Metzler & Ortloff porcelain factory

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Factory building

The porcelain factory Metzler & Ortloff was a porcelain manufacturer from Ilmenau ( Thuringia ), which existed between 1873 and 1976 and was primarily known for its artistic porcelain items. The “Metzler & Ortloff” brand is still valued by collectors today.

The company was the second largest porcelain manufacturer in Ilmenau, there were also the companies Henneberg-Porzellan , Galluba & Hoffmann and the Arno Fischer porcelain factory .

history

founding of the company

The factory premises around 1860

The company's history begins when the Ilmenau merchant Adolf Höhn bought the site of the former Carl-August-Schacht in Weimarer Strasse in Ilmenau in 1863 in order to set up a factory there. The Carl-August-Schacht was built in 1856. It consisted of a Malakow tower and attached workshops. The shaft was supposed to produce copper slate. In 1859, however, the business was discontinued due to unprofitability and then offered for sale. In 1865 Höhn also bought the small mass mill (in the area of ​​today's GO! Gas station in Schleusinger Allee), where he wanted to have the raw porcelain mass produced for his factory. In 1873, Höhn was able to convince the brothers Rudolf and Robert Metzler from Sonneberg that they would become a partner, since he still needed capital and experienced entrepreneurs to build the factory. A company called Höhn & Metzler was founded, which was entered in the commercial register of the Ilmenau office on April 18, 1873 . However, the first few years of the company were not characterized by success, which is why Adolf Höhn left as a partner in 1875 and withdrew his capital. The Metzler brothers then looked for a new partner and found him in the person of Hugo Ortloff. As a result, the factory was renamed Metzler & Ortloff in 1875 and a more successful phase began.

Between 1880 and 1945

The porcelain factory experienced a stable upswing after 1875, so that by 1890 it already had around 120 employees. Manufactured products at that time were mainly dishes , pharmacy utensils , figures , knickknacks and dolls as well as doll parts that were further processed in the Ilmenau toy industry . The product range comprised around 2000 different items, of which around 3.5 million were manufactured each year.

The First World War and its aftermath brought the company into trouble again. In the early 1920s there were repeated strikes among the workforce, which only subsided in 1923 when the then company owner Hugo Ortloff jun. pointed hard and refused to negotiate. After the Great Depression in 1929, the factory got into a desperate financial situation and often had to temporarily stop production and lay off numerous employees. Until the beginning of the Second World War in 1940, the company's situation improved only slowly - contrary to the general trend. The Second World War itself, however, brought the factory full order books, which could only be processed slowly due to a lack of raw materials and a reduced workforce. Much of the production was exported .

The company's success was based not least on the personality of Hugo Ortloff, the son of the company's founder. He joined the company in 1900 after completing his studies in chemistry and art history at the age of 25. Production was expanded to include decorative porcelain such as figurines, vases, candlesticks, bowls, etc. The porcelain mass, glazes and firing techniques were improved and underglaze painting flourished. Sculptors such as Paul Wynand , Siegismund Wernekinck , Erich Schmidt-Kestner , Carl Nacke , August Bornkessel , Karl Röhrig , Paul Zeiller , Gustav Oppel , Hans Knesl , Walter Bosse , Helmut Diller , Fritz Diller , Franz Lippert , Klára worked for the company Herczeg , Horst Aschermann , Josef Baier , Richard Scheibe , Max Sauerbrey , Erich Legler , C. Graser, C. Mutzenbacher, Karl Kemedinger , Hoffmann, Jeuthe, Winkler and Wessel.

After the Second World War

After the Second World War, Metzler & Ortloff still mainly produced for export, which, however, displeased the GDR's state planning authority , so it was ordered to produce less for export and more for the domestic market . The number of employees in the 1950s and 1960s was around 125. It was not until January 1, 1959 that the factory was nationalized and converted into a limited partnership . The shareholders were expropriated and their shares were handed over to the Deutsche Investitionsbank , which from then on was the owner of the company. In 1968 the company was transferred from the German Investment Bank to the Lichte porcelain factory , which in turn was subordinate to the Henneberg Porcelain Combine in Ilmenau. When the new Henneberg-Porzellan factory complex at Eichicht in Ilmenau went into operation in 1975 , the old factory was closed, which meant the end of the “Metzler & Ortloff” brand.

The company premises are used today by various companies and associations.

See also

literature

  • Claudia Fiala: Porcelain manufacture in Ilmenau - tradition and diversity , in Ilmenau - contributions to the history of a city . Frankenschwelle publishing house, Hildburghausen 1998, ISBN 3-86180-043-8 .
  • Heinz Hoever: Metzler & Ortloff . In: Junk & Collecting . No. 254, 2001, pp. 40-48.

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 15 ″  N , 10 ° 55 ′ 6 ″  E