Westerwald flower pot

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Flower pot, diameter 10 cm

The Westerwald flower pot is a special kind of utility ceramic .

Prehistory and origin

The production of ceramics can look back on a long tradition in the Kannenbäckerland , a region of the Westerwald . Until the end of the 15th century, only gray-brown tableware was produced, but with the immigration of families from Raeren and Siegburg, the quality of the products produced improved and the products expanded to include the luxury goods sector. This led to an upswing in the Westerwald stoneware , which lasted until porcelain was used . As a result, the manufacture of mineral water jugs and clay pipes in particular became very important, but the jug bakers were already very competitive among each other in the 17th century, until - in addition to the abolition of the guilds - the increasing use of glass bottles for mineral water in the 19th century forced many of the small producers to close down. They could not withstand the competition with larger companies.

These developments presented the ceramic producers in the Westerwald with new challenges at the beginning of the 20th century. One of those who took on these challenges was Wilhelm Spang, who in 1912 - after running a company that mainly specialized in clay pipes together with his brother Johann Peter - ran a stoneware factory in Baumbach, a district of what is now Ransbach-Baumbach established a wide range of products. In 1926, on the advice of the Ransbach wholesaler Alois Böhm, he produced the first clay flower pot there , which required a new mixture of yellow, red-burning clay and loam , which, thanks to the company's boss's willingness to experiment, could be achieved without major problems.

Further development

The production of cactus and ring pots experienced its first heyday between 1926 and 1928, but the production of ring pots was given up again in 1933 due to falling demand.

Wilhelm Spang made his first important business contact in the 1930s: Friedrich Klaes, a merchant and himself a flower pot manufacturer in East Germany. Through him, pot production increased, which prompted the company owner to think about specializing and gradually switch from stoneware to flower pots.

Pot production then experienced a further development boost through the collaboration with Julius Schreiber, a locksmith from southern Germany, whose "Schreiber presses" could now produce larger pots. Up until then, production was not very mechanized.

The beginning of the Second World War on September 1, 1939 forced the temporary abandonment of the production of flower pots and the production of so-called Raschig rings (= a kind of acid-proof packing).

After the war, the production of pots was resumed. In the period from 1950 to 1970, the gardeners' pots in particular, which were needed for growing plants and were 8 to 12 cm in size, were particularly popular. While the annual production in 1949 was 300,000 units, it was already 1,200,000 in 1956. This went hand in hand with constant modernization of the company: While the pots were pressed more or less by hand on presses at the beginning, the mechanization of pot production finally culminated in 2004 with the use of industrial robots . Hans Joachim Duvinage played a major role in this development. In addition to increasing production efficiency, it was also possible to improve the quality of the product itself: for example, the long-standing weaknesses in the pot rim could be eliminated.

In the 1980s, problems arose with growing delicate plants. It turned out that this was due to the pH value of the burned pots, which in turn came from the clay in a certain area, which had negatively influenced the pH values. In the future, this was used exclusively for larger pots and thus for plants that were already further developed.

The increasing use of plastic pots in the 80s and customer demand for terracotta caused major problems . This was countered with an expansion of the product range (size, shape, color, glaze).

export

Since the 1950s, the delivery area reached from Flensburg to Stuttgart and thus extended over a large part of western Germany. Customers were gardeners, seed dealers, but also hotels, restaurants, schools, companies or, for example, municipal horticultural offices. The times when the company owner himself supplied a catchment area of ​​only 30 km with the horse and cart were long gone.

In the 1950s he came into contact with Belgian companies. Business relationships with Dutch, English and Scandinavian companies followed. But it didn't stop there: In the meantime, flower pots from the Westerwald are exported to Canada, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and even South Africa as well as to large parts of Europe. This makes them one of the most successful products from Rhineland-Palatinate.

literature

  • Bärbel Bollinger-Spang: 100 years of Spang. A company story. Potsdam 2012.
  • Bärbel Bollinger-Spang: SPANG. Westerwald flower pot factory. Family and business. Plaidt 2012.
  • Bärbel Bollinger-Spang, Martin Kügler: From clay pipes to flower pots made of clay. In: Knasterkopf. Trade journal for clay pipes and historical tobacco consumption. Volume 15, 2002, pp. 79-84.
  • Martin Kügler: Rohstoff-Ton eG Tonbergbau 1898–2003. From the raw material association of the clay industrialists of the Unterwesterwaldkreis eGmbH to the raw material clay eG. Görlitz, Leipzig 2003.
  • Andreas Kuntz: Ceramics in the Kannenbäckerland. Product history in the context of regional identity creation. In: Folklore Case Studies. Profiles of empirical cultural research today. Edited by Burkhart Lauterbach and Christoph Köck. Münster [et al.] 1998 (Münchener Universitätsschriften. Munich Contributions to Folklore, Volume 22), pp. 153–164.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kuntz, Keramik, pp. 155f.
  2. ↑ Kuntz, Keramik, p. 175.
  3. ↑ Kügler, Rohstoff-Ton eG, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Kügler, Rohstoff-Ton eG, p. 12.
  5. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Tonpfeifen, p. 79.
  6. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Tonpfeifen, pp. 79f.
  7. ^ Bollinger-Spang, Tonpfeifen, pp. 80f; Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23.
  8. ^ Bollinger-Spang, Tonpfeifen, p. 82; Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23.
  9. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23; Bollinger-Spang, Flower Pot Factory, p. 94.
  10. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23.
  11. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23.
  12. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 95.
  13. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 103.
  14. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, pp. 105f.
  15. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 153.
  16. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 154.
  17. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23; Bollinger-Spang, flower pot factory, p. 155f.
  18. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 23; Bollinger-Spang, Flower Pot Factory, p. 198.
  19. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 199.
  20. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 15; Bollinger-Spang, Flower Pot Factory, p. 324.
  21. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 259.
  22. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 107.
  23. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 290.
  24. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 291.
  25. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 25.
  26. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 25.
  27. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 29.
  28. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 199.
  29. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 199.
  30. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 96.
  31. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, p. 313.
  32. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, pp. 314–317.
  33. ↑ Bollinger-Spang, 100 Years, p. 36f; Bollinger-Spang, Blumentopf-Fabrik, pp. 313–327.