Solo igniters
SOLO Zündwaren- und Wichsefabrik AG was an Austrian manufacturer of ignition goods founded in 1903 , whose roots go back to the middle of the 19th century. During its heyday, the company supplied all of Central Europe as well as parts of India , China and the Ottoman Empire with a wide variety of types of matches.
Zündwarenfabrik Deutschlandsberg (1856–1861)
In 1850 Florian Pojatzi , son of a merchant from Friuli who immigrated to Deutschlandsberg , took over his father's general store when he was only 20 years old.
Pojatzi saw a good chance of building up a second mainstay in the local resources (wood). Therefore, from 1855, he completed an apprenticeship to manufacture matches at the Römer'schen match factory in Vienna .
On June 21, 1856, Pojatzi asked the district authorities for permission to manufacture matches. The permit was granted on June 28, 1856. The commercial operation, which was initially housed in the specially rented Appolthaus in Hörburg, was not registered with the commercial court. The 40-year-old Johann Eisenhut, a former employee in Pojatzi's training company, was an active partner. In the first few years, production was still on a modest scale. Mainly ordinary sulphurized phosphorus woods were produced, but also salon fuses, in which fragrant rosin was used instead of sulfur . The sales area was still locally limited and hardly went beyond Styria , the Drautal and the Lavanttal.
An increasing demand for matches, the increasing number of people willing to work and an expiring lease for the Appolt House prompted Pojatzi to make a fresh start. He decided to build a new facility on the fields in his possession in the area of Fabrikstrasse. The picking took place in April 1861 and in December the new factory, the company Florian Pojatzi & Comp., Went into operation.
Fl. Pojatzi & Co. (1861–1903)
With the aim of expanding the sales market, Pojatzi decided to redistribute the competencies in his company. He himself took over the commercial management and the determination of new sales markets, while Johann Eisenhut was responsible for the technical management of the factory. The workforce grew from 22 to 50 people within two years, which made a more streamlined organization inevitable. In Carl Franz, Pojatzi found a competent employee and at the same time a financially strong partner who brought with him a contribution of 3,000 guilders (approx. 40,000 euros). In 1864 the match factory was entered as an open company in the commercial register. Thanks to intensive negotiations with Italian, Chinese and Ottoman interested parties, the sales areas could be expanded significantly.
The company soon had 250 employees and the demand for matches continued to grow. The only problem, the complicated and costly transport by horse-drawn vehicle to Lebring to the southern railway, Pojatzi knew how to solve through clever negotiations, which led to the fact that a railway line originally planned via Frauental instead ran directly via Deutschlandsberg. His commitment was rewarded by the state in 1870 with the fact that his company led the imperial eagle and changed the company name to "kk privileged Zündwarenfabrik in Deutschlandsberg near Graz from Fl. Pojatzi & Comp “was allowed to change. The beehive brand, the new brand of the match factory, achieved world fame in the following years. In 1888 Pojatzi exported 1.44 billion matches to China alone via Trieste and Hong Kong.
In 1872 Johann Eisenhut left the company, after which it was converted into a limited partnership. A year later, Franz Czerweny, Pojatzi's son-in-law, who had just married into the family, received extensive skills. From 1879 Czerweny took over commercial management together with Pojatzi, while Carl Franz continued to be the technical director. The company gained capital and influence thanks to the good order situation, so that in 1881 the Kollmann ignition goods factory in Stallhof near Stainz was bought.
After Florian Pojatzi withdrew from active involvement in the company in 1892, a new constitution was necessary. At the time, the company consisted of two public partners, Franz Czerweny von Arland and Carl Franz, each with a contribution of 320,000 guilders (approx. 4.3 million euros), and four silent partners, Florian Pojatzi, his son-in-law Adolf Bracher, Leopold Vianello, and Leopold Link.
Great economic difficulties resulting from the establishment of numerous match factories in Europe led Franz Czerweny to delete the company from the commercial register in 1899 and to start a sole proprietorship with him as owner. In order to eliminate the competition between Austrian factories, a sales cartel was founded in 1900, but it was not very successful. In 1901, therefore, the six largest Austrian match factories merged to form their own cartel, in order from then on to handle the joint sale of their products through a sales stock corporation, the ignition goods section of the Austrian Länderbank in Vienna.
Although this eliminated competition in their own country, Swedish, English, Italian and Russian match companies were now pushing into the sales areas previously reserved for the Austrians. At the initiative of Franz Czerweny, negotiations were initiated, which resulted in the establishment of “SOLO - Zündwaren- und Wichsefabriken AG” on January 1st, 1903. The factories in Stainz and Deutschlandsberg became the property of SOLO AG at the same time.
The SOLO Zündwaren- und Wichsefabriken AG (1903-1924) and SOLO Zündwaren- und Chemische Fabriken AG (1924–1982)
The share capital of the new SOLO AG amounted to 5,340,000 crowns. This corresponds to a current market value of around 71,556,000 euros. 26,700 shares were issued, each worth 200 kroner (approx. 2,700 euros). The following companies, including all buildings and systems, machines, trademarks and design rights, customers, trade licenses and patents, with the exception of patents on match machine machines, entered the group:
| For factory and accessories | For brands, samples, customers | total | ||
| Bernard Fuerth | Schüttenhofen (today's Sušice ) | 1,150,000 | 350,000 | 1,500,000 |
| Fl. Pojatzi & Co | Deutschlandsberg, Stainz | 1,050,000 | 350,000 | 1,400,000 |
| "Union" United match and wax factories (Augsburg) | Linz branch | 900,000 | 300,000 | 1,200,000 |
| Adalbert Scheinost | Schüttenhofen | 500,000 | 140,000 | 640,000 |
| Julius Krepesch | Graz | 230,000 | 70,000 | 300,000 |
| Emil Lebherz | Gorizia | 230,000 | 70,000 | 300,000 |
| Share capital: 5,340,000 | ||||
Illustration
In total, these six companies produced around 80 billion matches annually. They represented around 70 percent of total production in what was then Austria.
For reasons of objectivity, the Presidium took over the Austrian Länderbank. The three largest shareholders, Pojatzi, Fürth and Union, each had two supervisory boards, the smaller companies one each. Franz Czerweny and Bernhard Fürth were responsible for managing the administrative headquarters in Vienna. Both resigned in 1913. Robert Czerweny von Arland became director of the head office and Ernst Fürth became general director of the group.
The entry into force of the white phosphorus ban in 1912 and the associated founding of HELIOS-Zündwaren AG by the state of Austria marked an important turning point in SOLO's history. In order to avoid competition, SOLO gave HELIOS 200,000 crowns each for ten years.
In the course of the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918, a reorganization of the group was necessary, as the majority of the operations were now located on the territory of the new state of Czechoslovakia . SOLO and HELIOS were merged and split into a Czech and an Austrian SOLO. General director Ernst Fürth took over the management of both companies. The Austrian SOLO included the factories in Deutschlandsberg, Stainz and Linz.
The rival companies ORION in St. Pölten, SIRIUS in Klagenfurt and VULKAN in Salzburg were established between the two world wars. While SOLO managed to buy ORION, only sales contracts were concluded with the other two. The factory in Stainz, which was shut down in 1928, fell victim to this competitive pressure.
To secure production, the SOLO also employed prisoners of war during the Second World War . In addition to matches, they also made rubbing surfaces for hand grenades and fuses.
After the war ended, SOLO resumed production as far as possible under Director Mnestjan. In 1950 700 workers produced 1,263,000 boxes, compared to 440,000 boxes with 500 workers in 1921.
Except for a few years, the corporation always paid dividends between 1921 and 1970. However, the abolition of the match monopoly in 1954 and the liberalization of the match market in 1964 led, reinforced by the increasingly popular lighter, to such fierce competition that the shareholders of SOLO AG decided to liquidate the company in 1972. This finally sealed the end of the match factory in Deutschlandsberg. The company closed on March 31, 1982.
Individual evidence
- ↑ L. Reichenwallner: Chronicle of the Deutschlandsberg factory, the "SOLO" Zündwaren u. chem. Factories A.-G. Vienna. D.-Landsberg 1930, p. 42 ff.
- ↑ Commissioning protocol 1861, Stadtgemeindearchiv Deutschlandsberg
- ↑ a b c d calculation according to [1]
- ↑ L. Reichenwallner (1930): p. 49 ff.
- ^ Josef Fleischhacker: Styrian companies on the world market based on company labels at the turn of the century (unprinted social and economic diploma thesis), University of Graz 1991
- ↑ L. Reichenwallner (1930): p. 58 ff.
- ↑ Dr. Anton Emil Aubauer, The concentration in the Austrian match industry since its foundation (1923): S: 74ff.
- ↑ L. Reichenwallner (1930): p. 78 f.