Thuringian wineries in Gotha

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The Thuringian wineries GmbH Gotha was a company that until 2009 in Thuringia, Gotha wine , vermouth produced and other alcoholic beverages. It was one of the city's numerous traditional companies.

history

From the foundation to 1945

Since 1927, the Fritz Köllner trading agency, founded a year earlier in Waltershausen , had its headquarters at Stielerstraße 4 in Gotha. She led u. a. Italian luxury foods and wines and was thus the origin of the Thuringian Wine Cellars GmbH Gotha. Since the National Socialists could no longer import luxury foods in 1933 , but still wanted to produce Italian luxury foods in Germany according to original recipes, a joint venture with the Italian Dr. Italo Brosio founded the German-Italian company Rolando & Co. GmbH Gotha. The German share was 49% in Rolando & Co. Gotha. The recipes from the parent company Trinccheri & Brosio were taken over by the Rolando company.

In 1934 the construction of the plant in Gotha began. Italian cellar masters and skilled cellar workers were brought to Germany in order to use the cellar-technical knowledge in Germany as quickly as possible. When the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, it initially had no impact on production and trade. But in September 1943 Italy was declared an enemy nation by Germany through the armistice between Italy, England and the USA . The Italian employees were interned. In order to get the employees free again, the purely German company Edelobstbrennerei Friedenstein GmbH was founded, which applied for labor but did not receive it. Thereupon the management referred to the interned Italian employees, vouched for them and obtained a right of residence on the company premises. The new company processed fruit from the Fahner Heights .

From 1945 to 1990

When the Allies marched into Gotha in April 1945, production was continued under the supervision of the occupying powers. The crew change took place in June. Representatives from both sides met in front of the plant in Gotha. The Red Army replaced the Americans and also took over the guarding of the factory. Nevertheless, spirits were stolen again and again. Fritz Köllner then filled some bottles with colored water and set them up so that they could be easily seen by possible thieves. The next day, the Soviet military commander in Gothas, furiously, threw several bottles of schnapps on the walls of his office in the commandant's office in Gotha Castle Friedrichsthal . In 1947, the commanding general in Thuringia banned the distilling of dessert fruit. In order to survive, so-called consumer spirits, such as B. Double juniper and liqueurs made from flavors and distillates.

A year later, the Rolando & Co. company was expropriated for the first time and returned shortly afterwards because the grounds for expropriation did not apply. In 1950 and 1952, the company was expropriated again and renamed the VEB (K) Spirituosenfabrik Gotha. The company was expropriated because of the existing bottle caps and tank fittings. The crime was then called "non-ferrous metal hoarding". At that time there were no bottle caps made of plastic, but made of tinfoil , a non-ferrous metal. The inspectors from the "People's Control" objected to the possession of these non-ferrous metals, which, however, were necessary for production. Fritz Köllner was sentenced to one year in prison by the responsible court in Erfurt . After his pre-trial detention and another imminent imprisonment, he fled via Berlin to the Federal Republic of Germany. Now only the German shares of Rolando & Co. and Edelobstbrennerei Friedenstein GmbH were expropriated, i.e. the share of the Köllner family. The Italian shares continued to exist and the Rolando company existed until 1972, but was minimized by steadily reducing production. The rest of the Italian company Rolando was bought in 1972 by the VEB United Thuringian Wine Cellars for 30,000 marks from the GDR . The money was parked in a trust account of the State Bank of the GDR , but never arrived in Italy.

Vermouth production, which began in Gotha at the end of the 1950s, was started together with a Yugoslav partner company in Zagreb . The Gothaers then developed a vermouth from this base wine according to traditional recipes from Rolando & Co. Since they did not want to risk conflicts with Italy, the name Rolando was abandoned. The resulting vermouth was initially called "Gotha-Vermouth" from 1962, from which the brand "GOTHANO" and finally GOTANO emerged. The Dresden writer Durs Grünbein claims in his autobiographical novel The Years in the Zoo that his grandfather Walter was involved in the development of the recipe. In the Ulbricht era, the motto was “overtaking without overtaking”. The socialist states also sought competition with the West in the field of consumer goods production. In this way, GDR products were also to gain world renown. An administrative officer who is not known today therefore worked on an Anglicised variant for the name of the product and invented the spelling of "Gotano", but without the "h", in order to ensure problem-free pronunciation in English.

In 1972, the Stadtilm apple cellar, the Bad Langensalza sparkling wine cellar and the Gotha wine cellar merged to form the VEB United Thuringian Wine Cellars. This three-way network was dissolved by the Treuhand in 1990. The imported wine bottling plant separated from the company, so that only the plant in Gotha remained in its original structure. He had made a good name for himself during the GDR era and was the only one of six vermouth producers in the GDR to survive the fall of the Wall . The company owed its survival to the managing directors in GDR times, as they refused to pass on the recipes to other combine companies. This led to VEB Vereinigte Thüringer Weinkellereien having a market share of 75%.

From 1990 to 2009

In 1990 the Thüringer Weinkellereien GmbH was founded in Gotha. The market was lost to over 90% and was laboriously recaptured by the later managing director Beate Schmidt and her team. In 1993 the re-privatization took place after more than 100 days of negotiation with the trust . On December 22, 1993, retroactively to January 1, 1993. By 1996, over 60% of the retail chains were acquired as customers. With the doubling of the inter-product tax, there was a dramatic 50% drop in production at Vermouth. In 1997, the company expanded the vermouth range to include products that were not subject to inter-product tax and which came onto the market under the name "GOTANO COOL".

Since 1993 Fritz Köllner's son, Rüdiger Köllner, has been part of the company's management as a managing partner in the field of marketing and sales. The range was greatly expanded from 1997 and comprised 48 products in eight product lines in 2009, the last year of production. In order to reduce the dependence on the large retail chains, new sales channels have been opened up since 2002. GOTANO was also exported on a small scale. In 2008 GOTANO was the No. 3 vermouth supplier on the German market, and No. 2 in trade in the new federal states.

In December 2009, the Thuringian Wine Cellars Gotha GmbH filed for bankruptcy, production was stopped and the company was dissolved after 82 years at the Gotha site.

After 2009

After the bankruptcy of the Thuringian Wine Cellars Gotha GmbH, the trademark rights went to GOTANO GmbH in Suhl. On July 18, 2012, the 9,000 square meter property of the former Thuringian Wine Cellars Gotha GmbH went to an investor for 245,000 euros as part of a foreclosure auction at the Gotha District Court . What will be built after the demolition of the old production building on the wasteland between Mozartstrasse, Enckestrasse and Stielerstrasse is still unclear. After several smaller fires that could be extinguished, the roof of the warehouse burned down completely on the night of May 8, 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GOTANO tradition. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Gotano fallow land in Gotha now has new owners. Thüringer Allgemeine, July 27, 2012, accessed on January 24, 2017 .
  3. ↑ GOTANO tradition. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Gotano fallow land in Gotha now has new owners. Thüringer Allgemeine, July 27, 2012, accessed on January 24, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Lothar Bertels (ed.): Gotha im Wandel 1990-2012: Transformation of an East German Mittelstadt . Springer-Verlag, 2014, p. 227 .
  6. ^ Durs Grünbein: The years in the zoo . 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​2017, ISBN 978-3-518-46818-0 , pp. 390 .
  7. ↑ Polarized exhibition “Drinking Culture in the GDR” in Jena. Thüringer Landeszeitung, April 14, 2014, accessed on January 24, 2017 .
  8. ^ Michael Keller: Hot bidding battle for Gotano fallow land , in: Gothaer Tagespost, July 27, 2012

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