the electrical power supply - as well as the water supply for the entire town - was ensured with its own power plant as early as 1889. The company had had its own steam engine since 1849 and had a minority stake in a tram line. The factory in Forbach ( ▼ ) outperformed the production output in Ensheim after the Franco-German War and became the company's headquarters until 1918. In Forbach, the contributions to public welfare with the construction of workers 'houses, a hospital, schools, a concert hall, gas, water and electricity works and a workers' home were more important than in Ensheim, although there too, personal interests were the mainspring of welfare would have to. In the period around 1900, the Adt company contributed significantly to the respective urban development. In Ensheim and Forbach, the family provided the mayor for a while.
With the decline of the Adt brothers after the Second World War, the workforce grew into the Hager Group , which was able to continue the innovative areas of the old company and still produce today at the old Adt location in Ensheim, even if the company headquarters are now in the 12 Kilometers away in Blieskastel .
The extensive family possessions also included energy supply companies and brickworks at times.
coat of arms
The coat of arms dates from before 1850 and shows "of blue and red quartered in the first and fourth quarters a silver bar, in the second and third quarters a three-leaved, natural, golden nettle branch. On the crowned Spangelhelm with red-silver covers a tall, upright arm with silver-slit blue sleeve and silver oath hand. " The coat of arms seems to be inspired by the coat of arms of the Count of Hanau due to its great similarity, especially the central so-called Hildebrandthelm ; possibly both are works by Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt . The motto is "Oh, shy, but loyal".
history
Company history, especially that of family dynasties , is largely written by the family members who were involved in the development of the company. These people are the focus. The Adt family can claim the same industrial and historical importance as other Saarland entrepreneur families , for example Stumm , Röchling and Boch or the Lorraine family de Wendel .
The early years
It was probably not just a pastime that prompted the miller's son Mathias Adt (born April 23, 1715) to use his high level of craftsmanship to produce practical tobacco boxes instead of simple wood carvings. His father Johann Michael Adt (* 1680), the earliest known bearer of this family name today, came from Frauenberg on the lower reaches of the Blies . The second-born Mathias became his successor as an hereditary farmer through his marriage to the miller's daughter Anna Catharina Jung, whose father ran the alley mill ( ▼ ) on Saarbach . The Gassenmühle - Gassen is derived from Wadgassen - acted as a ban mill for the Wadgassen Monastery .
At first Mathias carved small containers, relief pictures and sculptures on the side. Through a brother in the monastery (it is now assumed that this was a biological brother of his) he was made aware of paper machéd boxes that were attributed to the Parisian bookbinder Martin, who was probably not able to market them successfully in Paris. From 1739 Mathias produced these for the provost office of the Wadgassen monastery in nearby Ensheim. Abbot Michael Stein (1697–1778), who headed the Wadgassen monastery from 1743 to 1778, recognized the man's fate and the profane business idea . Because of negotiations about an exchange of territory between the crown of France and the county of Saarbrücken , he had traveled to Paris and brought Mathias more cans to imitate.
“Seeing that the easy way of making the paper box would give him considerably more advantages than the much more difficult carving in wood, Mathias Adt threw himself zealously and skillfully on this branch of industry, without, however, completely setting aside the carving of wooden boxes to push because the wooden box subsequently retained its followers and customers. "
The cans were not made with paper pulp, but with glued strips of paper that were applied around a solid block of wood. The block of wood represented the later cavity of the can and was detached from it after the paper strips had dried. Then the can blank had to be subjected to a hardening process: It was soaked in linseed oil and then dried over low to medium heat. After removing any unevenness, another three to eighteen coats of paint were applied.
The cans were initially round and painted black. Over time, other shapes and colors were added, a hinge for the lid was added and this was painted. In the monastery these cans were called miller cans and they were sold on; their buyers called them monastery boxes . In 1884, 150 years after their first production, they were still called that, even if they were made differently in the meantime and no miller had a hand in it for a long time.
Sales of the cans flourished, so that Mathias' and Anna's eight sons and later other families in the village were also busy manufacturing them. The first-born Johann Peter (1751–1808) in particular excelled in producing the cans. As production increased, the abbot of the monastery became concerned about increased competition. He decided to set up his own workshop in the provost, and entrusted its management to Johann Peter. One of Johann Peter's sons, Peter Adt II. (1777–1849), had inherited his father's skill and was able to amass a considerable fortune with the manufacture of the so-called trophy cans . These boxes showed scenes of the revolution and war or portraits of famous contemporaries of his era, etched in gold or silver .
With the secularization of the monastery as a result of the French Revolution , the small industry in Ensheim lost its patron. The fall of the French emperor led to a serious crisis that caused many can-making families to give up or even emigrate.
industrialization
Peter III (1798–1879), son of Peter II, succeeded in acquiring the monastery and workshop, which had fallen into disrepair since the revolution, in 1826 and preparing it for production. The central building still preserved today, the so-called manor house, housed the large family's apartment, the side wings remained the production facility.
The year 1839 is considered to be the founding date of the Adt paper mache factory , exactly 100 years after Peter III's beginnings. Great grandfather Mathias. At that time, the company employed around 40 people. At the same time, Peter III. signed a partnership agreement with his sons Peter IV (1820–1900), Franz (1822–1870) and Johann Baptist (1825–1916) to found the Adt Brothers company .
With the introduction of steam power in 1849 and the more effective transport to the next train station in St. Ingbert , about 12 kilometers away, with the help of a locomobile in 1889, the company's management was very innovative. A year earlier, Adt had bought the Benz Patent Motor Car number 1 from Carl Benz in Mannheim , making it the very first car buyer.
As early as 1860, sales markets and trading branches were opened up on all continents. The most successful period was between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War . On the company's 50th anniversary in 1889, the company employed over 2,500 workers who produced over six million items per year. Three different branches of the family ran the plants in the Palatinate, Lorraine and France. The old main factory in Ensheim was under the management of Eduard Adt , who was granted honorary citizenship of Saarbrücken in 1910 . The Schwarzenacker paper and cardboard factory and the Bliesschweyen electrical works were connected . The Forbacher Group in Lorraine, headed by Johann Baptist Adt and his son Gustav, comprised the factory in Forbach and the raw material-supplying paper and cardboard factory in nearby Marienau, now a part of Forbach. The factory installed for the French market in Pont-à-Mousson ( ▼ ) with the paper and board mill Blénod ( ▼ ) was managed by Emile Adt (son of Peter Adt).
While Ensheim and Forbach had almost the same range, Pont-à-Mousson was completely geared towards the French market.
Decline
With the invention and patenting of Bakelite in 1907, the products of the company Gebr. Adt faced increasing competition in the electrical engineering sector and were eventually replaced by it.
The decline of the group began with the First World War. After the war, the company came under French administration, so in 1919 the headquarters were temporarily relocated to Villingen , where part of the family by-married came from, and in 1920 to Wächtersbach in Hesse ( ▼ ), where the Friedrich Christian GmbH cardboard industry was taken over. Because of the high losses from the expropriations, the company lacked the capital to reinvest and it did not achieve the position it had before the First World War. In 1970/71, with the entry into the property development business, there was another relocation to Frankfurt am Main, and it also became the sole shareholder of Allibert GmbH (bathroom fittings, etc.) and Adt-Götze GmbH (shutters, awnings). The majority shareholder in the meantime was the French Sommer-Allibert S. A. In 1985 a settlement was made that was later canceled and the property development business that caused it was sold.
There are many reasons for the economic decline. As Hans Adt writes in his autobiography, they are in his opinion
“Above all in the situation in the border area of two European nations that have long been enemies with each other. The company never fully recovered from the loss of the Forbach, Marienau and Bliesschweyen plants; the compensation granted by the German Reich accounted for only a small fraction of the loss. Since the Adt family also suffered heavy losses from being expelled from Alsace-Lorraine, they were unable to transfer their own capital to a large extent to the newly acquired Wächtersbach plant. The two-time separation of the Saar area with the Ensheim and Schwarzenacker plants and the resulting multiple changes in balance sheets from Reichsmarks to French francs also had a negative effect. The Second World War with the great destruction in the Ensheim and Schwarzenacker plants hit us no less hard than the first. The Adt Brothers branch in London, with which we wanted to expand our market, was lost as a result of the outbreak of war, even before it had made a profit. The company was too weak for the factory in Wächtersbach to be modernized and rationalized at an early stage and its range of products to be broadened during the economic expansion in the Federal Republic of Germany.
For me, the history of Gebr. Adt AG is the typical skill of a borderland company. "
Locations
In addition to the headquarters in Saarbrücken-Ensheim, there were other plants in Germany and France. In addition, there were private possessions such as the St. Germanshof estate on the German side of the border near Wissembourg , acquired by Gustav Adt in July 1918 , which he soon passed on to his daughter Carlotta, who was married to Oskar Städtler in February 1917.
Ensheim
The 1826 by Peter III. Acquired former monastery building, also called manor house, had a front about 50 meters long to the east with its two side wings. In front of it was a courtyard about 25 meters deep, which closed off to the south and east with a wall that was only built under forced labor in the middle of the 18th century . In the north was the entrance to the site and the former monastery tavern. With this acquisition, Peter III. the foundation stone from a craft to an industrial company. In 1871 the company moved to the economically more profitable , now German plant in Forbach.
As productivity grew, so did the buildings around the courtyard. A photo from 1886 already shows that only the main driveway, which for reasons of practicality was now located exactly opposite the manor house, was the only undeveloped area along the former monastery wall. The spacious garden behind the manor house is still close to nature today and does not show any serious rounding-off measures. Tobacco box production came to an end in Ensheim in 1919/1920 after the last flourishing Turkish snuff market and with it the tobacco box sales collapsed. Production also ended for serving trays and the so-called fantasy items - trinkets - products for the home - which could be produced more cheaply at the Wächtersbach plant.
When the factory in Forbach was founded in 1853, Peter's son Franz took over management of Ensheim. From 1860 he was mayor of Ensheim, from 1863 a member of the Bavarian Chamber of Estates in Munich , both offices which he held until his death in 1870.
Founding of the Adt family:
- 1850: The Adt company's gas works supplied gas to the works and some connected apartments. This also made night work possible. Ensheim was the first municipality in what was then the Palatinate to have gas pipes
- 1855: A company health insurance fund and in 1871 a pension fund
- 1880: A factory savings bank. From 1918 this was run for 20 years as a community savings bank, then the district savings bank and from 1975 the city savings bank took over the banking business
- 1889: For the 50th anniversary, a water supply is established for the whole town
- 1891: The "Peter-Franz-Otto-Spital" was founded in honor of the deceased company owners on the 50th anniversary of the company's founding. It was built "for the good of all Ensheim citizens". There was space for 15 patients in one and two-bed rooms and two sickrooms. Nurses of the Mallersdorfer Order took care of it . In the more than 80 years of its existence up to 1975, five doctors were present one after the other in the hospital, who were also able to run their own practice there. In 1959 the house was bought for CHF 32.5 million . bought by the municipality and then renovated. When the Mallendorfer sisters left, the institution was closed in 1975
- 1894: The Schweyen an der Blies hydropower plant, which was started in 1889, initially supplied the production facilities of the Adt company with electricity. With a correspondingly large design, the entire community could then be supplied with electricity
“The social institutions far exceed the framework of social legislation on disability, old-age and health insurance. The Adt company did not wait for the law of July 6, 1884, which created the accident insurance, but voluntarily insured its staff earlier by paying high annual premiums. A look at the social institutions shows that, in addition to the compulsory insurance organizations such as the health insurance company, there were institutions that provided extraordinary or additional help, such as the Adt Pension Fund, the Aid Fund and the Adt-Schwarz Foundation. [...] An Adt savings bank induced the young workers to compulsorily save and gave everyone the opportunity to invest their savings advantageously. The company also took care of the health of the workforce through bathing in the factory, had its own hospital, and encouraged home construction. [...] Nice celebrations, during which the company honored its old workers, showed the nice understanding between the workforce and the authoritarian but paternal leadership "
From 1909 the company operated the so-called pipe works on Franzstraße, a little below the previous plant, in which the first cold-drawn, oxy-fuel welded steel pipes were manufactured. Thanks to this production line, the Adt company was able to deliver fully insulated conduits to its customers. With this diversification it was hoped to compensate for the decline in can sales. During the First World War they switched to products that were important for the war effort. Even after that, the pipes were commissioned by the armaments industry and the emerging aircraft and automotive industries. The tubes were also used for bicycles and bed frames. This conversion required a special building in the town center, which was built before 1914, the so-called high building . In 1948 this company became the Saarländische Rohrwerk GmbH due to competition . However, due to the lack of a production facility, it acted as a pure trading company, was affiliated with the French syndicate Comptoir franco-belge des tubes and was economically successful. With the Saar Statute and the reconnection to Germany in 1959, two thirds of the French who were involved lost interest in further cooperation. In 1963 the Adt company was again the sole owner of the pipe works. The slump due to a massive drop in prices came with the implementation of the EC merger agreement . More cost-effective production was not possible at this location, so that pipe production in Ensheim was closed on December 7, 1967.
From 1912 to 1960 an 8.5-kilometer-long, meter-gauge tram line operated between Brebach and Ensheim , on which goods were also transported for the Adt company. For this purpose, shunting tracks and loading ramps had been built at both terminals - in Ensheim it ended exactly at the factory gate.
During the First World War , Ensheim achieved the highest profits of all German Adt companies with armaments contracts. The delivery program included stick grenades, paper inner sleeves for grenades were increasingly being manufactured and, due to the increasingly precarious raw material situation, attempts were made in 1918 to manufacture helmets, cartridges and saddlebags from pressed cardboard. Immediately after the armistice, the Adts in Forbach and Ensheim had started production for peace needs, but still had to struggle with a considerable shortage of raw materials and accessories. In addition, due to the French occupation, it was not allowed to deliver to the German area on the right bank of the Rhine. This meant that most of the previous German sales market was missing; at the same time, as a result of the separation of the Saar region from Germany, production had to be converted to meet the needs of the French market. In addition, the production costs in Ensheim increased significantly because the electricity could no longer be obtained from the Bliesschweyen power station, which had been expropriated by the French state after the end of the war.
After the Saar area was reclassified to Germany in 1935, the Ensheimer product range was initially geared towards insulating pipes, steel pipes and tubular steel furniture for the German market. However, at the beginning of the war in 1939 - six years later - all German Adt companies were converted back to armaments requirements. For the Ensheim plant, which was now located in the middle of the Siegfried Line and therefore in the so-called Red Zone , this meant the end in September 1939. The machines were dismantled and transferred to the Adt factory in Wächtersbach at state expense. After the armistice in 1940 , new instructions were issued to reopen the plant as quickly as possible. Although the plant management was not interested in it for economic reasons, because Ensheim was too far away from all regional main traffic routes and later losses were to be expected, they did not oppose the instructions of the district management. After the armistice with France in the summer of 1940, the Adt factory in Ensheim was not reopened until the end of 1940, and the pipe production only opened again in early 1943. In autumn 1944 it was destroyed by artillery fire, in March 1945 US troops occupied the village and the ruins of the factory.
Slightly above the town, where the airfield - now Saarbrücken Airport - has been since 1937 , was the joint tile company Ludowici , which was co-founded by Franz Ludowici (1858–1926), Privy Councilor of Commerce , Vice Chairman of the Palatinate Chamber of Commerce . Franz's father, Karl Friedrich Ludowici (1827–1881), married Barbara Adt on April 27, 1854, and their third daughter, Peter III. In 1861 a new location was founded in Mundenheim near Ludwigshafen and from 1883 in Jockgrim , which is still one of the leading brick producers in Germany under the name Ludowici Ziegelwerke .
Schwarzenacker
From 1867 on, the Schwarzenacker paper and cardboard factory provided raw materials for main production in Ensheim. For this, in 1854 Georg Lilier acquired the paper mill on the Blies ( ▼ ), which had previously belonged to Gutenbrunnen Castle . With the support of Duke Christian IV from the Pfalz-Zweibrücken house , attempts to produce both porcelain and papier-mâché were made, which failed miserably.
After 1900 the Schwarzenacker plant also supplied other companies with its paper products, especially the shoe industry in the Hauenstein and Pirmasens area . From 1920 the production was switched to the French market and after 1935 back to the German market and then again supplied paper and cardboard. In 1944 the plant was badly damaged by air raids and shut down. After the Second World War , it was initially under compulsory administration by the previous plant manager, Jakob Rommel. His successor, Director Baumbach from the pipe works in Homburg, had good connections to the economic officer Langlait and was able to organize raw material deliveries and compensation deals (cheese for pipes). Because the necessary capital to rebuild the plant was not available after the war, the Adts sold the plant to the French steel group Comte de Berny in 1947/48 .
Grossauheim
The short history of the plant in Großauheim ( ▼ ) near Hanau can be regarded as an intermezzo . In the spring of 1921, the company management decided to acquire the properties of the former JP Bernang AG spinning mill based in Barmen-Rittershausen , formerly Hanauer Kunstseide-Fabrik AG . The company was withdrawn from the market in 1921 after being defeated in a patent dispute against the market leader, Vereinigte Glanzstoff-Fabriken (VGF).
Due to the separation of the Saarland from the German Reich , insulating pipes (see also Bergmannrohr ) could no longer be delivered there from Ensheim . So the quota the company was entitled to in the insulating pipe association could not be exhausted and it had to be produced domestically in order to maintain market shares. The company put a lot of money into the renovation in Großauheim. About 150 jobs were created, but due to the global economic crisis , there were already plans to close by the end of 1930. When the economic situation improved, production could initially continue. But when the Saarland was annexed to Germany in 1935, the Adt company now owned two plants for insulating pipes, which had to be merged for reasons of profitability. The result was the sale of the Großauheim plant, which took place in the spring of 1936. The sales proceeds could not cover the pre-investment for commissioning; the venture was associated with a great loss.
Forbach
Peter III In 1844, Adt founded the Barth, Adt und Cie . He placed this company in the hands of his son Johann Baptist (1825–1916). The then still modestly small company was relocated to Saargemünd in 1847, but was then brought back to Forbach in May 1853, albeit without the shareholder Barth. The year 1853 was considered by the Adt family to be the founding year of the Forbach factory. The reason for founding the company was passing through the customs German limited export opportunity products into the neighboring France. After the war that Germany had won in 1870/71, this had become obsolete because Forbach was now part of Germany. With the new plant in Pont-à-Mousson , which was located directly across the new border on the Moselle, they started all over again in 1872.
Under Johann Baptist's son Gustav Adt (1860–1922), extensive excavation work was carried out on the Schlossberg (Kappelberg) in Forbach from 1886. A spacious, private park was to be created there. The entire foundation walls of the former castle complex were exposed. He was supported by the Metz cathedral master builder Paul Tornow as site manager and the historian and director of the Forbach secondary school, Professor Max Besler . Among other things, the foundations of a round fortress tower came to light, on which Gustav had a 30-meter-high, octagonal lookout tower built in neo-Gothic style , called "Saareck". This tower is Forbach's landmark today . A historicizing, newly built “knight's hall” was placed next to it, in which social celebrations could take place for 30–35 people. The city's dignitaries were invited, such as district director Karl von Gemmingen-Hornberg , who later became regional president in Metz .
In 1900/01 both the castle courtyard and the forester's house at the end of Schloßbergstrasse were built at Gustav's instigation. The castle courtyard, which was completed in 1906 and on which a limited amount of agriculture was carried out, was the residence of part of the family. The forester's house at the northern of the two entrances to the spacious, pacified Schlossberg area and was intended as the residential building of the “forester” who was responsible for maintaining the park. Like other buildings at that time, the castle courtyard and forester's house were built in the neo-Gothic style. After the Adt family was expelled from France in 1919, the buildings initially fell to the French state. After a fire in September 1985, the courtyard was partially rebuilt and is now generously restored and available as a representative event and conference center for the city of Forbach. A private company is housed in the forester's house. Both buildings are in good structural condition.
Gustav Jakob Adt was appointed secret councilor of commerce in 1904. Four years later he became a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Metz and from 1912 was on the board of the Central Association of German Industry , where he represented Saarland and Lorraine, as well as chairman of the association for the protection of the common interests of the East Lorraine industry .
Regardless of the constant expansion of the factory premises up to 1918, for which more and more land was acquired, the Adt family was also involved in urban development and provided the main features of today's downtown Forbach. The social facilities, infrastructural buildings and residential buildings (hospital, schools, concert hall, gas works, waterworks and electricity works, workers' home, factory buildings) were primarily geared towards the flourishing and satisfaction of the factory and its productive forces; indirectly, these services contributed significantly to the rapid development of City at. The personal satisfaction of the individual workers was obviously secondary to the plant management. The local housing problems of the workers, latent due to the constant expansion of the plant, were not tackled by the Adt company within the company or within the scope of its political possibilities, although Gustav Jakob Adt soberly stated in 1913 that the housing conditions for workers in Forbach were still an imposition . At the same time, he signed the contract for the one million mark two-year renovation of his villa. The entire company management was extremely hostile to socio-political or even trade union efforts. It was only during the First World War that the unions and the local SPD gradually succeeded in gaining members in the 1,400-strong workforce at the Forbach Adt plant. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurial family enjoyed great support among the population.
At that time, the widely diversified holdings of the French and Lorraine Adt branches included:
- Société anonyme des Établissements Adt, Paris
- Brothers Adt-AG, Forbach
- Lothringer Portlandcementwerke, Strasbourg
- La Houve coal mine, Creutzwald
- Forbacher Bank, Forbach
- Teting interlocking brick and facing brick works, Forbach
- United Lorraine Light and Water Works, Forbach
- Saint-Avold Stock Brewery
- Elsaß-Lothringer Sprengstoff-Aktiengesellschaft, Busendorf
- Metzer Terraing Society, Metz
The family also owned several buildings, lands and land privately. These included the “Château Adt” house, the buildings on the Schlossberg with the Burghof estate, the forester's house, the Adteck and Villa Wilhelma houses and the brickworks in Tetingen (Téting-sur-Nied) ( ▼ ) with land. The value of all these properties stood at 3.5 million gold marks. In addition, the Adt-Karcher Familiengüter-Gesellschaft mbH, founded in February 1918, owned around 850 hectares of land with other properties: Buchwald near Bolchen with the Kobenbusch hunting lodge, Feywald near Rémilly and the Clementinenhof near Rémilly with a value of almost 2.5 million gold marks .
After the First World War was lost, the German Adts were expropriated and expelled from the country. All companies fell to the state. The reason for this harsh approach can also be found in the personal animosities of a small town. The newly appointed, extremely conservative mayor Leon Couturier and his adjutant Adam would have had leeway in politics towards this high-ranking and generally popular family. Couturier's patriotic , German-hostile attitude is surprising, as his family came from Neunkirchen, only 40 kilometers away, and had only lived in the part of Lorraine near the border for two generations. Couturier, who, as the owner of a clay ware factory, was located exactly opposite the Adt's premises on the national road - today N 3 - and was in direct competition with the Adts brickworks in Teting, had previously had the siding between the nearby Forbach train station for many years Factory premises of the Adt Brothers prevented. In terms of company size, both companies were in second place (Adt) and third place (Couturier) in the Forbach arrondissement after the Forbach coal mines in Stiring-Wendel . Perhaps, however, Couturier also passed the difficulties he had suffered from the Germans since the outbreak of World War I on to the Adt brothers as collective guilt .
Right up to the end, Gustav Adt had relied on being a member of the municipal council, founder of the Maria Magdalenen Hospital, a general benefactor of the city of Forbach and, last but not least, his good reputation among the citizens, to be spared such a stroke of fate. The deportation of the Adt family and some leading German employees from France therefore came out of the blue for him. This was postponed from January 21 to April 30, 1919, with massive support from the workforce, who feared that their bosses would be deported from their jobs in the long term. In the meantime, Gustav Adt managed to save all of the financial assets and stock holdings. The real estate and machines fell to the French state.
The facilities went to the newly founded “Société Nouvelle des Établissements Adt (AES)”, which also took over the management, at a “very low price”. Attempts to complain against the high similarity of the name failed because of the legally weak position after the war that Germany had just lost. Because the factory in Forbach showed no war damage, production could continue, but the paper maché vessels and the other so-called fancy articles were no longer buyers due to changed consumer tastes, so production was limited to serving trays, and sales fell accordingly.
The representative, three-story building on Rue Sainte-Croix, which was colloquially known as "Château Adt", was built before 1854 by the Forbach Forestry and Agriculture School. The family lived there from 1867. After the Second World War it was bought by the de Wendel family and later converted with its annexes and annexes into the Sainte-Barbe hospital of the Hospitalor group. Since 2008, the hospital operations have moved to the neighboring high-rise. The former Adt building has been used as a material store since then or is empty.
After the renewed occupation of France and the armistice of Compiègne (1940) , the German administration demanded the re-appropriation of the company. The Adt brothers refused, however, on the grounds that there had been no compensation from the German state after the First World War and that they would not be willing to invest there now. Only molds and special tools were brought to Wächtersbach during the war and returned after 1945. Overall, the loss of the Forbacher Werke is more than 12.6 million gold marks , of which just under 2 million gold marks were liquidated in the form of Reich debt register entries from the Reich debt administration. The Adt Foundation with its 18 settler houses, including French bank balances, lost 221,000 gold marks, of which 1,100 gold marks and in 1925 another 14,900 Reichsmarks flowed as compensation. Around 200,000 gold marks and another 200,000 marks were credited as imperial bonds for private property. The French factories were no longer under the responsibility of the Adt family.
"Saareck"
Burghof Forbach 2011
Forest house at the foot of the Schlossberg
Château Adt 2012
In the second half of the 1950s, the end of production in Forbach became apparent, as it was no longer possible to work economically. At the end of July 1960, AES closed its last operations and sold all of its properties . Most of the buildings were demolished over the course of time, and a process of conversion of this fillet in downtown Forbach was completed at the end of the first decade of the new century. Today there are several residential complexes, a shopping center and a hotel belonging to the Ibis group. The listed former button factory and the former works canteen, which served as a field hospital during the First World War, but has now been completely changed inside and outside as a private residence, still stand on buildings from the period before 1918. Another multi-storey Adt building was only slightly rebuilt, renovated and also contains apartments.
The shape and development of the former Kaiser-Wilhelm-Allee in Forbach give an idea of the importance and prosperity in the empire. Representative commercial buildings bear witness to the prosperity of this era. In addition, the Adts were able to initiate the establishment of a German garrison in Forbach (initially the Lorraine Train Battalion number 16 , from October 1912 the 2nd Rhenish Train Battalion No. 21), the buildings of which had a not inconsiderable influence on the face of the city and some of them still today , albeit in a different function.
The Marienau plant was razed to the ground during World War II.
Pont-à-Mousson and Blénod
The newly founded Adt plant in Pont-à-Mousson was under the direction of Peter IV, who called himself Pierre after his naturalization in France and was predestined for this task because of his good French contacts. Production in the four-story building on the left bank of the Moselle below what was then the only bridge began in the last quarter of 1872. At the same time as the main plant in Pont-à-Mousson, the supply plant for raw material production for the main plant started in Blénod, a little south of the city. In 1888 ten company-owned workers' apartments were added to the factory building in Blénod. To ensure that production started smoothly, Pierre Adt worked with experienced workers from Forbach who were also training the new employees in Pont-à-Mousson and Blénod.
The start was successful, the products were in demand and sales rose rapidly, also because the expanding French market grew steadily through the establishment of further French colonies . Soon all goods produced in Ensheim and Forbach were being manufactured in Pont-à-Mousson. From 1877 onwards, as in Forbach, bobbins for spinning machines were produced in Pont-à-Mousson, which mainly went to British weaving mills. The insulating tubes and other items for the electrical industry that were so successfully manufactured in the Ensheim and Forbacher plants were also produced in Pont-à-Mousson after the turn of the century. At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, around 800 people were employed in both French plants.
Since 1914, the French factory group was under compulsory administration because of the German ownership shares, but the company management controlled by the German Adts remained in place. The German shares were not liquidated, only the profits from these shares now went to the French state. Gustav Adt managed, as in the case of Forbacher Vermögens, that the shares and the personal bank account of Cécile Adt, the childless widow of his nephew Émile (1855-1906), were released from the sequestration by being used as their agent. At the same time, he prevented the French Adts from liquidating the shares in the German plants in Forbach and Ensheim by explaining to the German authorities that this liquidation would, in all likelihood, mean that the French liquidation of the German shares in Pont- à-Mousson would result. He argued that the economic damage to be expected for the German Adts and their recovery from the German state would be greater than the benefit of the German state from the liquidation of the French shares. In this way, he initially prevented the emergence of undesirable competition in the event of a complete separation of the corporate groups.
But this separation could not be prevented for good. On May 17, 1918, the compulsory administration of the shares of Cécile Adt was lifted and both the Pont-à-Mousson / Blénod plants and the Forbach / Marienau plants, which were under compulsory sequester administration, were liquidated. The property finally passed into strange hands.
During the Second World War, the factories in Pont-à-Mousson and Blénod were largely destroyed. After the closure of the Forbach plant in July 1960, AES merged the still profitable product lines in Pont-à-Mousson. Insulating pipes for the French market were manufactured here until 1967.
Jeandelaincourt
On September 16, 1893 , the Adt family, who had made a fortune in Lorraine at the time, diversified and founded the Société Anonyme des Tuileries Jeandelaincourt for the manufacture of tiles and bricks. Peter Adt IV. Recognized the extraordinary quality of the clays in the village of Jeandelaincourt ( ▼ ) and decided to do the same, analogous to the family role models of Franz Ludowici in Ensheim and the Adt'sche Tetinger Falzziegel- und Verblendsteinwerke in Tetingen, based in Forbach to try his luck. The factory premises were located directly on the Pompey – Nomeny railway line, which was inaugurated in 1882 , which ensured efficient movement of goods. The high-rise buildings were expanded several times: in 1897, 1902, 1908, 1909, 1912 and 1926. From 1931 onwards, only roof tile production was used; These were previously only a by-product. During the Second World War, all seven chimneys were blown up for strategic reasons at the instigation of the plant management so that the plant was not an exposed target. Some buildings were damaged during the war.
Nevertheless, this location recovered so much after the war that in 1962 it reached the maximum output of the plant with a daily production of 60,000 bricks with 360 employees. Adt has filed many patents and won numerous awards over the years. In the 1960s, advertisements advertised the proven resilience of the roof tiles produced in Jeandelaincourt. It said: “Nothing to be done - that's a Jeandelaincourt - the brick that withstands. Loadable up to 375 kg. Opinion No. 1373 of October 21, 1959 of the Brick and Brick Technical Center - Société des Tuileries de Jeandelaincourt ”(translated from French). In 1967, after the death of Louis Adt, the “directeur paternalist” highly respected by the workforce, Guy Adt succeeded him. Guy built a new factory that was ultra-modern, required less labor, and was designed to improve profitability. But the quality of the products collapsed and the company's reputation suffered noticeably.
The plant was almost razed to the ground in a major fire in 1969. After that there was no more production; the final closure took place in 1980. 1985 the entire site was leveled; today there is another production facility there. In the meantime, the former clay pit was used as a landfill for industrial waste and could no longer be exploited.
Products
The basic product of the Adt family, the cardboard box, was a natural choice. In the course of time, the possibilities for variation, the diversity of which is considered unique, have been exhausted accordingly. The fact that the product range was then expanded to include other industries was due, on the one hand, to the taste of the times and, on the other, to the need to no longer be able to manufacture the traditional products due to the war.
The automated production of buttons began as early as 1869, the first series production line in the paper lacquer industry. Eight years later spindles began to be manufactured for the thriving British weaving industry. The production of "classic" everyday objects such as tobacco boxes and fantasy articles continued at all three locations until the First World War. A large part of the workforce was busy decorating the products: the objects were drawn by hand, color lithographs were applied and multi-color prints were made by screen printing. The subjects were just as varied: Far Eastern stylization was used, which was currently highly topical, and plant and animal motifs, gold and silver decorations, alloys and inlays made of mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell and horn were used. The tobacco box alone was available in 1,100 different versions. The range also included 370 items for smokers, 180 different pen boxes for schoolchildren, 300 plate and saucer designs for the housekeeper, 290 toiletries, 330 office items and 270 items for home design such as chests of drawers, shelves and decorative tables. Different industries could also be served. There were 80 differently designed glasses cases for opticians and their customers alone . There were also items for the music industry, surgical supplies, photo items, watch cases and body parts for the rapidly growing vehicle industry.
Armaments contracts not only gave the company good returns , but also encouraged the development department to experiment: For mobile quarantine stations , transportable prefabricated components were designed that were successfully used by the Imperial Army . Ultimately, these new items led to new branches of production and industries . Containers made of painted pressboard were delivered to the Far East , which resulted in the establishment of further trading branches.
In the ten years after 1890 the Adt brothers had a monopoly on cardboard cartridges as an army supplier . This ended because the military administration considered the Ensheim site to be strategically too dangerous and commissioned six other companies, which were further away from the French border, with production.
After Franz Adt's death in 1870, his son Eduard Franz Adt, who studied electrical engineering, was his successor. The galloping use of electricity after the turn of the century became a flourishing line of business under his leadership. Above all, insulating material was manufactured from "Adit" and "Australit", an insulating paper that was twisted and wrapped with lead tape, but also switches and other electrical accessories. The company Gebr. Adt attracted particular attention at the 1902 industrial and trade exhibition in Düsseldorf for insulating objects of electrical components such as protective caps, switches and switch boxes. In addition to “Adit”, materials such as “Lackit” and “Amit”, for which patent applications were pending, were also presented.
Due to the good experience that had been gained in the field of electrotechnical production, the company also switched to the production of insulating tubes in its own tube factory from 1909. In addition, complete electrical systems and lamps were added before the First World War. The insulating tubes were manufactured at all three locations and should be the last product for the companies that later separated.
Wooden and cardboard buttons on a sample card (mid-20th century)
Crumb scoop with marbled decor
Feather bowl with gold stars
Glove box, lacquered inside and out
More family members
Based on the oldest known family member Johann Michael Adt, a Rubenheim and an Ensheim branch split with his children , from which the Adt paper mache dynasty arose. Many descendants of both branches emigrated, mainly to France, but also to Italy , even to the United States and to St. Petersburg , but the latter returned to Germany. In an extensive anthology of short biographies, the author Daniel Adt researched and recorded 1126 namesake of the family.
literature
In addition to the writings mentioned under Sources, the following works exist about the Adt family and their companies:
- Daniel Adt (Ed.): Les établissements Adt de Pont-à-Mousson. créés en 1872 by Pierre Adt, ancien maire de Forbach, pp. 180–183.
- Jakob Grentz: Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Adt brothers' factory in Ensheim. 1889.
- Jakob Grentz: The Adt family and the paper and varnish industry. 1889. Digitized
- Jakob Grentz: Peter Adt III. a picture of life. 1899.
- Literature on the paper mache dynasty Adt in the Saarland Bibliography
swell
- Hans Adt: From my life and from the history of the Gebr. Adt company. Self-published, Bad Orb 1978.
- Günter Wolf: Locomobile use in Ensheim. In: Saarpfalz. Sheets for history and folklore no. 27, Homburg (Saar) 1990, pp. 37–56.
- Gerhild Krebs: The Adt companies on the Saar and in Lorraine (1739-1969).
- Gerhild Krebs: The entrepreneurial family Adt and the urban development of Forbach (1853-1919).
Web links
- Short description and product photos of the Association for Regional Studies in Saarland: Everything made only from cardboard ... the art of paper mache. May 2011.
- La familie Adt de Forbach (French)
- Forbach product catalog , March 1913.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ralf Banken: The industrialization of the Saar region 1815–1914: take-off phase and high industrialization 1850–1914. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-515-07828-2 .
- ↑ a b Henri Wilmin: Les Adt et leurs Industries. In: Annales des L'Est. 5th edition, Volume 13, 1962, pp. 227-263.
- ↑ German Gender Book . Volume 86, p. 1-19 (Saarland. Branch and origin) In: Rolf Heintz: Coat of arms and seals of Saarland families. Volume 3, 1993.
- ↑ Jürgen Boldorf: Arts and crafts from paper. In: Collectors Journal. 11/1998, p. 40 ff.
- ↑ advertising brochure of the MGV Liederkranz to its 125th anniversary in 1978 Anonymous: Grafting Dosenmacherei in our area. 1884.
- ^ Chronicle of Mrs. Marie Daughtermann, 1910.
- ^ Remigius Wüstner: The residents of Ensheim before 1905. Self-published, Saarbrücken-Ensheim 1997.
- ↑ Auto Motor Sport. Issue 21/1976, p. 156; in: Ensheim in the picture. Volume 1 of the Ensheim history workshop, self-published, undated
- ^ DWA: The Reichsbank Treasure. ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 12.4 MB) Catalog for the 2nd special auction on April 10, 2010 in Wolfenbüttel, p. 48.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Hans Adt: From my life and from the history of the Gebr. Adt company. Self-published, Bad Orb 1978.
- ↑ a b c Remigius Wüstner: Heimatgeschichte von Ensheim, self-published 2001.
- ↑ a b c Ensheim in the picture. Volume 1 of the history workshop Ensheim, self-published o. J :.
- ↑ www.ensheim-saar.de
- ↑ Brief description with photo on ensheim-saar.de
- ↑ Short text with photo on ensheim-saar.de
- ↑ Wolf-Manfred Müller: The folded tile works Carl Ludowici and their range of tiles from 1857 to 1914/1917. ( 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. Dissertation in the field of architecture / spatial and environmental planning / civil engineering at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. Institute for Stone Conservation e. V. (IFS), Mainz, 2001.
- ↑ a b c d e Gerhild Krebs: The Adt companies on the Saar and in Lorraine (1739-1969).
- ^ Jean-Claude Flauss: Les usines Adt à Forbach (The Adt family in Forbach and their industrial companies). In: Les cahiers Lorrains. No. 2, June 1992, ISSN 0758-6760 , pp. 135-144.
- ↑ Calvin Woodings: Regenerated Cellulose Fibers. Woodhead Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1-85573-459-1 , pp. 100 f.
- ^ Contemporary photographs of the excavation site
- ↑ Hartmut Kaelble : Industrial Interest Policy in the Wilhelminian Society. Volume 27, Walter de Gruyter, 1967, ISBN 3-11-000468-2 , p. 211.
- ↑ Joseph Zeller, Marcel Gangloff: The Couturier brickworks in Forbach. In: Federal Association of the German Roof Tile Industry eV, 2004.
- ↑ Fragments of the goods catalog of Forbacher Falzziegelwerke Leon Couturier GmbH around 1900 on dachziegelarchiv.de
- ↑ Plan de situation of the Tuileries Couturier à Forbach vers 1910. In: Heimatkundlicher Verein Warndt eV, Völklingen-Ludweiler, p. 4. with adjoining Adt's factory premises on: Historische-dachziegel.de. P. 6.
- ^ Forbacher Falzziegelwerke Leon Couturier GmbH (Forbacher Falzziegelwerke); History 1832.
- ^ Description of the garrison with some pictures on a historical page about Forbach
- ↑ Monopoly of paper mache products in France
- ^ Description of the Adt plant in Pont-à-Mousson on the memotransfront of the Saarland University
- ↑ Société des Tuileries de Jeandelaincourt . (JPG; 75 kB) imageshack.us , archived from the original on April 7, 2014 ; accessed on August 2, 2019 (French, original website no longer available).
- ↑ Private photo collection with description of the night of the accident (French)
- ↑ history of the community Jeandelaincourt
- ↑ Private photo collection with a short historical treatise (French)
- ↑ a b Jürgen Boldorf: Tobacco boxes made of paper. The Maché factory in Ensheim delivered all over the world. In: Saarbrücker Zeitung. March 15, 1997, p. 21.
- ^ Franz Peters: The electrochemistry at the industrial and commercial exhibition in Düsseldorf 1902. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 317, 1902, p. 670.
- ^ Daniel Adt: Genealogy et essai d'histoire de la familie Adt. Self-published, Chaumont 1995. In: Rolf Heintz: Wappen und Siegel Saarländischer Familien, Volume 3, 1993.
Remarks
- ↑ also written Junk or Junck
- ^ The Adts' negotiating partner in Neustadt was the Upper Government Council, later Federal Minister of Economics and Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard .
- ↑ Christian can boast of the invention of preserves and condensed milk , which were successful under his reign.
- ↑ Karcher is the maiden name of Gustav Adts wife Mathilde. She was the daughter of the Kaiserslautern banker Karl Joseph Karcher (1841–1899). The reason for the founding of the company was the inheritance and enormous profits, rich in inheritances after several deaths in the family, in which all family members of this line should share.
- ↑ Center Technique des Tuiles et Briques (CTTB) was founded two years earlier, renamed in 2007 to "Center technique de matériaux naturels de construction"
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