Wienstroth & Hammans

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Wienstroth & Hammans was a folding box factory in the Düren area .

The period between 1890 and 1914, which is known as the Wilhelminian era , in this highly eventful and progressive time, the merchants Ernst Hubert Hammans and Gustav Wienstroth founded a factory for folding boxes and cardboard boxes in Düren in 1893 .

Both entrepreneurs originally came from a large textile factory in Wuppertal , where one of the technical managers and Ernst Hubert Hammans was the commercial manager of the cardboard department. At that time, the Düren economic area, and especially the city, experienced an unprecedented industrial boom. Düren itself became one of the richest cities in Germany considering its population.

Around 1890 a real start-up fever broke out here . Even in the early days of the founding of Wienstroth & Hammans, cardboard boxes were not only a protective cover, but also advertising material and a symbol of the consumer goods industry. Just four years after the company was founded, production and sales had increased so much that the old rooms in Gutenbergstrasse were no longer sufficient and a spatial change was necessary. Therefore, in 1897 the company was moved to Birkesdorf on Bretzelnweg No. 15 to a new factory building acquired there , which was previously a dressing material factory .

1897 was also the year when another owner, Hubert Gasper, joined the company. The company changed its name from now on under the name "Dürener carton factory Wienstroth & Hammans GmbH". Numerous new, larger and more powerful machines have been installed in the new rooms in Birkesdorf. The expansion of the German economy, especially the consumer goods industry, brought the Düren folding box factory constant new tasks.

The industrial age, which began for Wienstroth & Hammans with the acquisition of a steam engine in 1897, had not reached its first climax, as everywhere in Germany. Another item was added to the production program with the manufacture of letterhead cassettes. The rapid growth of the company soon made it necessary to expand the premises again.

In 1907 the company was expanded to include a large production hall and in 1913 a storage and machine room was added. The constant expansion of the folding box and cardboard box production led to the first high point in the development of the young company until 1914.

Its foundations seemed solid and the future secure. The First World War shook the entire political, economic and social life in the German Reich . Due to the stagnation in the consumer goods industry in these years, further expansion of the company and production was out of the question. The political, economic and social unrest of the post-war period brought the company few orders. The revolutionary unrest that had ruled Düren since November 8, 1918 and the occupation of the city and district by the English troops on December 4, 1918, further exacerbated the situation. During this time that was not very promising, there was a personnel and legal change in the Düren folding box factory "Wienstroth & Hammans GmbH". Ernst Hubert Hammans and Hubert Gaspers both intended to take their sons into the company, which had to lead to the reorganization of the company. In 1920, Ernst Hubert Hammans left the company with his sons Ernst and Paul and founded a new company under the name Ernst Hammans, Faltschachtel- und Kartonagenfabrik. The new company initially established itself in provisional accommodation on Schenkelstrasse and in 1922 moved to a new building on the property at Veldener Strasse 20-22, which previously housed the Te Kamp iron shop.

The year 1928 is of far-reaching significance for the company's history. In this year the management decided to completely stop the cardboard box production for the purpose of specialization and to operate the folding box production more intensively. This marked a decisive turning point in the company's production program. So you put z. B. color-printed folding boxes for Lindt and Stollwerck .

The switch to folding boxes and their large-scale production was slowed down by Black Friday on October 25, 1929 on the New York Stock Exchange and the financial crisis that made itself felt as far as Düren. During this time Ernst Hammans took over the overall management, while his brother, Dr. Paul Hammans, left the company in 1923. After 1944 the company moved to Stockheim and was later sold in order to continue to produce folding boxes under the name Rotopack . Today the company is owned by Multi Packaging Solutions .

swell

  • Hammans, EG: The folding box - its shape, manufacture and use. - In: Allgemeine Papier-Rundschau. - (1954) 11. - pp. 575-579