Werner & Ehlers

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Bird's eye view of the 1890s on the then "feather and down-FACTORY Werner & Ehlers" (now the cultural center FIST ) in Linden
engraving of a letter head of the company at the time of August Werner

The Werner & Ehlers bed feathers and down factory in Hanover , a factory for the production and cleaning of feathers and down for bedding such as pillows , has developed over the course of around one and a half centuries since it was founded in the Kingdom of Hanover into one of the largest in its branch in Germany . Today, the FAUST cultural center can be found in the partly listed buildings in the Linden-Nord district of Hanover .

history

The later bed spring factory Werner & Ehlers was founded in 1861 by the merchant Wilhelm Theodor Werner , an uncle of August Werner (for genealogy see there). The first location of the company for cleaning and sorting the "raw feathers", which initially mostly came from Germany, was the village of List (today a district of Hanover).

The factory moved to Kirchwender Strasse in 1862, with the Hanover – Braunschweig railway in the background

In the following year, the company was relocated to Kirchwender Strasse in 1862 and was run there for several years together with the merchant Johann Ehlers (born August 20, 1823 in Balje ; † September 14, 1867 in Hanover). Since the factory's sales also increased during the industrialization period , raw feathers - which needed more cleaning - were imported from abroad , a larger factory was built and the cleaning process was intensified.

As early as 1910, the factory, here on the Ihme in Linden shortly before the Leine , had almost reached its largest size

After the proclamation of the German Empire and the subsequent founding period , August Werner (see above) took over the company in 1875 and over time developed it into one of the largest in its branch in Germany. As the demand for bed springs grew steadily, August Werner began importing springs from China in 1880 . But ten years later the premises were no longer sufficient; In 1890 the construction of a much larger factory began in what is now the Linden-Nord district. During this time of the previously largely undeveloped Nedderfeld north of Limmerstrasse , the chimney of the factory's boiler house, which was built around 1890, has been preserved to this day . The relocation to this former industrial area at the confluence of the Leine and the Ihme was also necessary because the cleaning of the bed feathers - especially the imported goods from China - required large amounts of water to prevent the harmful dust generation from being created here on the river bank was available indefinitely.

Advertisement from 1911 with the brand and the reference to purchasing in Greenland , China , Spain and Siberia and "selling all over the world"

After economic difficulties caused by the First World War and the German hyperinflation that escalated from the Weimar Republic to 1923 , the year 1929 was - despite the global economic crisis - the year of record sales in the history of Werner & Ehlers. In 1932, Werner Frucht, the fourth generation of the family business, took over management of the company. The time of National Socialism and the Nazi economic policy with its concentration on the war economy caused increasing problems, but Werner Frucht continued to run his business “with some success” until the air raids on Hanover “almost completely destroyed the factories” in World War II ". Fruit then continued to produce "at friendly companies in Soltau and Osnabrück ".

In the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany at the time of the economic miracle of the 1950s, the factory was rebuilt according to the latest technical standards, so that the company was again one of the leading German bed spring manufacturers in the following decade.

But despite the use of the largely fully automated processing lines , which brought savings for employees , the pressure of international competition and the beginning use of synthetic springs and continuous fibers among competitors for customers led to the insolvency of Werner & Ehlers in 1990 , where last only 30 employees were employed. The machines were eventually dismantled and sold by the insolvency administrator to a company in Hungary .

The area is now used by the FAUST cultural center, including the art gallery in the 1960s hall

As early as the following year, 1991, members of the FAUST association founded for this purpose - the abbreviation for factory conversion and urban culture - began to use a large part of the buildings on the former industrial site for their planned cultural center of the same name .

To commemorate the former industrial culture of the place, a street that used to lead across the factory site was named Zur Bettfedernfabrik in 1997 .

See also

Archival material

Archives of the former bed spring factory were only found in fragments from the period from 1861 to 1990, processed by a historian and handed over to the Hannover City Archives . Found objects such as tools or advertising signs are also kept in the archive of the Faust Cultural Center .

literature

Web links

Commons : Werner & Ehlers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Werner & Ehlers ... (see literature)
  2. ↑ a b Ilse Rüttgerodt-Riechmann: Factory Wilhelm-Bluhm-Straße 12 (see literature)
  3. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Werner, (1) ... (see literature)
  4. ^ Klaus Mlynek : List. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 411f.
  5. ^ Helmut Zimmermann : Limmerstrasse. In: The street names of the state capital Hanover , Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung , Hanover 1992, ISBN 3-7752-6120-6 , p. 161
  6. ↑ Helmut Plath , Herbert Mundhenke , Ewald Brix (arrangement): Erste Deutsche Daunenfabrik Kirchner & Griese KG., Hanover , in this: Home chronicle of the capital Hanover (= home chronicle of the cities and districts of the federal area , vol. 17), Cologne: Archive for Deutsche Heimatpflege GmbH, 1956, p. 366f.
  7. ↑ Jörg Djuren (board member): Archive .. (see section Weblinks )

Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 33.5 "  N , 9 ° 42 ′ 38"  E