User:Eli185/Adler & Oppenheimer

Adler & Oppenheimer was for a time the largest corporation in the European leather industry. Adler & Oppenheimer Aktiengesellschaft was the commercial center of the group. Colloquially, the group and the stock corporation were known as A & O. The company was founded in Strasbourg in 1872 and was a stock corporation from 1900. The company headquarters were moved to Berlin in 1920. Major operating sites of the AG existed in Neustadt-Glewe and in Neumünster. Other important Group operating sites were in Oisterwijk (Netherlands), Wiltz (Luxembourg) and Littleborough near Manchester. The majority in the group was held by the German-Jewish owner families Adler and Oppenheimer. From 1919/20, the legal core of the A & O Group was N.V. Amsterdamsche Leder Maatschappij (Almi), which largely functioned as a holding company. The renaming of Adler & Oppenheimer AG to Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG in 1940/41 was connected with the Aryanization of the company.

The post-war history of the largely restituted Western European plants was marked from around 1960 by an increasingly existential crisis in the leather industry, which led to the closure of the plants. Only in the successor company in Neustadt-Glewe, the VEB Lederwerk August Apfelbaum, leather was produced in significant quantities until the "Wende".

Founding and development (1872–1919)
Isaak Adler was born in Obergimpern (Baden) in 1837. His brother-in-law, Ferdinand Oppenheimer, came from Kleinhausen (Bergstrasse). In 1871, the families of the two men moved to Strasbourg in Alsace, which had been annexed to the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. They founded the Adler & Oppenheimer OHG leather wholesale business there on May 6, 1872. On June 10 of the same year, they set up a leather factory in the Montagne-Vertedie district of Strasbourg. The company had great economic success due to the introduction of chrome tanning. In 1889, two children of the founders, Friedrich Léon Adler and Julius Oppenheimer, built a new tannery in Lingolsheim, a few kilometers away.

The Adler and Oppenheimer families soon belonged to the leading industrialist families of Alsace-Lorraine. The importance of the families manifested itself, for example, in the election of the company founder Isaak Adler in 1885 as the first German Jew to the Strasbourg City Council.

In 1900, the company was transformed into the joint stock company Adler & Oppenheimer A.-G., Strasbourg i. Els. Four sons of the founders formed the board of directors of the joint stock company: Otto and Carl Adler (1872-1957) and Clemens and Julius Oppenheimer (1874-1939). Louis Hartog, the founder and co-owner of Gocher Lederwerke, was appointed chairman of the supervisory board.. Produced mainly shoe leather and other high quality leather goods of international reputation.

After the establishment of the joint stock company, sufficient capital was available to establish or purchase further operating facilities. The first new factory ("Lederwerke Neustadt in Mecklenburg") was to be built in Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg and produce cowhide. In the fall of 1910, construction began; in the summer of 1911, the first tanning was carried out using oak tanning lye. Adler & Oppenheimer owned the majority, but not all, of the business. In fiscal 1912/13, the company founded Adler & Oppenheimer Wohlfahrtsgesellschaft m.b.H. (share capital: 30,000 marks), which maintained A & O's Lingolsheim welfare facilities. The Lingolsheim plant included a works canteen, a bathhouse and a store. For the workers and their families, there was a library and classrooms. As early as 1906, the company had donated 10,000 marks to the town of Lingolsheim for school purposes and announced further annual payments..

Adler & Oppenheimer did good business as a leather supplier during the First World War. Sales doubled from 24 million marks in the 1911/12 financial year to just under 50 million in 1914/15 and only fell slightly thereafter. Profits rose at a strongly disproportionate rate in the first three years of the war (see graph). In 1916, Adler & Oppenheimer AG came under the scrutiny of the German tax authorities, who sought to skim off "war profits". The company subscribed to shares in the third war bond for 8 million marks. At the end of the war in 1918/19, 2000 to 2500 workers were employed at the main plant in Alsace.

Before the end of the First World War, Adler & Oppenheimer were able to acquire a majority shareholding in the Emil Köster AG leather factory in Neumünster, Germany..Due to the good rail connection to the port of Hamburg, through which both raw hides and tanning materials were imported in large quantities, as well as the lack of restrictive water legislation in Schleswig-Holstein until 1913, a significant leather industry had developed in Neumünster.

After the end of the First World War, there were first coercive measures at the end of 1918 to the detriment of the Lingolsheim part of the company in the context of the reintegration of Alsace into the Republic of France. On January 2, 1919, the entire Alsatian property of Adler & Oppenheimer was confiscated by the French military administration.. In the following months, efforts were made to deport the founding families to Germany. A first attempt at expulsion failed due to the resistance of French members of parliament from the Bas-Rhin department and the Strasbourg city government. Nevertheless, the families had to leave France on March 17, 1920. The plant in Lingolsheim was considered the largest leather factory in Europe at the time and was sold by the French judicial administration to a group of French investors.. The plant was called Tanneries de France from 1920 and had problems in the following years due to limited access to the German market.

Despite the expulsion, the families remained connected to Strasbourg. Many of the family members who died before World War II were buried in the Koenigshoffen Jewish Cemetery. Ann L. Oppenheimer (1912-2008), daughter of Julius Oppenheimer, donated a total of eleven paintings of great value to the museums of the city of Strasbourg in 1961 and 2004.

New begining near Straßburg (1920–1930)
An extraordinary shareholders' meeting of Adler & Oppenheimer AG moved the company's headquarters to Berlin on March 31, 1920. In accordance with the agreements of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the company received compensation of 48 million marks from the Reich government for the expropriation of the Lingolsheim plant. This compensation was to be used to rebuild production. The funds were used to completely take over the shares in the Emil Köster AG leather factory in Neumünster and in Lederwerke Neustadt G.m.b.H. and to considerably expand the plants. Sales offices were founded in Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Pirmasens. Furthermore, leather factories in the Netherlands and Luxembourg were purchased (see below).

The link with the Dutch leather industry went beyond the purchase of a leather factory. The owner families transferred their company shares in A & O to the Dutch "N. V. Amsterdamsche Leder Maatschappij" (Almi), which had been founded for the import of hides.. The capital stock was initially increased by 12 million Marks to 60 million Marks in 1920 and supplemented by a further 40 million Marks in preferred capital in 1921. According to the Board of Management, this was intended to prevent the company from being "overrun"..In 1923, Adler & Oppenheimer acquired a majority shareholding in Aktiengesellschaft für Lederfabrikation München, which was closed in 1930/31 due to unprofitability..

Through the employers' association Norddeutscher Gerbereiverband, A & O was involved in the collective bargaining disputes of 1923/24. The German Leather Workers' Association rejected an extension of working hours to 49 hours/week. In Neustadt, 50 of the workers who had previously been on strike were dismissed after the bargaining parties reached an agreement; among them was KPD functionary and shop steward August Apfelbaum. Continuing its social commitment elsewhere, the company sponsored the construction of company housing in Neustadt in 1924.

After the economic upheavals of hyperinflation, the share capital was reduced to 15 million gold marks, the preferred capital to 0.12 million gold marks. The consolidation of Lederwerke Neustadt took place in 1925; the reconstruction of production was thus completed. A major fire occurred at the Neumünster plant in 1926.. .

World Economic Crisis and Nazi persecution (1930–1945)
In line with the general economic situation in Germany, economic results deteriorated during the Great Depression, only to recover in the first half of the 1930s. The plant in Neustadt-Glewe alone employed 2000 people in the mid-1930s. After further conversions, Adler & Oppenheimer's share capital amounted to 18 million Reichsmarks in 1937. From 1936, sales fell again, especially the important foreign sales. The company operated in the late 1930s the production of vache and sole leather, blank leather, chrome upper leather and fine leather.

Nazi persecution of company employees
In 1934, a trial for "high treason" was brought against 14 Mecklenburg Communists in Bützow. Among them was August Apfelbaum, who was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and finally released by Adler & Oppenheimer.In 1935, the first anti-Jewish riots took place against the administration building at the Neustadt plant.

From the mid-1930s, anti-Jewish repression also intensified in Holstein. At the end of 1937, senior members of the Neumünster plant therefore relocated to Wiltz, the site of a Luxembourg branch of the group, IDEAL Lederwerke. Paul Oppenheimer (* February 9, 1887 in Strasbourg), another son of the company founder Ferdinand Oppenheimer, was plant manager of the Neumünster factory in the 1930s. In 1936/1937, he also built up a tannery in Littleborough near Manchester, England.. Through the factory, he was able to help Jewish factory employees escape to England. Including family members, about 100 people came to Littleborough. In 1946 Paul Oppenheimer himself lived in Littleborough. His brother Clemens Oppenheimer moved with his family to Ascona in neutral Switzerland, where the family lived until after the war. Already from Ascona, Clemens Oppenheimer led the negotiations for the "Aryanization" of the company (see next section). Clemens Oppenheimer's two daughters, Anne and Hedwig Oppenheimer, also left Germany.

Aryanization
During the National Socialist era, Adler & Oppenheimer was the subject of a complicated "Aryanization process" handled by Hermann Josef Abs and Walter Pohle for Deutsche Bank This was the largest Aryanization of Deutsche Bank AG involving an industrial company. Relations with Deutsche Bank AG had existed at least since 1916, when Adler & Oppenheimer offered the bank a seat on the company's supervisory board. Abs then became a member of the Supervisory Board in 1938. In July 1940, on the instructions of the Reich Minister of Economics to Abs, the company applied to change its name to Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG. Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG was listed on the stock exchanges in Berlin and Frankfurt. ..

"Aryanization" consisted of the takeover of a 75% shareholding by a consortium led by Deutsche Bank AG. After the occupation of the Netherlands, direct pressure could be exerted on Almi, but Almi had pledged a large part of the A & O shares to the USA. Furthermore, some members of the owner families lived in France. After the armistice with France, their shares could no longer simply be confiscated as "enemy property. In the end, Deutsche Bank made a profit of just under 2.75 million Reichsmarks from the resale of some of the shares transferred to it alone..

The "Aryanization" of Adler & Oppenheimer was the subject of U.S. investigations after the end of World War II (OMGUS Report), as well as two historical commissions. (OMGUS-Report),.

Die Geschehnisse wurden nicht nur in historischen Untersuchungen, sondern auch von populären Medien aufgegriffen. Im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtungen steht dabei die Rolle der Deutsche Bank AG während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und die persönliche Verantwortung von Hermann Josef Abs für die Verdrängung der jüdischen Eigentümerfamilien. Der Ostberliner Historiker Eberhard Czichon erhob 1970 in diesem Zusammenhang schwere Vorwürfe gegen Abs. Vor Gericht konnte er diese Vorwürfe jedoch nicht belegen. Das Gericht bewertete alle Vorwürfe als unzutreffend und verurteilte Czichon auf Unterlassung und Zahlung von Schmerzensgeld. Dem britischen Historiker Harold James zufolge wurde die Deutsche Bank vor allem wegen der komplexen internationalen Wirtschaftsverflechtungen mit Fällen wie dem von Adler & Oppenheimer befasst; auch Abs' persönliche Kontakte hätten eine zentrale Rolle bei der „Germanisierung“ von A & O gespielt. Die Transaktion sei schließlich nur im Rahmen der „brutalen deutschen Besatzungspolitik der Niederlande“ durchzusetzen gewesen. Im Zusammenspiel mit amtlichen deutschen Stellen habe sich die Bank an einer Erpressung beteiligt, um die Sicherheit von drei sich noch im Machtbereich Nazi-Deutschlands aufhaltenden Familienmitgliedern gegen die Zustimmung zur Eigentumsübertragung einzutauschen.

James fasst im Hinblick auf A&O und eine Reihe weiterer, von ihm untersuchter Fälle zusammen:"Abs nutzte eine ungewöhnliche Breite an Kontakten aus – von ausländischen Konzernen wie Unilever, dem Vatikan, über deutsche Wirtschaftsführer bis zu den Verbrechern, die die Übernahmen und Enteignungen in Österreich und der Tschechoslowakei leiteten, bis zu SS und Gestapo. Während er einigen der großen deutsch-jüdischen Dynastien - den Mendelssohns, den Hirschlands, den Oppenheimers und den Adlers – oder den deutsch-tschechischen Petscheks half, verdiente er gleichzeitig Geld für seine Bank und erweiterte seine Kontakte und Interessen."

North German Leather Works in World War II
Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG in Neumünster housed forced laborers. The company was one of the most important employers of "foreign workers" in the city. The plant in Wrangelstrasse was damaged during the war.

The Mecklenburg plant was used to produce aircraft engines due to the curtailed leather production. The plant survived the war without destruction.

Postwar 1945
The head office was moved to Neustadt-Glewe in 1945, to Hamburg in 1949 and to Neumünster in 1961..

Restitution to the Jewish family that owned the company
Starting in 1947, Almi demanded the transfer of ownership of Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG back to the original owners on the basis of U.S. Law 59.. After Deutsche Bank AG initially rejected these claims, the bank later sought an out-of-court settlement. The settlement was reached with Relda Trading Co. Ltd. (New York), which represented the interests of the Adler and Oppenheimer families. As a result, the former owner families were restored to a majority shareholding in the company via Relda and Almi. In addition, Deutsche Bank paid a total of 1.75 million Deutsche Marks to the two companies. Hermann Josef Abs remained Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

Neumünsteraner Werk
Noch in den 1960er Jahren geriet die Lederproduktion im Neumünsteraner Werk in wirtschaftliche Schwierigkeiten. Hinzu kam im Jahre 1966 eine allgemeine Wirtschaftskrise in Deutschland. Am 16. Mai 1966 wurde die Liquidation der Norddeutsche Lederwerke AG beschlossen und die Produktion eingestellt. Die Aktiengesellschaft wurde 1968 gelöscht. Die Gebäude an der Wrangelstraße beherbergen heute Einheiten des Katastrophenschutzes und werden als Lagerfläche, als Möbelhaus und als Diskothek genutzt. Das Werk steht heute auf der Liste der Kulturdenkmale in Neumünster.

VEB Lederwerk „August Apfelbaum“ in Neustadt-Glewe
The plant in Neustadt-Glewe was affected by Soviet dismantling in 1945/46. In June 1946, the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) released the plant into the hands of the German administration. In 1948, the plant was initially owned by the state of Mecklenburg, but was then converted into a nationally owned enterprise (VEB). From 1951, the plant was called VEB Lederwerk "August Apfelbaum". The name was given in honor of the trade unionist and communist August Apfelbaum, who had moved to Lüneburg after his dismissal from A & O in 1935. Apfelbaum had been interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp since September 7, 1939. He died in 1945 during an Allied air raid..

The VEB had up to 1700 employees in the GDR era and was the largest leather manufacturing company in the GDR. The main focus was on pigskin (since 1949) and imitation leather (since 1974). Cowhide production was discontinued in 1972. At the end of the 1970s, VEB was the largest producer of pigskin in Europe. In the 1980s, the plant also produced medical and clothing products. The company was awarded a number of important GDR awards (including Karl Marx Order, Enterprise of Excellent Quality Work). The VEB was integrated as a plant into the VEB Kombinat Kunstleder und Pelzverarbeitung, Leipzig..

After 1990, the company operated under the names NG Leder GmbH and Nordleder GmbH. Leather production was discontinued in 2007. Today (2010), with 25 employees, construction parts made of rubber and plastic are manufactured in an industrial park housed on the premises.

Werk in Wiltz/Luxemburg (Tannerie Idéal)
The engineer Fritz Rexroth and the banker Ludwig Kiessel from Saarbrücken had founded the Ideal Lederfabrik in Wiltz, Luxembourg, in 1891. At the turn of 1911/12, the factory was incorporated into the Société Anonyme Tannerie de Cuir Idéal. The founders held a good 95% of the share capital of 525,000 Luxembourg francs. One business focus was on drive belts for industry. A new process was used for rapid tanning by means of water pressure. In 1914, the company had 50 employees and a share capital of 2 million francs..

Following compensation for the forced sale of the Lingolsheim plant, Friedrich Léon Adler and Julius Oppenheimer bought the company on May 18, 1920. After an interim capital increase of 4 million francs, there was a further increase to 12 million francs in 1922. These new shares were subscribed by the Dutch company Almi, which served the Adler and Oppenheimer families as the holding company for the A&O Group. Major fires occurred in 1924 and 1926. In addition to the production of belts, the production of boxcalf and other fine leather was added in those years. The company, which in French was called IDÉAL Tannerie de Wiltz S.A., had 777 employees in 1935..

1940 wurde der Betrieb von den Deutschen unter Zwangsverwaltung gestellt und 1942 an Theodor Roth aus Wiesbaden verkauft. 15 % des Kapitals der neuen Gesellschaft (IDEAL Lederwerke AG, Wilz) gingen an die Norddeutsche Lederwerke A.G. Zwischen 1940 und 1944 wurden Teile des Werks von der Maschinenfabrik Zimmermann genutzt. Am 31. August 1942 wehrten sich die Arbeiter gegen Einberufungen in die deutsche Wehrmacht mit Streiks. Diese Arbeitsniederlegungen gaben das Signal für eine damals international beachtete, jedoch von der deutschen Besatzungsmacht brutal niedergeschlagene Streikwelle in ganz Luxemburg. Im Eingangsbereich des Werks gibt es heute eine Erinnerungstafel und in Wiltz ein Ehrenmal.

Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde der Name des Unternehmens in Tannerie de cuir IDEAL (Wiltz) geändert. Mit Friederich Léon Adler rückte wieder ein Mitglied der Gründerfamilien in dem Vorstand des Unternehmens ein (Kapital ab 1946: 30 Millionen Luxemburgische Francs). Im Jahr 1948 wurden 1200 Menschen beschäftigt.

Der Strukturwandel in der Lederindustrie erfasste das Werk früh. Es stellte die Produktion am 7. Januar 1961 ein. 1963 nahm auf dem Gelände die Firma Eurofloor die Produktion von Bodenbelägen auf. Nach mehreren Fusionen und Eigentümerwechseln ist das Werk seit 2006 im Besitz der IVC Group.

Werk in Oisterwijk/Niederlande (Koninklijke Lederfabriek)
In 1916, C.J. van der Aa and Rotterdam merchant Jan Adolf Vermetten founded a leather factory in Oisterwijk (Netherlands). In 1920, this leather factory was taken over by the Almi holding company of the Adler and Oppenheimer families.

In mid-August 1928, Almi reorganized its administration. 40 employees were transferred from Amsterdam, Almi's headquarters, to Oisterwijk. For the newcomers, company housing was built in the street that is still called "Almistraat" today. At the beginning of 1930, the recreational association "Almy-Nevelo vereniging" was founded. The former telegram address "NEVELO" of the factory in Oisterwijk still gives the name to a soccer club in Oisterwijk, which goes back to the former factory club.t.

The factory was awarded the title of "Royal" leather factory (Koninklijke Lederfabriek te Oisterwijk) in 1932. Erich Rudolph Adler (* November 22, 1905 in Strasbourg as the son of Carl Adler) and a chemist by profession (studied in Frankfurt/Main) worked as commercial director of the plant from 1929. He took Dutch citizenship in 1935. Hans Ludwig Adler (* May 27, 1903 in Strasbourg), a nephew of Erich Rudolph Adler, was technical director of the plant from 1934. It is known of Erich Rudolph Adler that he fled to America with his wife and family in August 1940. During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, the plant came under external administration.

Erich Rudolph Adler took over the office of the company's supervisory board for a few years after the war. The factory was then sold to Hagemeyer N.V. in 1966 and, after a further takeover in 1974, operated as Verenigde Koninklijke Lederfabriek te Oisterwijk N.V. The company existed until 1996.

Werk in Littleborough/England (Lancashire Tanning)
In Littleborough (Greater Manchester) kaufte Paul Oppenheimer 1936 ein leerstehendes Fabrikgebäude, um 1937 eine Chromgerberei für Schuhoberleder zu eröffnen. Dort arbeiteten in den 1940er Jahren bis zu 500 einheimische Kräfte und eine größere Anzahl aus Deutschland geflohener, jüdischer Betriebsangehöriger der Adler & Oppenheimer AG. Das Werk gehörte der Lancashire Tanning Co., Ltd. an der neben den Familien Adler und Oppenheimer sowie zu A & O gehörigen Konzerngesellschaften die langjährigen englischen Vertriebspartner von A & O beteiligt waren. Über das Werk in Littleborough gelang einer Anzahl jüdischer Mitarbeiter und Familienmitglieder der Eignerfamilien die Ausreise nicht nur nach England, sondern auch weiter nach Argentinien und in die USA. Das Unternehmen profitierte von einer hervorragenden Marktposition im Bereich von Chrom-gegerbtem Schuhoberleder in England und könnte sich bald wichtige Regierungsaufträge sichern. Es wird geschätzt, dass etwa zwei Drittel der englischen Kriegsproduktion an Oberleder für Soldatenstiefel aus Littleborough stammten.

Die Lancashire Tannery (Markenzeichen: Lanctan Calf) wurde später von einem US-amerikanischen Unternehmen übernommen und stellte in den 1970er Jahren den Betrieb ein.

Weitere Unternehmensbeteiligungen
Die Familien Adler und Oppenheimer besaßen Ende der 1930er Jahre ein Drittel des Aktienkapitals der Roth-Händle A.-G., einem Zigarettenhersteller aus Lahr. Julius Oppenheimer war Aufsichtsratsmitglied.

Weblinks

 * Zeitungsartikel über Adler & Oppenheimer in den Historischen Pressearchiven der ZBW (enthält Geschäftsberichte von 1911/12 bis 1942)
 * Familiärer Hintergrund der in die USA ausgewanderten Familie Oppenheimer „Das Legat von Frau Ann L. Oppenheimer“
 * Ansicht des Neumünsteraner Werksgeländes an der Wrangelstraße parallel zur Bahnlinie Neumünster – Hamburg (Luftbild von ca. 1956)
 * Geschichte des Luxemburger Werks (Ideal Lederwerke Wiltz)