Rudolf Moos

Rudolf Moos (born November 25, 1866 in Buchau , Kingdom of Württemberg ; † October 9, 1951 in Birmingham ) was a German-Jewish entrepreneur, co-founder of the “Salamander” brand .

Career

Salamander Kornwestheim (2010)

Rudolf Moos was born as the son of the leather goods dealer Heinrich Moos (1834-1891) and his wife Karoline Moos, née Einstein (1840-1929) in Buchau in Upper Swabia . He was thus a 2nd cousin of the physicist Albert Einstein and related to the geologist August Moos . His older brother was the later music critic and music writer Paul Moos . The younger brother Alfred (1869–1926) later founded a law firm in Ulm , which became known as " Moos II ". Alfred's son Paul, a doctor of neurology, was euthanized in the Grafeneck extermination center in mid-1940 murdered.

In 1871 the family moved to Ulm. Rudolf attended school here and, after graduating from school, initially worked in his father's leather goods store.

In 1891 the father died and Rudolf Moos took over the management of the company. A jeweler's ad for a brooch in an English newspaper in the shape of a lizard inspired him to create a trademark for his company. That was the hour of birth of a lizard as a trademark, which was then emblazoned on the cans of a shoe cream developed by Moos. On December 5, 1899, the brand was registered as a trademark at the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin.

In the meantime Rudolf Moos had married Gertrud (Trude) Heinrichsdorff (1876-1959) and their first son Heinrich (Henry) was born on March 21, 1901 in Berlin, who died in 1976 in the USA.

At that time a pair of men's shoes cost around 20 marks and Rudolf Moos had the idea of ​​bringing shoes to the market for less money. In 1904 he announced a competition for which the shoe manufacturer Jacob Sigle and Max Levi (1868-1924), based in Kornwestheim, qualified. They offered to be able to make shoes for 12.50 marks. As a result, Rudolf Moor had his registered trademark changed to a salamander at the Imperial Patent Office on May 8, 1904 , and in 1905 founded the “Schuhverkaufs GmbH Salamander” together with the Jacob Sigle shoe factory. Each of the two shareholders held 50% of the shares. While production in the traditional workshops in Kornwestheim was expanded, the bustling Max Levi was responsible for marketing and sales. In the same year the first Salamander branch was founded in Berlin. In 1906 four more shops were added in other major cities in Germany and the first branch outside Germany was opened in 1908. In the shoe workshops in Kornwestheim, it was possible to develop production so that in 1909 the 2,800 employees were able to manufacture 2 million pairs of shoes. In the same year the first major advertising campaigns for "Salamander shoes" started. When there were disagreements between the shareholders at the end of the year, Moos sold his shares.

In the following years he tried to find a new production facility for the manufacture of shoes in the Berlin-Potsdam area. As a precaution, he had already secured the names "Puma" and "Fasan" from the patent office in Berlin. In 1911, Rudolf Moos came to an understanding with the two owners of the Nowawes shoe factory "Haase & Russ", Jacques Russ (1867–1930) and Haase, who had their place of business since 1900 in Retzower Straße (today's Benzstraße) in Nowawes . Together they founded the company Puma GmbH and had the trademark updated on August 30, 1912 at the Imperial Patent Office. Mainly men's shoes were produced under this logo. The brand name was secured until 1941, but since the brand owners were of Jewish origin, the name was officially deleted during the Nazi era. Women's shoes were produced under the brand name “Fasan”. Later a third brand was added, the “Stephan-Schuh”, which was also produced in the workshops in Nowawes on behalf of the product designer Otto Stephan. In order to expand the previous production facilities, Puma GmbH bought a large piece of land on Potsdamer Horstweg. The construction of the new factory premises was postponed because of the beginning of the First World War and was not resumed after the end of it.

Rudolf Moos had his friend the architect August Endell built a house for him in 1913 on the edge of this site at Horstweg 10. This house was given the name "Villa Moosgarten" when it was completed, as a gardening facility was also created. This villa developed into a popular meeting place for the Moos and Einstein families in the 1920s and early 1930s. Until 1933 Albert Einstein was a welcome guest in this house several times. By the 25th anniversary of the company's business, the shoe factory already had 350 employees and in the same year the sons of Jacques Russ, Werner Russ and Walter Russ, began working on the management board. Due to the good quality of craftsmanship in shoe production, Rudolf Moos and Jacques Russ worked in several committees and associations of the leather and shoe industry as well as in committees of the craft. The nursery belonging to the property of the Villa “Moosgarten” was closed in 1929 and the space freed up was made available to the employees of the shoe factory for use as allotment gardens. This created a good bond between the workforce and the shoe workshops operated at the Nowawes location. After the death of Jacques Russ in 1930 and several wrong decisions at one of the main buyers of the manufactured shoes, the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin, Tauenzienstrasse), the company ran into great financial difficulties.

After the Nazi regime came to power in 1933, the framework conditions tightened even further. Rudolf Moos lost all public offices due to the Nazi race laws. Due to his Jewish origin, he was excluded from government contracts. By 1938 the situation got so bad that he was arrested by the Gestapo for 10 days. After paying a so-called “flight tax” of 42,000 Reichsmarks, he and his wife were able to leave Germany for Great Britain in 1939. Both relocated to Birmingham .

Rudolf Moos died here on October 9, 1951.

In his honor, a cross street was named after him near the former company headquarters in Horstweg in Potsdam-Babelsberg .

literature

• Karin Markert: Today the villa of the shoe king is on the exit of the expressway . Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung of May 8, 2012
• Rudolf Hugo Moos: Journey of Hope and Despair: Rise and Fall Memoirs of Rudolf Moss. Two volumes, Xlibris, 2010
• Irmgard Sedler: Under the sign of the salamander. Company history in personal reports , Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart 2014

Web links

• Rudolf Moos with Jews in Buchau

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jews in Buchau - Rudolf Moos accessed on December 25, 2013
2. ↑ Irmgard Sedler: In the sign of the salamander. Company history in self-reports. Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart 2014
3. ↑ Claus C. Russ: Jacques Russ and the true story about the Puma shoes, family documentation of the Russ family . Hidacht, Netherlands (copy in the author's possession)
4. ↑ 25th anniversary of the Haase & Ruß shoe factory in Nowawes, Schuhfabrikantenzeitung, 1925 edition p. 6
5. ↑ Karin Markert: The shoe king's villa is now on the exit of the expressway . Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung of May 8, 2012