Schöpflin (company)
Schöpflin was a German textile manufacturer and mail order company in Lörrach (Baden-Württemberg).
history
From the foundation to the beginning of the mail order business
The nucleus of the company was a general store ( "Manufakturwaren & Resten" ) owned by the married couple Wilhelm (1881–1952) and Wilhelmine Schöpflin, which they opened in Haagen in 1907 . Textile remnants from weaving mills in the Wiesental and Alsace were also sold here. During the First World War , Wilhelmine ran the shop alone because her husband was in the military. After the war it was difficult to expand the business and in 1923 the company came to the brink of ruin due to inflation.
With the entry into textile wholesaling in 1924, rapid growth began and in 1925 the sons joined the company. Before the global economic crisis in 1929 restricted Schöpflin lending to wholesale customers, and turned to the customer segment of end users. In 1930, Schöpflin founded a mail order company , which, according to the company, was initiated by a visit to a Parisian department store. In 1931 the textile manufacturer Wilhelm Schöpflin emerged , which also joined the Association of Mail Order Shops in Germany. In 1932 and 1934, extensions were built. In 1937 Schöpflin took over the textile outfitter AdW (equipment on the meadow) and a year later his former training company, the Grossmann brothers in Brombach, and thus also 62 company apartments. After the war, Schöpflin built more apartments for employees and founded Schöpflin Wohnbau GmbH .
In World War II
In 1941 Wilhelm Schöpflin took over the operational management of the company again, as his sons, Hans and Rudolf, were called up for military service. In 1944 the mail order business came to a complete standstill. In 1948 Hans and Rudolf Schöpflin came back and took over the management of the Schöpflin Group.
After the Gustavsburgstrasse plant of the Teves company in Frankfurt am Main was partially destroyed in March 1944, parts of war -related production were relocated to various plants in Baden, the largest of which was built in Brombach in the building belonging to Gebrüder Großmann AG, which belongs to the Schöpflin group. There, about 1000 employees (including about 700 foreign forced laborers) manufactured brakes and pistons for tanks.
On February 24 and 27, 1945, the Teves plant in Brombach was attacked by Allied bombers, severely damaging the plant, killing around 70 people and injuring 150 people.
In 1951 the Teves plant in Brombach was closed and a new plant was built in Gifhorn . The Alfred Teves GmbH, Brombach was one of those companies that do not at the foundation of the economy for compensation payments to forced laborers involved.
Bulk mail order company
In 1948 Hans Schöpflin (1906–1985), the founder's son, started a large mail-order company with a focus on textiles. Yarns, knitting and crochet wool, but also finished products such as carpets were offered. From the company's headquarters in the Haagen district, he advertised with slogans such as “Whoever honors the penny, goes to Haagen” or “Schöpflin Haagen - pass on”. The mail order company was taken over by Quelle in 1964 , with the Schöpflin brand name remaining for almost 40 years.
The logistics center for the Schöpflin mail order company in Lörrach was already operated in the early 1970s with fully automated conveyor technology controlled by computer using barcode readers. The crisis in the textile industry initially led to the closure of the spinning mill in 1976. After the German reunification in 1989, a shipping location was set up in Bücknitz (Brandenburg). This location was retained until the company closed.
Abandonment of independence
At the beginning of the 1960s, on the one hand, they were looking for a strong partner to significantly expand the shipping range and, on the other hand, the question of succession in the family company arose. None of Hans Schöpflin's three children showed any ambition to take over the management. Neckermann, Otto, but also American mail order companies showed interest and visited the mail order company Schöpflin. Ultimately, however, they came to a conclusion with the Schickedanz family and their Quelle mail order company . In 1964 Quelle initially took over 74.9% of Schöpflin at a price that was never mentioned. In 1967 the family also sold the remaining shares in Quelle. The Schöpflin brand name was retained for almost 40 years.
closure
The competition among mail order companies also put the Schöpflin company in distress. According to the report of a management consultant who was supposed to work out a restructuring proposal, about a third of all goods were returned by Schöpflin customers. The announcement to give up the location in Lörrach in 1999 led to violent disputes, including leaving the church and calling for a boycott against the parent company Quelle. The decision made by the Quelle management meant temporarily empty factory, office and commercial buildings for the place. Until the end, the dispatch took place from the Bücknitz location. In 1999 the merger with Quelle GmbH took place.
After the closure of the large mail order company Schöpflin GmbH, the company Mode & Preis Versandhandels GmbH took over its business premises and some of the employees. Mode & Preis achieved annual sales of almost 150 million euros in 2005 with 110 employees. Mode & Preis was initially taken over by the Munich investment company Aurelius and closed in early 2010.
Catalogs
The catalog of the mail-order company was printed twice a year with over 2 million copies with over 500 pages (1974) and 27,000 articles, with clothing items dominating. The last SCHÖPFLIN catalog from Lörrach-Brombach was the spring / summer 1999 edition. In the autumn / winter 1999/2000 season, a comprehensive QUELLE special catalog was then published with the title Der neue SCHÖPFLIN , whose goods were then available from QUELLE were to be ordered. Quelle also published a catalog for spring / summer 2000 and autumn / winter 2000/1 .
Others
Wilhelm and Hans Schöpflin are honorary citizens of Lörrach . With his siblings Albert and Heidi, Hans Schöpflin founded the independent, non-profit Schöpflin Foundation in 2001 .
literature
- Karl-Heinz Klettke: Nine decades of Schöpflin. The rise and fall of a trading company. In: Badische Heimat , Volume 82, issue 4/2002, pp. 700–704
- Petra Böttcher: Closure of the large mail order company Schöpflin. People make history. In: Badische Heimat , Vol. 82, issue 4/2002, pp. 705–718
- Manfred Poisel: Schöpflin - 50 years of wholesale. The large mail order company with over 2 million customers and a chain of modern shopping centers. In: Unser Lörrach 1974 , pp. 22–31
- Large mail order company Schöpflin GmbH, Loerrach . In: The district of Lörrach. Brief company biographies, Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, pp. 406-407
- Schöpflin-Haagen . In: The district of Lörrach. Brief company biographies, Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart and Aalen 1971, pp. 265–266
- Max Eli, Helmut Laumer: The mail order business. Structure and growth in international comparison. Berlin and Munich, 1970, p. 36 Google Books
- Haagen municipality (ed.), Fritz Schülin: Rötteln-Haagen , 1965, pp. 352–356
- Wolfgang Göckel: Schöpflin at the end. In: Lörrach 1999. Lörracher yearbook with chronicle from October 1, 1998 to September 30, 1999, pp. 68–76
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klettke p. 700
- ↑ see Schülin p. 355
- ^ Roland Peter: Armaments policy in Baden: War economy and labor in a border region in the Second World War. , Munich, 1995, p. 171 Google Books
- ↑ www.frankfurter-info.org
- ↑ see Badische Zeitung; other representations speak of 29 or 40 dead
- ↑ www.archivportal-d.de
- ↑ Economy is indifferent to work slaves. In: Stattzeitung für Südbaden issue 44, 2000-11
- ↑ "With an optimistic view of the future". In: Badische Zeitung of March 27, 1975, p. 11.
- ↑ see Göckel p. 171
- ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp: anger without sin . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1999, p. 52-55 ( online ).
- ↑ From the village history of Haagens - "Who honors the penny, goes to Haagen" on the homepage of the city of Lörrach ( Memento from May 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Sabine Ehrentreich: The mail order story did not end well. In: Badische Zeitung from January 5, 2011
- ↑ Valid until the end of January 2000
- ↑ Valid until the end of August 2000
- ↑ Valid until the end of January 2001
- ↑ the grandson of the company founder
- ↑ Homepage of the foundation ; Werkraum-schoepflin homepage (an institution of the Schöpflin Foundation)