Union Brewery Groß-Gerau

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The Union Brewery Groß-Gerau was a brewery founded in 1868 on what is now the “Alte Brauerei” industrial park in Frankfurter Straße 74 in the district town of Groß-Gerau . It existed from 1868 to 1967 and at the height of its success had an output of 100,000 hectoliters .

history

Marxsohn was the name of a long-established family of beer brewers from Königstädten . From this, Baruch Marxsohn registered a brewery on Frankfurter Strasse in Groß-Gerau on October 29, 1868. In 1863 he had already built a malt house in the same street, but still at the height of the inner city area at the time, opposite the old town hall and south of the railway line from Darmstadt to Mainz . However, since the premises there was too small, the actual brewery was built in front of the city gates at Frankfurter Strasse 74, north of the railway line, initially under the name “Park Brewery”.

The successors of Baruch Marxsohn renamed the company on January 9, 1897 as Union brewery. The following were registered as partners at the time: Baruch, Simon, Ferdinand, Ludwig and Albert Marxsohn, all in Groß-Gerau. From July 4, 1904, Ferdinand and Ludwig Marxsohn were the sole managing directors. Even before the First World War , an output of 50,000 hectoliters was achieved with a staff of around 80 employees.

During the Nazi era , the Jewish owners had to sell the company, partly because previous customers were no longer willing to buy beer from a Jewish company. From the files in the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden (HHStAW), which provide information about the long-term business relationships between the Marxsohn family and Friedrich Moritz Mainzer's law firm in Darmstadt , it can be seen that a purchase offer by Dr. August Oetker KG came, but for unknown reasons it did not lead to a deal. Negotiations then took place with Willy Kaus , which were sealed with a sales contract dated April 27, 1936. The Marxsohn brothers sold shares of 495,000 RM to Kaus for 306,000 RM, who also undertook to redeem a liability of 13,235.60 RM. In the later disputes with the Gross-Gerau tax office, however, a purchase price of RM 380,000 was mentioned several times.

Friedrich Mainzer, who provided legal advice to the Marxsohns in the negotiations with Kaus, wrote to Braunschweig-Hannoversche Hypothekenbank on July 28, 1936 in connection with mortgage redemptions: “Messrs. Marxsohn sold a good deal for a relatively small amount, while Mr. Kaus bought the business for a relatively low price. ”The share capital of the GmbH was actually 550,000 RM at the time, of which 212,500 RM each was held by Ferdinand and Ludwig Marxsohn, who were also GmbH managing directors, and 125,000 RM from Walter Marxsohn. In a court ruling against the Groß-Gerau tax office, which insisted on assessing the Reich flight tax at the value of 550,000, the tax court at the Hesse regional finance president ruled that from a share value of 440,000 RM (80% of 550,000 ) is to be assumed. Even in relation to this, the purchase price paid by Kaus was still very much to his advantage.

This Aryanization of the company by Kaus, who became the sole owner of the Union brewery a few years after the Second World War and incorporated it into a group of companies from a wide variety of economic sectors, apparently led to conflicts within the family, especially between Ferdinand and Ludwig Marxsohn, which also affected the relationships that had existed for decades burdened between Ferdinand Marxsohn and Friedrich Mainzer. The dispute was sparked when Mainzer presented Ferdinand Marxsohn on April 15, 1937 with a fee invoice for RM 254.34. The latter refused to pay, which is why Mainzer obtained an order for payment on September 24, 1937. Ferdinand Marxsohn's refusal was evidently based on the fact that, against the background of the dispute with his brother Ludwig, he feared that the recognition of the fee claim, which still related to services related to the sale of the company, would become "a precedent in the dispute between the brothers" create. Before, on April 24, 1937, Mainzer had described the background to the conflict from his point of view: “The son-in-law of Mr. Ferdinand Marxsohn, Reg.Rat retired Dr. Alfred Wolff in Darmstadt, was not satisfied with the negotiations and with the purchase; he was of the opinion that it would be more expedient to lease the business - a view that, for reasons that are no doubt understandable to you, I could not agree with. Dr. Alfred Wolff therefore spoke out quite sharply against the sale plans in the manner approved by all those involved and tried to get his father-in-law not to cooperate with the sale, an attempt which he failed. Now, after a year and a day, in my opinion at the instigation of Dr. Alfred Wolff, discrepancies arose between the brothers. "

It is not clear from the files whether the relations between the Marxsohn brothers have re-established themselves. In any case, there was no amicable agreement between Ferdinand Marxsohn and Friedrich Mainzer before his emigration. Mainzer, who had meanwhile increased his claim to 830.13 RM, offered Marxsohn a flat-rate payment of 500 RM on March 15, 1939. He wrote: “I did not have any disputes when my office was liquidated, and in particular I took every possible consideration of the situation of Jews. I would be extremely resistant to getting into an argument with you, with whom I had pleasant personal and professional relationships for decades, which, in my opinion, does not correspond to your wishes any more than it does mine. On the other hand, however, I cannot possibly submit to the dictates of the gentlemen advising you and I owe it to myself to bring the matter to a close. ”The files do not contain a reply from Marxsohn; Friedrich Mainzer emigrated to England a short time later.

In 1967 Kaus sold the Union brewery as well as the Heidelberg “Engelbräu”, which also belonged to him, and the Mülheim “Ibingbrauerei” to the Frankfurt Henninger brewery . At that time, Henninger willingly bought up annoying competition in the Frankfurt area in order to shut it down and increase its own share in the already hard-fought beer market. The Union brewery also had this fate. Most recently, the brewery had around 120 employees and had an output of 100,000 hectoliters of beer as well as a distribution area between Wiesbaden , Rheinhessen and Aschaffenburg .

Products

Produced and sold was exporting beer and Pils , a lager , a bright Bock beer (all year), the bock beer "Uniator" at Christmas time and the root beer "Univita". Added to this was the licensed production of lemonade from Bluna and Afri-Cola with an output of 30,000 hectoliters of non-alcoholic beverages. The "Union beverage industry" was responsible here (in advertisements also "Bluna beverage industry Groß-Gerau").

Brewery owner

  • Baruch Marxsohn (born 1831): the founder of the brewery died in 1913, his grave is in the Jewish cemetery in Groß-Gerau.
  • Ferdinand Marxsohn (born 1869): nephew of Baruch and brother of Ludwig. Expelled from Groß-Gerau in 1936, he first moved to Frankfurt and then lived briefly in Darmstadt. In 1942 he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and murdered there.
  • Ludwig Marxsohn (born 1870): nephew of Baruch and brother of Ferdinand, was able to flee to Jerusalem in 1939 and died there in 1945, shortly before the end of the war.
  • Willi Orschler (Wilhelm Orschler): died on the Eastern Front in 1943; his widow Brunhilde, b. Greve and his son Dieter Orschler each became ¼ heirs. In 1951, the partnership agreement between the widow Hilde Orschler, her son Dieter, and the company Kaus-Orschler were dissolved; from then on the brewery operated as Union brewery, owner W. Kaus Groß-Gerau.
  • Willy Kaus (Wilhelm Kaus; born 1900): was a German entrepreneur and industrialist. In the course of the expropriation measures of the Nazi regime directed against entrepreneurs of Jewish faith, Kaus acquired other companies in addition to the Union brewery. As a former military economic leader, Kaus went through the denazification process of the Allies after the Second World War and had to return a large part of the company shares he had acquired between 1933 and 1945. Kaus died in 1978.

Brewery site today

From 1985, the buildings on the former Union brewery site in the northern part of the city were gradually renovated. In the following years, the former brewery was converted into a business park with office and storage space. In 2008, 44 businesses were active here, mostly from the service sector. The “Alte Brauerei” business park consists of the former brewery tower and four other buildings.

In 2019 a "rebirth" of the Union brewery was announced.

swell

  • Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden: Advice, representation of Marxsohn by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. Wolf, signature: HHStAW, Abt. 474/3, no. 2409. The file provides information on the decades-long relationship between the Marxsohn family and Friedrich Moritz Mainzer's law firm in Darmstadt, which was only damaged in September 1937 due to internal family disputes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d HHStAW: advice, representation Marx son by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. wolf
  2. ↑ Willi Orschler's name does not appear in the sales contract. However, the files show that Walter Marxsohn, who was not the company's managing director, but only an employee, sold a smaller stake to a bank. It is not known whether this share was then passed on to Orschler.
  3. ↑ How long these relationships were, Mainzer mentioned on November 2, 1937 in a letter to the opposing lawyer Robert Rosenburg from Frankfurt: “The legal predecessors of Messrs Ferdinand and Ludwig Marxsohn were clients of the office of my father, who had died in 1911; Messrs. Ferdinand and Ludwig Marxsohn have not only been advised and represented by lawyers for decades, but there have also been very pleasant personal relationships. "(HHStAW: advice, Marxsohn's representation by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. Wolf)
  4. ^ Letter from Gutenstein, a lawyer working for Mainz, dated October 12, 1937, HHStAW: Advice, representation of Marxsohn by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. wolf
  5. ^ Letter from Mainzer to the lawyer Gutenstein who worked for him on April 24, 1937, HHStAW: Advice, representation of Marxsohn by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. wolf
  6. ↑ Letter to Ferdinand Mainzer Marx son of 15 March 1939 HHStAW: advice, representation Marx son by Dr. Mainzer and Dr. wolf
  7. ↑ Conversion and renovation of the “Alte Brauerei” industrial park , GFP Project Management, accessed on March 3, 2016.
  8. ↑ https://blogs.faz.net/bierblog/2018/04/19/ wiederbelebung-einer-brauerei-3368 /
  9. ↑ https://www.echo-online.de/lokales/kreis-gross-gerau/gross-gerau/heimat-auf-der-zunge-torsten-und-stephanie-witusch-haben-union-bier-zuruck_18249709
  10. ↑ https://www.main-spitze.de/lokales/kreis-gross-gerau/union-brauerei-wiedergeburt-nach-50-jahren_17684905#