Phoenix AG
The Phoenix AG was a 1856 in Hamburg-Harburg based companies in the rubber industry. It made car tires, hoses, seals, conveyor belts and others. After 148 years, Phoenix AG was bought up by a competitor, Continental AG , Hanover, in 2004 and merged with the Continental subsidiary ContiTech in January 2007 .
The foundation
In February 1856 the two Hamburg brothers Albert and Louis Cohen, sons of a Jewish banking family and brothers of the Carmelite Hermann Cohen , bought land in Harburg and had factory buildings built there. Both had previously lived in France , where they had their first experiences with the colonial rubber . They chose Harburg as their location because they could n't find a suitable site in Hamburg . Harburg was conveniently located. On the one hand, it was close to Hamburg, which made it possible to purchase raw materials cheaply, and on the other hand, it was in the customs area of the North German Customs Association , which facilitated the sale of the goods. With the acquisition of the citizenship on June 13th 1856 the operation Albert & Louis Cohen, Harburg - shoe factory could start. As early as July 1856, 500 workers were employed there. 1859 Louis Cohen got out of the company and a French partner Paul Vaillant came and the company was renamed Albert Cohen, Vaillant & Co . In 1862 the company employed 680 workers. Beginning in 1864, won the Frenchman Emile Justine Menier, whose company Aubert, Gerard & Co sells goods produced in Harburg, significant influence, so the company out in rubber and gutta-percha -Waaren factory Menier, formerly Aubert Gerard & Co has been renamed. In order to keep customers despite all the changes in ownership, the brand name Phoenix was created during this time.
Harburg - Vienna
After the establishment of the German Empire , Menier withdrew from the company and in 1872 sold his shares to his former authorized signatory August Würffel. Since he did not have enough capital, he turned to the Prague Bankers Association with a request for credit . At the same time, the owners of JN Reithoffer, Vienna Wimpassing , the oldest rubber factory in Europe founded in 1824, were negotiating with the same concerns. As a result, both companies were merged into a joint stock company, Vereinigte Gummiwaren Fabriken Harburg - Vienna, formerly Menier - JN Reithoffer AG . This corporation also became the largest European rubber factory, headed by August Würffel. In 1878 Würffel died, he was followed by Carl Maret as general manager. Society experienced rapid growth that seemed limited only by a shortage of raw materials. In 1897, the Hanoverian Caoutchouc, Guttapercha and Telegraph factories in Linden near Hanover were bought. Around 1900 the company employed around 4,000 workers.
In 1901 the Galalith patent was purchased, from which further products were developed. Then the Internationale Galalith Gesellschaft Hoff & Co (IGG) was founded as a stock corporation, which in 1904 moved into newly built manufacturing facilities in Harburg harbor. The IGG experienced a great boom in the interwar years, after the extensive destruction of its production facilities in World War II, it was taken over by Phoenix in 1959.
When the main factory in Harburg was almost completely destroyed by fire in October 1905, part of the production of tires and shoes was relocated to the new factory. In 1904 Maret also left the management and was replaced by Louis Hoff, who died of a heart attack during a meeting in 1916.
During the First World War , production was changed over to army and naval requirements, and tethered balloons and tires in particular were then produced. The supply of rubber and energy was a serious problem during the war, so the factories in Hanover had to be closed in 1917. The factory in Harburg could continue to operate, as it was supplied with lignite from 1919 to 1922 from the nearby Robertshall mine, which was only founded and operated for the "Vereinigte Gummiwaaren Fabriken Harburg - Vienna" . The lignite was used as an energy source for the process heat required for vulcanization . It was also the raw material for filler black , the most important additive in tire production.
Harburger Gummiwarenfabrik Phoenix AG
When there was an acute need for money in May during the currency crisis in 1922, the Austrian company share, the works in Wimpassing , was sold to Semperit AG at very unfavorable conditions . Then, after a tough cut, the new Harburger Gummiwarenfabrik Phoenix AG was founded. The Phoenix still mainly produced tires and shoes as well as mats and had to contend with the difficulties of the interwar period. In 1929 there was a conversation with Continental AG's offer to merge the companies, but this was rejected. In the Great Depression Phoenix made huge losses, but survived this difficult time. Phoenix profited greatly from the rearmament efforts of the German Reich, which were accelerated again with the seizure of power by the National Socialists. In 1938 the Phoenix was in better shape economically, employing around 4,000 workers again. Since Phoenix manufactured war-essential products, the company continued to operate without restrictions. From 1943 onwards, the factories were largely destroyed by bombing attacks, and production had to be stopped at the end of 1944. After the war, the factory was rebuilt, largely due to Otto A. Friedrich , who joined the board in 1939 . Friedrich was CEO of Phoenix until 1965, after the war he also became an economic policy advisor to the federal government, and later president of the Federal Association of German Employers' Associations BDA (1969–1973). Rolf Dahlgrün , who has been in the legal department of Phoenix since 1936, became Federal Minister of Finance in 1962.
Phoenix Gummiwerke Hamburg-Harburg AG
After the war, the name was soon changed to Phoenix Gummiwerke Hamburg-Harburg . In 1950, Phoenix signed a long-term technical cooperation agreement with one of the largest US tire manufacturers, Firestone , which ensured the connection to the most modern developments in tire technology for the next few years. In return, Firestone received 25 percent of the shares. In 1971 the cooperation agreement was not extended any further, Firestone sold its shares to Deutsche Bank . Following this transaction, there were talks about a possible merger with Continental AG, which were declared to have failed in 1972. 9,000 people were employed at Phoenix in 1975. When there was an economic crisis in 1977, there were considerations to merge all German tire manufacturers into a new company of the German Reifen Union. Phoenix had already contributed 78 percent of its capital to the newly created company when this merger was prevented by political pressure in December 1977. Herbert Wehner , at the time the SPD parliamentary group chairman in the Bundestag and directly elected member of the Harburg constituency, and the Hamburg mayor Hans-Ulrich Klose are successfully campaigning for the preservation of the Phoenix on the initiative of the works council. In the following years tire production was stopped.
In 1978 the name was shortened to Phoenix AG .
In 2003, Deutsche Bank sold its 13 percent stake in Phoenix AG's share assets to Daun & Cie . In the following months, the company then continued to buy large blocks of shares, including the shares in WestLB . In the spring of 2004 Daun & Cie offered its shares, which meanwhile more than 50 percent, to Continental AG, which competed with Phoenix. There was a hostile takeover, in December 2004 Phoenix AG was incorporated into ContiTech AG , a subsidiary of Continental AG, with which it was merged in January 2007. This made the shareholders of Phoenix AG shareholders of ContiTech AG.
Others
The Falckenberg Collection has been in the former factory halls of the Harburg Phoenix Works since 2001 . Phoenix AG also had a plant fire brigade .
View of Wilstorfer Strasse. Chimney with water tank.
Old office building (1900) in front of the Wilstorfer Straße factory building
Storage building (1906). Wilstorfer Strasse gate 2. Falckenberg collection
Gate 6 on Hannoversche Strasse
literature
- Dietrich Kausche: From the early days of the Harburg rubber industry: The beginnings of the Cohen brothers' rubber factory in Wilstorfer Strasse (1856–1864). Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-7672-0695-1 .
- Home chronicle of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg . 2nd edition, Cologne 1967.
- Otto A. Friedrich: A work in the mirror of the world economy. Freiburg im Br. 1956.
Web links
- Official website
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Phoenix AG in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Günter Lattermann: Who invented it? Adolf Spitteler and the invention of the galalith, Ferrum. News from the Iron Library, Georg Fischer AG Foundation, Volume 89, 2017, pp. 26–34
Coordinates: 53 ° 27 '15.4 " N , 9 ° 59' 20.6" E