User:Eli185/Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik

NAK Stoffe AG, formerly Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik (NAK for short), was a German fabric printing company based at Vogeltor in Augsburg. It existed from 1702 to 1996 under various shareholders and company names. The company's shares were listed on the Munich Stock Exchange. The factory printed fabrics made of tree and rayon, artificial silk and synthetics for clothes of all kinds and exported them to all continents.

Lage
NAK's factory premises were located in Augsburg's textile district at Vogeltorplatz in the southeast of Vogeltor. It was acquired by the company as early as 1705 and was located outside the city walls at that time.

Beginnings of fabric printing in Augsburg
In 1688, Gerhard Neuhofer, a draper from Augsburg, went to Holland and England to gain knowledge of calico printing, a colorful printing process for fine cotton fabrics that originated in India. After his return, Gerhard Neuhofer and his brother Jeremias founded the first cloth printing works on German soil in Augsburg, making the city the center for cloth printing in Germany.

Founded as a cotton-printing company
NAK traces its origins to the form cutter Johannes Apfel (* 1659, † 1743), who opened a print shop on Augsburg's Rossmarkt in 1702 under the name Cottondruckerei and manufactured printing rollers for fabric printing. In 1705, he acquired the property at the Vogeltor in Augsburg along with a water power of the Sparrenlechs for a lawn bleaching, i.e. for bleaching fabrics. An engraving from 1741 shows Johannes Apfel at the age of 82 as a successful cotton manufacturer and merchant. He died in 1743 at the age of 84.

The company remained in the hands of the Apfel family for two more generations. In 1757, bankruptcy proceedings were initiated. The company had debts amounting to 36,000 gulden. In 1783, the Apfel family sold the run-down company with 300 employees to Johann Michael Schöppler (* 1754, † 1839) from Nuremberg.

Schöppler & Hartmann
Johann Michael Schöppler took his brother-in-law Gottfried Hartmann from Nuremberg into the company as a partner and continued to run it under the name Schöppler & Hartmann. During these years, Augsburg calico printing experienced its heyday. In 1786, Augsburg had 35,000 inhabitants, 6,000 of whom worked in the city's manufactories for calico printing. The heyday ended in 1791 with the French Revolution. Sales declined and the company suffered heavy losses. The number of employees fell to 200. Schöppler withdrew from the management of the company and was replaced by another brother-in-law, Georg Paul Forster. With the Continental Blockade imposed by Napoleon in 1806, a ban on imports of goods from England and its colonies, business picked up noticeably.

Unter Carl Forster
In 1807, Carl Ludwig Forster (* 1788, † 1877), the son of Georg Paul Forster, joined the company as a co-partner and managing director and became sole shareholder in 1828. Carl Forster shaped and developed the company to a particular extent. New finishing methods made production cheaper and faster. The company's fabrics achieved world fame. He co-initiated the founding of the German Customs Association on March 22, 1833. In 1837, he co-founded the Mechanische Baumwollspinnerei und -weberei AG in Augsburg. Its purpose was to cover the company's raw material requirements. For the same reason, he also founded the weaving mill at Sparrenlech in Augsburg in 1856 with 112 looms.

Schöppler & Hartmann flourished. The company won a first prize at a major industrial exhibition in Berlin and Carl Forster was honored with the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle in 1845. In 1848, 600 employees were working on six printing presses, generating an annual output of 1 million guilders..

Unter Julius und Moritz Forster
In 1837, Carl Forster appointed his brother Johann Ernst and his two eldest sons Julius (1809 - 1866) and Moritz (1810 - 1879) to the company management.

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 led to sales stagnation. The Versailles Peace Treaty of February 26, 1871, led to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire. The strong calico printers in Alsace competed with the German companies. Prices fell. In 1870, Ernst Forster, a son of Julius Forster, took over the management of the company, but he was unable to prevent further decline..

Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG
In 1880, three years after Karl Forster died in 1877, his heirs converted the company into a stock corporation and named it Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG. This was done under the management of the Augsburg banking house von Stetten. These redevelopment efforts were unsuccessful. The factory facilities were obsolete. The depression of 1882 to 1885, which originated in the USA, also contributed to the decline of the Augsburg calico factory. It went bankrupt. The subsidiary weaving mill at Sparrenlech was auctioned off and acquired by the textile trading company Kahn & Arnold owned by Jewish entrepreneurs Aaron Kahn and Albert Arnold. The bankruptcy trustee sold the company to a newly founded company, Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG, while operations continued..

Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG
Under the leadership of the banking house Friedrich Schmid & Co., the stock corporation Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG was founded on January 12, 1885. It acquired land, machinery stocks and took over the workforce from the bankruptcy of Augsburger Kattunfabrik AG. Significant investments were made under the supervisory board chairman Paul Ritter von Schmid (* 1842, † 1928). The machinery was renewed, production rationalized and geared to mass production.

Unter Walter Clairmont
From 1903, Walter Clairmont became the new sole director and drove forward the modernization of the company. He mastered a factory fire in 1904, the wartime economy during the First World War, inflation in 1923 and the world economic crisis from 1929 to 1932.

Nazi era
In 1937, Walter Clairmont resigned as a board member, and Fritz Piepenburg became the new board member. In 1938, NAK acquired the spinning and weaving mill at Sparrenlech Kahn & Arnold. The company had already belonged to the predecessor company Schöppler & Hartmann between 1869 and 1885. After the decree eliminating Jews from German economic life, Kahn and Arnold were forced to sell their company. Instead of a purchase price, they received shares in the NAK, which they had to exchange for Reich bonds. The Reich bonds were blocked for them and were worthless at the end of the war. The Kahn and Arnold families therefore saw nothing of the purchase price. Berthold Kahn was able to flee Nazi Germany with his son. Two Arnold brothers were deported and died in the Dachau and Theresienstadt camps. After the war, family members of the Kahn and Arnold families made claims for damages under Military Government Act No. 59. In a settlement, NAK was able to agree with the families on compensation in the amount of DM 2.8 million..

The Second World War
During the Second World War, fabric printing almost came to a standstill. Camouflage fabrics were still produced for the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and in Africa, as well as Reich war flags and pennants for the navy. In the interest of war, electrotechnical parts were produced. Production halls were emptied for this purpose, and three printing presses were dismantled and put into storage. For this production, foreign and forced laborers were now also employed.

During the heavy bombing raid on Augsburg on February 25, 1944, 70 percent of the plant, machinery and equipment were destroyed.t.

The economic problems of the NAC are reflected in the number of employees during the Second World War. In 1938 there were 642, in 1940 1090, in 1942 906, in 1944, before the destruction, 730 employees including 224 forced laborers.

Postwar
In June 1945, with the permission of the American military government, NAK resumed production with the three printing presses that had been taken out of storage during the war. The demand for clothing was great. The company's upswing did not begin until after the currency reform in 1948. Investments were made in machinery and the reconstruction of destroyed buildings.

In 1950, about 950 workers and employees worked in the company; in 1952, NAK employed 1993 workers. Initially, production was only order-related and mainly supplied to retailers and wholesalers, as well as department stores. It was not until 1960 that NAK began to deliver more to clothing manufacturers..

NAK Stoffe Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien
In 1970, the company was converted into the rare legal form of a partnership limited by shares. The new name was NAK Stoffe Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien. In 1977, Ludwig Kuttner became NAK's sole personally liable partner and held a majority share in the capital. Due to mismanagement and the general downturn in the textile industry, NAK's business situation deteriorated visibly. When Ludwig Kuttner died on March 20, 1983, NAK was on the verge of bankruptcy. His widow Adelheid was the sole heir. In addition, NAK paid her an annual pension of 380,000 DM. He had paid off his 11 children.

NAK Stoffe AG
In 1983, the company was reincorporated as a pure stock corporation under the name NAK Stoffe AG. Werner Slansky became the new sole member of the Executive Board.

Unter Walter Klaus
In 1984, Adelheid Kuttner sold her NAK majority to the building contractor Walter Klaus. Werner Slansky remained sole director. He succeeded in turning the trend around. NAK's fabric collections became more fashionable. 90% of customers were now clothing manufacturers. The export share rose to 45% of sales. The most important export countries became the USA, England, Italy and France. Sales grew considerably and in 1985 the operating result became positive for the first time in 10 years. In 1986, NAK achieved sales of DM 176 million..

Unter Pegasus
In 1987, the Pegasus Group under Heiner Diechtierow took over the majority of shares from Walter Klaus. In the same year, the last remaining balance sheet loss was repaid and a dividend was again paid in 1988. 1989 became one of NAK's best years, sales increased by 30% to DM 245 million and a dividend of 20% was paid. In 1990, Pegasus was also able to acquire 52% of the capital of the neighboring AKS Augsburger Kammgarn-Spinnerei AG.

Unter Bayerischer Beamten Lebensversicherung a. G.
In mid-1991, Pegasus sold 20% of NAK's capital to Bayerische Beamten Lebensversicherung a.G. (BBV). Three of its employees joined NAK's Supervisory Board, including Thomas Berger, who took over from Heiner Diechtierow as Chairman in February 1993. At the end of 1991, it was reported that Pegasus no longer owned any NAK shares. BBV built its NAK majority to over 50 percent by 1993. Pegasus sold at the right time, and sales declined steadily in the following years. In 1991, NAK's sales amounted to DM 196.3 million; in 1994, the figure was only DM 139.8 million. Losses increased from DM 8.6 million to DM 30.7 million in the same period. NAK became a restructuring case.

In 1994, Werner Slansky retired from the Board of Management for reasons of health. He was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to Augsburg and the textile industry. Jürgen Bönsch, a personal friend of BBV's CEO Dieter Schweickert, became the new Chairman of the Board. Jürgen Bönsch, who was inexperienced in the textile industry, did not succeed in turning the company around. The personnel and other cost-cutting measures introduced were not effective..

Der Konkurs
On March 11, 1996, Bönsch applied to the Augsburg Local Court for the opening of court composition proceedings to avert bankruptcy. The court appointed Volker Grub, a lawyer from Stuttgart, as provisional administrator in the composition proceedings and, after the opening of the follow-up bankruptcy proceedings on June 1, 1996, as administrator in the bankruptcy proceedings..

NAK's economic situation was desolate. In the last five years before the insolvency proceedings, the company generated only losses with declining sales. Sales fell from DM 262 million and a profit of DM 11.6 million, in 1990 to sales of DM 196.3 million to sales of DM 135.5 million with a loss of DM 23.9 million in 1995. The number of employees fell from 824 in 1990 to 532 at the end of 1995.

Konkursgründe
The reason for the high losses was the falling demand for printed fabrics. In 1990, German fabric printers still achieved sales of DM 1.929 billion; in 1995, the figure was only DM 1.275 billion. During the same period, the number of companies operating in the textile sector fell from 37,200 in 1990 to 25,200 in 1995. Import pressure from Turkey, Eastern Europe and East Asia due to the lower wage levels there and the lack of environmental regulations increased from year to year.. At NAK, a lack of quality management led to high reject rates in production. A large proportion of the goods produced had to be sold as second choice. A large number of notices of defects led to payment credits. In February 1996, the majority stockholder and the banks involved recognized NAK's inability to restructure. The banks therefore terminated the credit lines at the beginning of March 1996, so that the application for a composition was unavoidable.

Stilllegung
Bankruptcy trustee Grub continued to run the company after filing a petition for composition and, with the help of management consultants Budde & Partner, Beilstein, examined the possibilities of restructuring the company. Even with drastic measures, the company could not be restructured. NAK had a company size and cost structures that could no longer be reduced. Efforts by the bankruptcy trustee to find a buyer for NAK's production in Augsburg also failed. In view of the crisis situation in the industry, there was no interested party for the production capacities in Augsburg.

On May 23, 1996, the liquidator reached an agreement with the Works Council and the IG Textil und Bekleidung trade union, represented by its secretary Werner Heidler, on a plant closure effective July 30, 1996. A social compensation plan for the employees with a total volume of DM 5.6 million was agreed upon.

The Frankfurt-based company Troostwijk was commissioned to sell the machinery. The sale by private treaty generated proceeds of DM 12.2 million. The current collections with designs and stencils were acquired by the Ulmia company in Ravensburg.

Grundstücke
In 1997, Grub sold the land near the city center to the ECE Group of the Werner Otto family, which built the City-Galerie, and the Cinemaxx Group of Hans-Joachim Flebbe, which planned a multiplex cinema with nine screens and 2,400 seats.. The production halls on the former factory site at Vogeltor were demolished in 1999. The sale of further plots of land extended until 2001.

Ende des Konkurses

Bankruptcy trustee Grub ended the bankruptcy proceedings in 2002. The bank loans of DM 42.7 million were fully satisfied. Bankruptcy creditors with claims amounting to DM 44.2 million received a payment rate of 93. Dominik Lutz notes that a court settlement of NAK, as originally requested by the Executive Board, had to fail because the company was not viable.

Stoffmusterarchiv
Preserved to this day are the sample books and sample drawings that were collected by the company over a long period of time as the "NAK Archive".

The fabric sample archive went to the city of Augsburg in the course of the bankruptcy proceedings for a purchase price of DM 1.2 million. The purchase was subsidized by the Free State of Bavaria and the Stadtsparkasse Augsburg. A sale abroad was not possible because on December 3, 1996, the Bavarian Ministry of Culture initiated the entry of the archive in the register of nationally valuable cultural property in accordance with §1 Para. 1 of the Law for the Protection of German Cultural Property against Emigration (Gesetz zum Schutz deutscher Kulturgutes gegen Abwanderung)..

The fabric sample archive gives a vivid picture of the history of the company, which is over 290 years old. There are 560 dated fabric sample books, the oldest dating from 1792, containing a total of 1.9 million samples, most of which are also numbered. An additional stock of working tools such as wooden models and various objects for rouleaux printing provide insight into various fabric printing techniques.

Since 2010, the fabric sample archive has been located in a State Textile and Industry Museum built by the Free State of Bavaria in a production hall of the former Augsburger Kammgarn-Spinnerei AG. The decisive initiator was the trade union secretary Werner Heidler, who had already worked as a fabric printer at NAK and ensured that the fabric archive was elevated to the status of a German cultural asset.

Literature

 * Richard Loibl: Zwischen Bombennacht und Wirtwschaftswunder. Die Textilindustrie und der wirtschaftliche Neubeginn in Bayern (1945-1950). In: Peter Fassl (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Nachkriegsgeschichte von Bayerisch-Schwaben 1945-1970. Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-89639-837-6, S. 211–228.
 * Andrea Kluge: Der Stoff aus dem die Mode ist – die Stoffmustersammlung der Neuen Augsburger Kattunfabrik. Rosenheimer, Rosenheim 1991, ISBN 3-475-52711-1
 * Festschrift der Neuen Augsburger Kattunfabrik 1702-1952, Staatliches Textil- und Industriemuseum, Augsburg
 * Friedrich Haßler: Die Augsburger Textil-, Metall- und Papierindustrie. In: Augusta 955 - 1955, Verlag Hermann Rinn, S. 403 ff.
 * Peter Fassl: Konfession, Wirtschaft und Politik – von der Reichsstadt zur Industriestadt, Augsburg 1750–1850. Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1988, ISBN 3-7995-6942-1.

Weblinks

 * Informationen zur Neuen Augsburger Kattunfabrik
 * Frühe Dokumente und Zeitungsartikel zur NAK Stoffe in den Historischen Pressearchiven der ZBW