Romika

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Romika Shoes GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1921/1922
Seat Trier , Germany
management Executive Director:
  • Hans Jürgen Reitzner
Branch Shoes

Former Romika site in Gusterath Valley
View from the east of parts of the former production facilities

Romika is a German shoe brand. The name is made up of the respective two initials of the company founder Ro llmann, Mi chael and Ka ufmann together.

history

Founding and 1930s

On December 29, 1921, the Jewish shoe manufacturer founded Hans Rollmann the shoe factory RO MI KA in noisy commercial register Gusterath valley , along which the Ruwer running railway line Trier-Hermeskeil . The company was founded together with the non-Jewish partner Carl Michael and the Jewish partner Karl Kaufmann. The company founders created the name of the shoe factory from the first two letters of their last names. In 1922, shoe production began in the Ruwertal . Hans Rollmann was also the sole owner of the Rollmann & Mayer shoe factory in Cologne . Before the National Socialist seizure of power, both shoe factories experienced a rapid upswing and employed well over 2000 people in Cologne and Gusterath Valley.

When the National Socialists came to power, the entrepreneurs and their factories came under the Nazis' sights. Since the successful shoe manufacturers were Jews and Hans Rollmann also supported the political opponents of the Nazis, they were exposed to numerous National Socialist attacks from 1933 onwards. A finely coordinated, close-knit network of measures directed against Jews drove the companies and their owners further and further into economic difficulties. This included the mandatory employment of members of the NSDAP, who replaced trained permanent staff. Government contracts were no longer given to the so-called “Jewish companies”, and the procurement of the necessary raw materials from abroad and foreign exchange management were made more difficult. The National Socialist supervisors imposed on the companies undermined the authority of the company owners, the workforce was incited against the owners, with the slander that they were getting rich at the expense of the workers. "German" major customers canceled orders at the instigation of the National Socialists or out of conviction. The adjustment of the number of workers to the falling sales, ie the urgently needed layoffs, was refused by the “trustee of work”. The companies had to continue to produce at a high level without restriction despite falling sales figures. The tax authorities ordered book and tax audits for the previous years and suddenly raised high additional tax claims for years that had passed. The debt grew. The work ethic in the "Jewish company" collapsed and the theft rate increased. When the National Socialists came to power, banks changed their behavior towards Jewish industrialists. They no longer did anything to keep the factory alive. From the time the business letters were signed with "Heil Hitler", the banks warned that no success could be achieved with Jews in the company and viewed this as a "challenge" that needed to be changed.

In 1935, the Jewish owners fled abroad or, like Hans Rollmann and his family, did not return to Germany from a spa stay in Switzerland. This was preceded by physical attacks on the Jewish owners and their family members as well as the imprisonment of Karl Kaufmann in so-called “protective custody”. Karl Kaufmann and his family fled to Israel penniless. The Rollmann family emigrated to Belgium with their three sons. All of your assets in Germany were confiscated by the National Socialist state, among other things to pay the discriminatory “Reich flight tax”. In Belgium, the Rollmann family tried to prepare for emigration to the United States. The second oldest son Heinz Rollmann traveled to the USA with his wife in 1939 to organize the difficult emigration of all family members. Hans and Marie Rollmann were surprised by the attack by German troops on Belgium in 1940 and committed suicide for fear of being seized by the National Socialists. Ernst Rollmann succeeded in emigrating from occupied France to the USA with his wife and daughter who was born in Belgium as well as with his brother Klaus-Hans. After the Jewish owners had been driven out, bankruptcy proceedings were opened in 1935 at both shoe factories, Rollmann and Mayer in Cologne and Romika in Gusterath Valley. The shoe production in Cologne was completely stopped, the company and the private assets of the Rollmann family were confiscated by the National Socialist state and the banks in order to settle the “monstrous debts” that the Jews allegedly left behind. In the structurally weak Ruwertal, the National Socialists tried under all circumstances to keep jobs. A rescue company resumed shoe production at Romika in 1936 with a few workers. The employed managing director Hellmuth Lemm later ran the company as the owner.

post war period

After the end of National Socialism, the Rollmann family's sons and Karl Kaufmann tried to get back their stolen property in various restitution processes. In the Romika case, however, the restitution court did not follow the plaintiffs' view that Romika AG had been systematically made ready for bankruptcy in the course of an "Aryanization" and dismissed the lawsuit. The anti-Jewish measures would not have intensified until 1935/36 to such an extent that a systematic "Aryanization" of Jewish companies would have been carried out. The court was of the opinion that the decline of Romika, which had already begun in 1931/32, ultimately resulted in bankruptcy and was based solely on economic causes. The plaintiffs appealed against this decision of the Trier Regional Court to the Koblenz Higher Regional Court and presented further evidence of National Socialist persecution. The proceedings were discontinued in 1950 in a settlement, according to which Hellmuth Lemm had agreed to pay a negotiated settlement amount to the plaintiffs and the plaintiffs in return recognized the judgment of the Trier regional court. After bankruptcy in 1935, the company was re-established as Romika GmbH in the following year . In 1993 the company headquarters and production were relocated to Trier.

In 1957 a production hall was built in Reinsfeld (Hochwald Textilwerk GmbH). The favorable development after the war meant that this had to be expanded in 1969. Weaving, knitting and sewing were housed there. As of January 9, 1981, around 170 people were employed there. After the economic decline became apparent in the 1980s, this production site was given up in the 1990s. Siegenia-Aubi took over the production halls in the 2000s.

In the 1960s, the company under Hellmuth Lemm had its most successful period and produced up to twelve million pairs of shoes per year. In 1994 the family company at the time was facing bankruptcy and was bought up by the Swiss René C. Jäggi (former CEO of Adidas ), with a guarantee from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . He laid off 600 of 800 employees in Germany, relocated most of the production abroad (e.g. to Brno in the Czech Republic ) and tried to modernize the brand's image.

21st century

At the end of the 1990s, the company was back in the black. In 1999 the American shoe manufacturer Injection Footwear (IFCO) was taken over. In 2000 Romika produced almost ten million pairs of shoes worldwide and had around 2800 employees (including the Chinese supplier, 200 in Germany).

After Romika GmbH had to file for bankruptcy in 2004 due to management errors, it was taken over by Hauensteiner Josef Seibel Schuhfabrik GmbH at the beginning of 2005 , which only took over 80 of the 150 employees in Trier.

On July 12, 2007 Romika moved to a new location in the Trier-Nord conversion area . In addition to warehouse and administration buildings, a glass shoe factory and a restaurant with a beer garden were built on the site of the former French provisions office. After the move, Romika also produced shoes in Trier again, the number of employees had meanwhile increased to 105 again.

Effective January 1, 2020, Josef Seibel GmbH sold Romika's trademark rights for all European countries to Deichmann SE . Outside Europe, the Romika brand will continue to be part of the Josef Seibel Group's range. The location in Trier also remained with Seibel.

literature

  • Kühn Peter: Bubiacum Pluviacum Pluwig. A little chronicle of the Pluwiger Ländchen. Pluwig 2002.
  • ROMIKA 1950. therein: the history of ROMIKA AG in the restitution judgment of December 23, 1949, ROMIKA KG, Lemm & Co Gusterath .
  • The Romika, the largest factory in the Trier district , a trial and its prehistory - the significant judgment of the Trier Chamber of Restitution. In: Trierischer Volksfreund , vol. 75, No. 5 from January 6, 1950.
  • Settlement agreement in the Romika process. In: Trierischer Volksfreund No. 260 from November 8, 1950.
  • Heinz Ganz-Ohlig: Romika - A Jewish Factory. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 2012, ISBN 978-3-7902-1902-9 .
  • Lanser, Johannes; Reiber, Friedrich: Chronicle of Reinsfeld for the 1000th anniversary 981–1981. Published by the Reinsfeld community in 1981.

See also

Romika-Weg , a premium hiking trail on the Saar-Hunsrück-Steig

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trierischer Volksfreund edition January 9, 1981
  2. ↑ Chronicle of Reinsfeld on the 1000th anniversary 981–1981. Pp. 301-305
  3. ^ Romika goes to Deichmann. Retrieved July 18, 2020 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 42 ′ 21.5 "  N , 6 ° 43 ′ 49.8"  E