Przemysłowo-Handlowe Zakłady Chemiczne Ludwik Spiess i Syn SA

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Access to today's Polfa Tarchomin SA in the Warsaw district of Białołęka

The Przemysłowo-Handlowe Zakłady Chemiczne Ludwik Spiess i Syn SA (also: AG “Ludwig Spiess & Sohn” ) was an important pharmaceutical-chemical company based in Warsaw . The family business had its heyday in the interwar period and was nationalized after the Second World War . Today it operates as Polfa Tarchomin SA

history

The German-born Heinrich Gottfried Spiess (1785–1835, married to the French-born Maria Marchand), son of the Prussian civil servant Johann Melchior Spiess, who was transferred to Warsaw in 1796, and his wife Anna, née. Eisen, founded the Spiess i Rakoczy pharmacy with a partner in Warsaw's ul. Kozia at the beginning of the 19th century . After taking over the business shares of his co-partner, he began manufacturing his own medicines and in 1823 began the production of wine and tarragon vinegar in Tarchomin near Warsaw . To this end, he had taken over a factory that had been founded in Tarchomin in 1803. One of his sons, Ludwik Henryk Spiess (1820–1896), expanded the range of products to include paints, varnishes, waxes, pharmaceutical and cosmetic items, and artificial fertilizers.

Fertilizer manufacturing

To this end, in 1849 he founded a factory in Ruda Guzowska (near today's Żyrardów ) for the production of fertilizers from bone meal and bone fat , which was connected to a paint factory. It was the third manufacturing plant of its kind in Europe and the first fertilizer manufacturer in Poland. The fertilizers produced here from 1849 to 1907 received awards at national and international agricultural exhibitions at which the company was represented with its products; so in Paris , Berlin , Vienna , Königsberg or St. Petersburg . In 1907 the family sold the fertilizer production.

Largest pharmaceutical company in Poland

From 1874 the pharmaceutical production was named Zakłady Chemiczno-Techniczne Ludwik Spiess . Around ten years later, the entrepreneur took his eldest son, Stefan Spiess (1849–1893), into the company. The company was now called Przemysłowo-Handlowe Zakłady Chemiczne Ludwik Spiess i Syn . By the end of the 19th century, the company already had three subsidiaries in Warsaw and another in Łódź . At that time, senior entrepreneur Heinrich Gottfried Spiess founded a mineral water drinking hall near the Krasiński Park with Ignacy Lesiński and Ferdynand Ulbricht . In 1893 Stefan's son, Ludwik Julian Spiess (1872–1956) joined the company. In 1899 the pharmaceutical and chemical company was transformed into a stock corporation, which was majority owned by the Spiess family. From 1922, the Przemysłowo-Handlowe Zakłady Chemiczne Ludwik Spiess i Syn SA (Chemical Industrial Trading Companies Ludwik Spiess and Son AG) was the largest company of its kind in Poland and employed around 800 people. In the interwar period, branches were maintained in Krakow , Łódź, Lemberg , Vilnius , Riga and twelve other sales outlets in Poland. Popular brands of the factory were "Baby Puder Spiess", "Boromenthol Spiess", "Mesolament Spiess", "Kornol Spiess", "Glycerophosphat Spiess" or "Tolusan Spiess". In the 1930s, French investors became majority shareholders in the company.

World War II and post-war period

The factory was largely destroyed in fighting in 1944 during World War II. After the end of the war, Ludwik Spiess and his brother Stefan Kazimierz Jakub Spiess (1879–1968) began to rebuild the Tarchominer factories. As early as 1946 they were relieved of their functions and the company was nationalized. The name was changed to Polfa Tarchomin ; from 1949 the production of penicillin could be resumed.

After the turn

After the political change in Poland in the early 1990s, the broad-based company (73 different drugs were produced in more than 200 different preparations and 11 veterinary drugs) had to adapt to problems that were successfully overcome. In 1994, Polfa Tarchomin was transformed into a company owned by the Polish State Treasury . In the late 1990s, Polfa Tarchomin was named the largest pharmaceutical company in Poland. In 2004, the Ministry of the Treasury founded a pharmaceutical holding company, which included Polfa Tarchomin as well as the Polfa plants in Pabianice ( Polfa Pabianice SA ) and Polfa Warszawa SA . The holding company was dissolved again in 2013 and the shares in Polfa Tarchomin were transferred back to the State Treasury. At present, 86% of the company's shares are owned by the ministry and 14% are employees of the company. Today Polfa Tarchomin is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country. It is Poland's main producer of antibiotics . In addition, insulin and anxiolytics (e.g. clonazepam ) are produced.

Spiess family

Members of the Spiess family emerged as cultural promoters in Warsaw. Stefan Kazimierz Jakub Spiess made friends with the composer Karol Szymanowski and the conductor Grzegorz Fitelberg and supported them both financially. The family made sure that the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra could give its first concert after the First World War . The wife of Stefan Spiess, Jadwiga, geb. Simmler (1851–1944) was the daughter of the painter Józef Simmler . The family grave of the Spiess family is located in the Evangelical Augsburg cemetery in Warsaw.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Economic publications , Vol. 1–4, Freie Universität Berlin, Osteuropa-Institut (Ed.), 1954, p. 1.
  2. ↑ a b Friedrich Matthaei: The industry of Russia in its previous development and in its present condition with special consideration of the general Russian manufactory exhibition in 1870: Industrial handbook for the total area of ​​the Russian Empire. Volume 1, Verlag H. Fries, 1872, p. 341.
  3. ↑ a b Aleksander Bocheński: Tracing the Development of Polish Industry. Interpress, 1971, p. 40.
  4. ↑ Polfa seeks refund from CA . In: Computerworld . June 9, 1997, p. 8 (accessed June 18, 2014)
  5. ↑ Todd D. Clark: Pharma Handbook. 5th edition. 2007, ISBN 978-0-9795443-0-9 , p. 344.

Web links

literature

  • Zofia Jurkowlaniec, Roland Borchers: Polacy z wyboru: Rodziny pochodzenia niemieckiego w Warszawie w XIX i XX wieku / Poland of free choice: families of German origin in Warsaw in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fundacja Wspołpracy Polsko-Niemieckiej / Dom Spotkań z Historią, Warsaw 2012, ISBN 978-83-62020-46-1 , pp. 214-217.


Coordinates: 52 ° 18 ′ 53.3 ″  N , 20 ° 59 ′ 0 ″  E