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In 1883 Eugen Holtzmann of Karlsruhe, together with his partners August Fischer and Johannes Dorn, established a pulp and paper-making factory in the Murgtal. In the years before the Great War the firm prospered, and in 1905 a second facility was established especially for the manufacture of newsprint. In the postwar period the firm grew to be one of the largest manufacturers of newsprint and industrial papers in Germany.

The firm’s manufacturing complex in the Murgtal includes headquarters, storage and warehousing facilities, its own power station and electrical shop, housing and recreation facilities for its employees as well as manufacturing plants for newsprint and other papers. In addition the firm operated pulp and paper factories elsewhere including those at Karlsruhe-Maxau, Ettlingen and Marienheide.

This firm came into existence in late 1936 through the amalgamation of a number of small firms in the wholesale paper trade, including Bunzl und Biach, Ortmann and the Wiener Neustädter Papierfabrik Salzer AG. The combine engaged in the manufacture, processing and sale of paper, paper goods, pasteboard and corrugated wares including printing, writing, kraft, crepe and cigarette papers. In addition to its factories within Germany, it operated a sales office in Prague and a purchasing office in Paris. With financial support of the Länderbank Wien it subsequently entered the field of textile manufacture and processing, forming several new subsidiary companies for such purposes.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

In Germany

Rheinische Sortieranstalt AG, Köln, (textile sorting and re-purposing)
Rheinische Textilfabriken AG, Wuppertal-Elberfeld (textile manufacture)


Abroad

Bulgarische Textil AG "Ortmann", Sofia (textile sales)
N. V. Industrie en Handelsmaatschappij "Vultex", Amsterdam (import, export and sales)
Produkten und Rohmaterial Handels AG, Budapest (import, export and sales)

Two long-established papermaking factories in the town of Heidenau merged in 1927 to create this enterprise. The Hasseröder Maschinenpapierfabrik, founded in 1888 as the firm of Berger und Meyburg, specialised in the manufacture of offset printing papers, high-quality rag and cellulose papers, envelopes and other office supplies. The Papier und Zellstoffwerke AG Krause und Baumann, founded in 1869, manufactured a line of art papers, cardstock and paper cartons. The merger of the two firms saw significant rationalisation, giving the new concern a competitive advantage.

In 1934 it established a subsidiary, Papier- und Zellstoffwerke, at Scholwin bei Stettin, to process raw timber imports from Nordmark and the Russian Federation.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

Papier und Zellstoffwerke AG, Scholwin bei Stettin (paper pulp and cellulose products)

This enterprise was organised in 1927 by the Hannoversche Papierfabriken Alfeld-Gronau as a vehicle to consolidate a number of pulp and paper firms across Germany. The Hannoversche Papierfabriken itself had come into existence in 1872 as a manufacturer of writing papers, but had diversified into many lines of paper products. In 1922 it had established a cellulose mill in Alfeld along side its established paper mill, and that same year had acquired the Feinpapierfabrik Gronau. With the financial backing of the Commerzbank it engineered the acquisition of the Neußer Papier und Pergamentpapierfabrik (established 1878) – a manufacturer of pasteboard and toilet tissues; the Papierfabrik Limmritz-Steina (established 1872) – a manufacturer of newsprint and allied materials; and the Holzstoff- und Papierfabrik zu Schlema bei Schneeberg (established 1871) – a manufacturer of smooth and colored papers for the offset printing industry.

Following a period of rationalisation the firm embarked on a program of expansion, constructing a new sulfite pulp mill at Alfeld, a cellulose resin works at Oker and a plant for fibreboard at Ehingen in Baden. Producing numerous classes of paper products, the firm is one of the largest in Germany’s paper products industry.

Located in Guggenbach in the district of Übelbach in western Styria, the origins of this firm lay in a factory for the manufacture of linen papers by Leopold Sommer; the firm ran into difficulties and in 1853 Adolf Ruhmann was brought in as technical director. In 1870 Ruhmann bought out the shares of Sommer’s heirs and converted the firm into a joint-stock enterprise. It expanded its product line to include business stationery, envelopes and cardstock.

The present enterprise is one of the largest German manufacturers of cellulose and paper products, and represents a union of many factories in the trade. It was formed in 1936, but its roots go far deeper. In 1884 a group of investors in the city of Mannheim founded a factory for the manufacture of cellulose and other paper products, which became known as the Zellstofffabrik Waldhof. It merged with the Aschaffenburger Zellstoffwerke in 1936, which had been established in 1905 by Philipp Dessauer. The concern’s greatest coup was the acquisition of the assets of the firm of Wilhelm Hartmann und Compagnie of Berlin in 1938, for a sum in excess of forty million Reichsmarks. At the time the Hartmann firm controlled many pulp, paper and cellulose factories in German and had an extensive network of agencies abroad. The firm manufactures all manner of paper products, and has its own laboratory in Berlin for the development of new pulp and paper products and manufacturing techniques.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

Bayerische Papierspinneri AG, Erlangen (sanitary papers)
Bernsdorfer Papierfabrik AG, Bernsdorf (fine art papers)
Deutsche Papiersack Industrie AG, Berlin (paper sacks and other packaging products)
Natronzellstoff und Papierfabriken AG, Berlin (sales and trading).
Oberschlesische Zellstoffwerke Krappitz AG, Krappitz (pulp and paper products)
Papierfabrik Fockendorf AG, Fockendorf (cardboard and pressboard)
Papierfabrik Unterkochen AG, Unterkochen (cellulose packing materials)
Simonius Zellstoff-fabriken AG, Wangen im Allgäu (pulp and paper products)
Westdeutsche Papier Union Gmbh, Duisburg (paper and pulp products)

Located in the town of Kehl, this firm was founded in 1807 by the Karlsruhe merchant Otto Köhler as the Papiermühle im Loh, manufacturing paper in the traditional manner. The firm introduced its first mechanical paper-making machine in 1865, and its second in 1911. The firm was converted to a joint-stock company in 1922, the same year in which it absorbed the business of W. Euler Papierfabrik. Rapid expansion followed and the firm installed two additional papermaking machines in 1924. The firm produces a wide range of papers but specialises in the production of business paper including carbon and duplicating paper.

This firm, located in Blankenstein in Thüringia, was founded in 1883 as the Wiedes Papierfabrik Rosenthal by entrepreneur Anton Weide. In 1891 it began the manufacture of cellulose pulp and writing and specialty papers using chemical pulp in place of linen. In 1894 it absorbed the nearby Papierfabrik Blankenberg. It survived the turmoil of the Great War and remains a significant producer of mid-grade writing papers and business papers.

This firm was founded in 1872 by August Barber and Moritz Szeps to integrate the manufacture of newsprint and other papers, the publishing of newspapers and to coordinate the publishing business of the two founding partners. In the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century the firm took a commanding position in the publishing industry of the Hapsburg Monarchy, controlling two of Wien’s great newspapers, the Wiener Tagblatt and the Wiener Abendblatt. The firm also controlled indirectly a number of other newspapers throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, chiefly through its supply of newsprint.

The firm survived the vicissitudes of the Great War and revived in the early 1920s. The loss of its affiliated newspapers was made good through the founding of regional newspapers serving the provinces of the new Austrian state, including the very popular Kleine Zeitung. It has also moved into the printing of magazines, catering to the business community through its publication of Wirtschaftswoche and the motoring industry through Autozeitung.

This firm was founded in 1872 in the town of Aschaffenburg in northwest Bavaria to manufacture pulp and paper products, principally industrial and sanitary papers. In 1942 the firm established a second factory at Redenfelden in Upper Bavaria for the manufacture of high-quality paper for book printing.

This firm dates its existence from 1854, when Moritz Bunzl and Emanuel Biach formed a partnership to enter the rag trade, that is, the collection of textile waste for recycling by the textile and paper industries, in the Bohemian city of Preßburg. In 1881 the partnership opened an office in Wien, and in 1883 transferred its headquarters there. Under the leadership of Max Bunzl, a son of the founder, the firm expanded its activities across the Austrian Crown Lands, and acquired processing plants in Piestingta (1888) and Ortmann bei Pernitz (1889) among others. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, subsidiaries were founded in the successor states, and the firm expanded its activities within Austria through the acquisition of the Bossi Hutfabriks AG in Wien, Papiergroßhandlung Carl Mang GmbH in Wien and Wolf Blumberg und Söhne AG in Teplitz-Schönau.

In addition to its textile and paper interests, the firm has developed the paper cigarette filter pioneered by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz. In addition to producing such filters for the German market, the firm has licenced its technology to cigarette manufacturers in Great Britain and the United States.

The Sachsenröder firm was founded in 1881 by Gustav-Heinrich Sachsenröder to undertake the manufacture of parchment paper for packaging and decoration. The original factory was located in Barmen-Rittershausen. In the first decade of its existence the firm diversified into the manufacture of hydrate cellulose and other special products, including multi-layered parchments. In 1900 the firm introduced the manufacture of endless vulcanized fibre, which became its principal product in the years following the Great War. A larger factory was opened in Wuppertal in 1912, and a branch factory in Heydekrug in the Memel District was opened in 1940. The company is a leading manufacturer of vulcanized, cellulose and other plastic products employed in a wide variety of industries.

Located in the city of Wuppertal, this paper-making company was founded in 1827 by Friedrich Erfurt. Initially the firm produced hand-laid filter paper and various printing papers in the traditional manner; the first paper-making machines were installed in 1844. In 1864, Hugo Erfurt, grandson of the company founder, developed a new product – a decorative paper marketed as “Rauhfaser” for shop windows, and a base paper for size print wallpaper. The innovation of the product was the use of wood chips (cellulose) in the papermaking process rather than linen, resulting in a far less expensive product. By 1885 the company’s product line had been expanded to include velour and ingrain papers. During the Great War the firm provided paper for emergency currency and for ration coupons; on this work it survived the vicissitudes of the conflict and emerged as one of the nation’s largest paper manufacturers. New products introduced in the post-war period include marbled papers, duplex paper and the gloss paper required for magazine. A new factory was constructed in 1930 in Wuppertal-Beyenburg, where the firm employs more than eight hundred workers.

The concern dates to 1905, and was originally established as a subsidiary factory Aschaffenburger Zellstoffwerke. In the wake of the Great War it was subjected to nostrification by the Lithuanian authorities as the Klaipėdos celiuliozės ir kartono gamykla. With the return of Memel to the Reich the firm again underwent reorganisation and the current style was adopted.

The firm produces a wide variety of wood and paper products, including but not limited to, hygiene and toilet papers, packaging papers, cardboard, and corrugated cardboard, as well as hardboard used in furniture manufacture and construction. The ability to acquire raw materials at low cost from Lithuanian sources has given it a significant cost advantage in the domestic market.

In 1899 the Frankenthaler entrepreneur Friedrich Kraus established in Memel a sawmill for the production of semi-finished timber products for the building, packaging, and furniture industries. Kraus had patented a new style of cutting head for shaving veneers and soon became a prominent supplier of plywood, specialising in what would become known as ‘Baltic Birch’ – an extremely stable plywood that soon found wide demand in the manufacture of mass-market furniture. In the wake of the Great War the factory would survive as Akcinė bendrovė "Klaipėdos mediena", becoming a more general supplier of boxboard and developing an active export market in Iberia. With the return of Memel to the Reich the firm adopted the present style. With more than 1,400 employees, it is one of the larger employers in the region.