Thust
The company W. Thust KG. was founded in 1819 in Gnadenfrei , which belonged to the Reichenbach district , by a 15-year-old stonemason. It originated in western Silesia and was for a time one of the largest stone cutting companies in Germany. The company is considered to be the specialist for marble processing and, above all, for the production of designed tombs for the artisanal stonemasonry to this day (2008). The company developed into a medium-sized enterprise even before the founding period; Before the Second World War it was one of the ten largest stone processing companies in Germany. At the end of the Second World War, the company headquarters had to be relocated to Balduinstein an der Lahn, as all property in eastern Germany was lost. After the reunification in Germany, the company opened a new, independent part of the business in Merseburg in Saxony-Anhalt, which has now been combined with the Balduinstein plant to form THUST STEIN GmbH .
founding
The founder of today's W. Thust KG was Carl Christian Thust , who was born in Gnadenfrei in 1804. He was the eighth child of a village blacksmith who died 14 days before Carl Christian was born. The child grew up in poor conditions and could only attend the village school. At the age of 10 the child became an apprentice stonemason and since his master refused to lead the almost 15-year-old to the journeyman's examination, he decided in 1819 to set up his own stonemasonry. Despite the uncertain economic situation, it developed positively. As early as 1863 a steam engine was procured to drive the stone saws and stone grinding machines. Thust also opened up his own marble quarries and the stone waste was profitably burned to lime in lime kilns . In 1870 the Thust company had almost 100 employees. Carl Christian Thust handed the business over to his sons Woldemar and Reinhold . In 1892 the C. Thust company bought the Groß-Kunzendorfer marble quarries from Gnadenfrei. To reduce transport costs for marble the twelve-kilometer railway line linking was Velké Kunětice (United Kunz village) and Nowy Świętów (German bet), which became operational on 15 November 1894 and a connection to the railway lines between Nysa and Neustadt or Ziegenhals created .
Development into a stone industry
After the purchase, the company operated seven marble quarries. The quarries formed the solid basis for further economic development. Reinhold took over the business in Groß-Kunzendorf and Woldemar in Gnadenfrei.
The engineer Hans Thust took over the business of his father Woldemar in Groß-Kunzendorf. After Reinhold Thust's takeover of the business by his son Willibald Thust , it became clear that he was very business-minded and in 1897 he took over the business from Hans and was renamed the W. Thust company. Willibald Thust recognized that in addition to production, targeted commercial sales would play a major role in the future. The company carried a wide range of marble products: from stairs, door and window frames, fountains and cattle troughs to marble washstands with mirrors built into the marble back wall, marble soap containers and bathroom cladding. Sarcophagi were also made for the kings of Prussia.
A remarkable demand developed for a new mass product due to advancing electrification, which is largely unknown today. Control panels made of incombustible marble were required, the production of which would become important for the operation in the later course of time.
With the progressive development of social conditions in the early days , wealthy middle classes emerged. These conditions resulted in a need for tombs made of natural stone , which was previously reserved for aristocrats and wealthy citizens. The company served this growing market with marble tombs from both western Silesia and Carrara marble from Carrara in Italy. This soft rock came to Silesia by sea and through the now existing railway network. Thust developed into the largest producer of tombs in Germany and when the demand for tombs changed from the light marbles to the black, glossy basalts from Sweden, which can still be seen in cemeteries, Thust switched the company to hard stone processing . The resulting sales success combined with a considerable increase in liquid funds made it possible in 1908 to demolish the old workshop building and build a new one with a diamond gang saw with straight saw blades 4.00 meters in length. A, for the time, highly technical machine with new possibilities for the production of large-format stone slabs. Willibald Thust also reacted appropriately to the change in purchasing behavior, which resulted in the move away from the overloaded forms of tombs to so-called “modern tombs” with clear shapes. He took part in the first tomb exhibition in Germany in 1913 in Breslau with newly shaped stones and produced according to customer requirements.
Willibald was well versed in business and knew that marble electrical panels would be destroyed in the impending war and that fertilizer lime was needed to increase food production. It turned out that the funds for the purchase of the marble quarries were well spent. After the end of the First World War, he was able to open a granite quarry in Schönheide near Gnadenfrei and invest in a new hall with new machines. He also founded a pension fund in 1923, which made grants to the workforce in the event of illness and pension payments in order to establish social peace. Since 1927 a magazine of the company Aus Steinen Bread , which appears irregularly to this day, has been published for the first time.
In Lipová-Lázně (Oberlindewiese) land for marble quarrying was bought and quarries were set up in Groß-Mohrau on Glatzer Schneeberg and in Muhrau near Striegau as well as a granite quarry in the Giant Mountains. At Kratzdorf the emerald green serpentinite Altvatergrün , at Levice -Leva the so-called gold onyx , an onyx marble , was extracted in separate quarries. Another quarry in Seitenberg is mentioned in the brochure From Stones Bread . In 1927 Thust bought a stone factory in Balduinstein. This decision should be of great importance for the continued existence of the company. During the Great Depression of 1929, marble sales fell by 25 percent and sales of tombs by 50 percent. The situation of the company only improved in 1934 when the company received an order for the Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and for the swimming pool on the Berlin Reichssportfeld . In 1936 there was an order for the construction of the Nuremberg Congress Hall from Rübezahl granite, for which 350 workers were needed in the Giant Mountains quarry in the Szklarska Poreba branch . In addition, 32 apprentices were hired. Despite these voluminous orders from the Nazi government, the focus of activities continued to be the tomb business with the master stonemasons until the beginning of the Second World War. Here, too, Willibald Thust recognized the signs of the times and changed its name from a sole proprietorship to a family business at the beginning of the war.
New beginning after 1945
This decision was of little help to Willibald Thust, because at the end of the Second World War the company headquarters had to be relocated to Balduinstein an der Lahn because all of the property in eastern Germany was lost. After 1945, the Balduinstein plant was rebuilt with its own staff. It was ensured that former employees moved in and rented residential buildings in Geilnau for accommodation and built company apartments . The lack of access to their own stone material was a major competitive problem and the attempt to open a diabase quarry 100 kilometers away failed. The lack of own breaks with long-established stone-processing companies hindered progress in competition considerably in the post-war years. Only after the currency reform and after 1950 was it possible to move forward with the sale of tombstones made of materials from the Ticino area . In 1957 the machine park was modernized and Wolfgang Thust took over from Dr. Werner Thust the management.
After the reunification, Wolfgang Thust founded another company in Merseburg in Saxony-Anhalt, which has since been combined with the branch in Balduinstein to form Thust GmbH . The company has been operating under the name "THUST STEIN GmbH" since 2006 and today employs around 30 people at both locations.
Up to the present day, the company has been characterized by a modern choice of tomb shape that is tailored to the respective needs. Thust employed nationally recognized stone sculptors as designers in his company in Balduinstein, who influenced the design of tombs in the Federal Republic. Wolfgang Thust continuously organized symposia for sculptors, art students and his own apprentices in Balduinstein. Wolfgang Thust is a member of the board of trustees at the Leitfriedhof Nürnberg, where designed tombstones are exhibited. The company always trained its own offspring either as merchants or as stone masons. Numerous exhibition participations in federal horticultural shows , numerous prizes and awards for designed grave monuments over the years represent the successful creative drive. Only stonemasonry companies and no end consumers are supplied.
Working in public space (selection)
In addition to numerous grave monuments, works can be found in public spaces:
- Staircase of the Bochum town hall
- Candelabra in the wedding hall of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin with a diameter of 90 cm made of gold onyx
- Solid stone steps for the Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg made of Jura marble and Rübezahl granite slabs 1.10 ›‹ 1.10 ›‹ 0.10 meters for the deployment field
- Pool surround for the swimming pool in the indoor swimming pool on the Reichssportfeld Berlin made of Groß-Kunzendorfer marble (1936)
- Nuremberg congress hall made of Rübezahl granite with columns 8 meters long and 1.40 meters in diameter (1936)
- Sculpture in front of the first canning factory, the Züchner company , in Seesen : "The canning can was born"
- Memorial stone in Bad Harzburg for the partnership between Bad Harzburg and Szklarska Poręba (Schreiberhau) (1990): Rübezahl-Granit
Web links
literature
- W. Thust KG (ed.): W . Thust KG. Natural stone factory. 150 years of the fate of the natural stone company THUST. A piece of German history lived. Rhedruck, Boppard o. J. (1969)
- Bread from Stones, No. 45, December 1990