Povel (textile)

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Ludwig Povel & Co , founded in 1882, emerged from the textile company Kistemaker and Povel , which Josef Povel and Hermann Kistemaker had founded in 1851. In the second half of the 20th century, it was one of the leading Nordhorn textile companies together with NINO and Rawe . From 1870 the factory operated under the mechanical cotton weaving mill Povel & Grüter and from 1877 Povel & Co, before being given its final name Ludwig Povel & Co in 1881.

In October 1978 the company, meanwhile part of the textile group van Delden from Gronau (Westphalia) , went bankrupt , in 1979 the last 1,100 employees were laid off.

After more than 20 years, a new part of town, the water town of Povel , was created from the former extensive factory site in the immediate vicinity of the city center. Its renovation measures received international attention.

history

The founders

The first factory building

In 1851 the Nordhorn textile merchant Anton Joseph Povel (1823-1880) founded a cotton weaving mill called Kistemaker and Povel in Nordhorn together with Herman Kistemaker (1826-1875). At that time, Nordhorn was a provincial town with just 1,700 inhabitants. Initially with 12 employees, the young company initially concentrated on the production of nettle cloth , but a mechanical cotton spinning mill was added in the following year, and later an indigo dye factory . When the originally very successful company got into trouble due to the European cotton crisis that had arisen as a result of the American Civil War , the entrepreneurs decided to part. The Povel family continued the weaving mill and the Kistemaker family took over the spinning mill.

In 1870 Povel entered into a partnership with Julius Grüter, who brought urgently needed capital into the company now known as the mechanical cotton weaving mill Povel & Grüter. This made it possible to switch from hand weaving to mechanical weaving. In March 1871, the construction of a new factory building began on the previously unpopulated area along what is now Kokenmühlenstrasse on a property inherited from Povel. The entire area at the Kokenmühle was largely undeveloped rural area at that time. The construction work was carried out by the building contractor Vos from Ootmarsum . At year end, with a 50 took PS strong steam engine and first 16 looms equipped factory for their production; In July 1872 a further 33 chairs were added, most of which were - the most modern and powerful at the time - English mechanical shuttle looms (so-called Unterläger chairs with drums).

Only two years later, the company was hit by the great crisis of the early days , which resulted in many company failures and as a result of which the company Povel & Grüter suffered considerable losses. At the same time, the connection of Alsace-Lorraine brought considerable competition to the German cotton industry . The company survived, but stagnated with 19 workers and 49 looms even in 1877.

Ludwig Povel & Co.

Factory site

When Anton Povel died in 1880, the company was initially shut down. Of his sons, only the second oldest son, Ludwig, who was only 21 years old, worked for the company. He finally succeeded his father with the decision to liquidate the company Povel & Co, as the company was called since 1877, and together with his mother, Clementine Povel, née Schründer, who was only 44 years old, with the existing inventory and that of the mother's own assets to try a fresh start. On April 16, 1881, the new company Ludwig Povel & Co started its activity and was entered in the commercial register on December 1, 1883. The company was particularly successful thanks to a collaboration with the weaving mill Jan van Delden & Söhne, which is also based in Nordhorn . In 1883, Ludwig Povels younger brother Carl (1865–1943) joined the company, who remained loyal to the company for 61 years - until his death. A few years later, Ludw. Povel & Co. renamed. In addition to nettle, molton , pilot and twill were produced. In 1884 another 19 chairs were put into operation. With now 80 looms, the factory produced a new line of production with the clothing material “Camilla”, for which the chains were obtained in balls from England and the fake cops came from Saxony. In 1888 100 looms were operated. The 73 employed workers earned "1.70 to 2.50 marks a day" and could live for one mark a week in workers' apartments, which consisted of "three rooms, a floor space and a stable for any cattle" and the Povel in the south of the now around The still rural Nordhorn had 3,000 residents built. The district of Blanke was later created in this area.

The water aprons

Trademark

Louis Povel brought in 1889 under the logo from the best of the best a new and decisive for the further development of the company products on the market, the Water aprons . It was an apron fabric made of cotton , which was characterized by the use of indanthrone developed by the young chemist René Bohn and thus now fully synthetic blue dyeing , a new type of weave, a striped pattern and an unrivaled low price.

Initially the aprons were striped blue and white or gray and white, over time colors were added again and again. Finally, checkered goods were also made.

In 1894 the company employed 115 workers and sold 25,000 fabrics valued at 450,000 marks; in the following year there were 130 workers and 26,000 pieces of fabric.

It was inevitable that the successful water apron product was imitated. Newly moved merchants, textile entrepreneurs and textile engineers, such as Bernhard Niehues from Münster, Friedrich Dütting from Osnabrück or Bernard Rawe from Münster, had not only professional qualifications and knowledge of national and international textile centers, but also a high level of investment capital. After Bernhard Niehues had got to know the manufacturing method of water aprons during a traineeship at Povel, he founded the textile company Niehues & Dütting (N&D) together with Dütting in 1897, later NINO AG and also produced water aprons. The young company immediately positioned itself in direct competition with Povel, as shown by its trademark - a globe with the imprint "World Brand N&D" - which, under the heading The very best of the best, alluded directly to the logo of Povel Vom Beste das Beste .

Povel met this newly growing competition, among other things, by additionally manufacturing blue-and-white fabrics for the Kieler suits (“Kadett”) that were popular at the time and for workers' shirts (“Regatta”).

In 1896 Nordhorn was freed from its secluded location and had a railway connection. A year later, the Dortmund-Ems Canal was built , which from then on enabled transports to the city ​​port , which was completed in 1887 . The Nordhorn textile companies became much more competitive due to the significantly lower transport costs. By 1905, the number of Povel looms rose from 160 to 440 and the number of workers from 130 to 300.

Crane system at the own dock

This rise was accompanied by a number of new buildings and technical innovations. In 1896 the factory consisted of an old and a new weaving mill, to which the master's room, steaming and lead rooms as well as storage and packing rooms were connected. Next to the old weaving mill there was a forge, a locksmith's shop and a carpenter's shop as well as some workers' houses. On the other side of the street were the old office, the laboratory, the machine room, the new dyeing and bleaching works, the boiler house, the preheating room, the whitening and bluing mill and the associated equipment. In 1899 the company switched from gas to electronic three-phase motors. More new buildings were built from 1900: in 1906 a two-story office and the three-story, first German electrically operated spinning mill, in 1907 a sizing shop, a turning shop and a cotton warehouse, and in 1909 a new three-story weaving mill, which was also the first to work with an individual electric drive. In 1911 a new steam turbine with 3,200 hp was put into operation. The usable area of ​​the company was now well over 15,000 m².

In 1913, Povel employed 1,000 people. In the trade journal Der Confectionär it is said: "Today there is on the Dutch border like an outpost of the new German industrial state, like a sample exhibition of German industrial technology, the Povel factory town with an impressive army of workers."

Between the world wars

Povel factory street

When the First World War began, the company had 950 looms and employed 915 people. At the end of the war, 365 workers and employees remained. The time of the water aprons was over, as colorfully printed fabrics could now be produced for about the same price. So they switched to curtain fabrics, tablecloths, clothing and blouse fabrics as well as flannel for men’s and nightgowns. Also the export , especially to Scandinavia, the Balkans, Turkey, Central America, Australia and Malaysia began for the company to play a greater role.

In 1919 Tono Povel, the son of Ludwig Povels, joined the company. In 1922 the general partnership was converted into a limited partnership ; personally liable general partners were Ludwig, Carl, Hermann and Tono Povel. They were joined in 1923 by Ben Povel , a son of Hermann Povel and in 1925 by Eduward Povel, a son of Ludwig Povel, followed in 1932 by Hermann Povel, the son of Carl Povel.

At the same time the factory was expanded again. In 1926/27 the spinning mill building, called Plant II , was built on the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal , as the area on Kokenmühlenstraße was no longer sufficient. The five-story building was 50 meters long, 36 meters deep and 29.5 meters high. It housed 40,000 fine yarn spindles and had a 40 meter high stair tower, which became another of the city's landmarks.

In August 1927, the company had 1,513 employees and was the second largest textile company in the city after Niehues & Dütting, which began to develop into a center of the German textile industry. But the global economic crisis also brought critical years for Povel, which some of Nordhorn's oldest textile companies, including Jv Delden & Sons, did not survive. Ludwig Povel died in 1938; later he was made the first honorary citizen of the city of Nordhorn. The company now had 1,500 looms with 103,000 spindles and employed 2,350 people.

With the exception of Carl and Tono Povel, all owners were drafted into military service during World War II, and Anton Povel was killed in the war in 1945. Otherwise, the company survived the years of National Socialism and the Second World War largely unscathed, especially since Nordhorn was spared major destruction. During the war years, Povel mainly produced gauze , lining, shirt and hospital fabrics.

Post-war period and economic miracle

Site plans of both Povel plants

In 1950, in the wake of the economic boom, with its great pent-up demand for clothing with an annual production of 4,800 tons of yarn and 18 million meters of fabric, the company had developed into the second largest textile company in Nordhorn. Povel had its highest number of employees in 1957 with 3,000 employees. The production consisted mainly of colorfully woven consumer goods of medium quality, such as clothing and curtain fabrics, as well as poplin and gabardine ; from the 1960s also synthetic blended yarns such as Trevira and Vestan cotton yarns. Around 1960 12,000 people worked in the Nordhorn textile industry, whose "number 2" was Povel; the population rose to over 45,000 people.

Povel became a trendsetter in the fashion sector in 1968 with a campaign for a Mrs. Emma Peel collection made from Povel fabrics. The English actress Diana Rigg , in her role as Emma Peel the leading actress in the television series With Umbrella, Charm and Melon , presented women's clothing for fashion-conscious young women.

This high-altitude flight was short-lived. When the economic recession in 1966/67 also hit the German textile industry, Povel ran into financial difficulties and in 1969 - when the capital share of the entrepreneurial family was only 10 percent - the majority of its direct competitor, the Van Delden Group in Gronau , was bought up . The old name was allowed to be kept, but was given the addition: "A company of the Van Delden Group".

Production has been switched from traditional colored weaving to plain weaving and from yarn dyeing to fabric dyeing. The Van Delden philosophy corresponded to the principles of the Southeast Asian textile producers who have been successful since the 1970s: mass production of a small number of plain-colored clothing fabrics with a high proportion of synthetic fibers instead of manufacturing high-fashion fabrics in small batches.

In the course of the economic recession , which was triggered by the first global oil and energy crisis in 1973, the demand for textiles fell and the prices for synthetic fibers made from petroleum rose. At the same time, the German textile industry increasingly suffered from cheap imports from the Far East. Short-time work was started in 1977. At the beginning of 1978 Povel and the Van Delden Group hit the headlines because “the Westphalian textile clan van Delden [...] with the closure of 1,300 spinning and weaving stations in the subsidiary Ludw. Povel in Nordhorn in Emsland (had) ”and thereupon received a state guarantee for 20 million German marks in February 1978.

In October 1978 the Povel company went bankrupt , and in 1979 the last 1,100 employees were laid off.

The factory site of Plant I in the city center was sold to the Grafschaft Bentheim district and the city of Nordhorn in 1979 .

Plant II on the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal was taken over in 1980 by Rehers GmbH & Co. KG from Bad Bentheim , which operated a twisting mill there. From 1983 onwards, Plant II was administered by a rescue company , which was unable to avert the next bankruptcy. In autumn 1983, the recently founded effect twining company Norgatex GmbH & Co KG moved into the factory building.

A huge and dangerous industrial wasteland remained in the inner city area : the now abandoned Povel factories. It took almost 30 years for these to become the water town of Povel .

literature

  • Gert von Klaß : 80 years Ludw. Povel & Co. Nordhorn. Publisher Hoppenstedts Wirtschafts-Archiv GmbH Darmstadt. 1952.
  • Ludwig Povel, the founder of the Ludw. Povel & Co. on his 70th birthday , dedicated by Povel Bunt-Spinn-Weberei GmbH Nordhorn in Hanover, April 10, 1929 (self-published)
  • Joachim Nitz: The textile industry in Nordhorn in the age of industrialization. Written term paper as part of the first state examination for teaching at upper secondary level in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, submitted in February 1989.
  • Udo Schwabe: Textile industry in the county of Bentheim, 1800-1914 . Publishing house of the Emsland landscape for the districts of Emsland and Grafschaft Bentheim, 2008. ISBN 3925034439 . Pp. 249-316
  • Peter Dede: The development of the Nordhorn textile industry after the Second World War. In: Project labor market development and labor market policy in the north-west of Lower Saxony. Oldenburg 1979.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Nitz: The textile industry in Nordhorn in the age of industrialization. P. 16
  2. ^ Joachim Nitz: The textile industry in Nordhorn in the age of industrialization. P. 16
  3. ↑ Gert von Klaß: 80 years Ludw. Povel & Co. Nordhorn. P. 16
  4. ↑ Kiel City & Maritime Museum: Blue Boys. Popular sailor pictures since the imperial era.
  5. ↑ textile newspaper The Confectionär , Berlin, vol. 9/1913
  6. ^ H. Matthias: Commercial economy. In: The County of Bentheim. Academy for spatial research and regional planning. P. 152
  7. ^ Peter Dede: The development of the Nordhorn textile industry after the Second World War. , P. 6
  8. ↑ Frame stretched. Der Spiegel from July 3, 1978