WesWorld

Placeholder for information relating to wholesale and retail trading firms of WW Germany.

This firm has long been involved in trade to Central and South America, and maintains to this day a premier position among Hamburg’s many merchant houses engaged in foreign trade. It maintains a network of agencies in the principal cities of Chile, Peru and Argentina, and from the latter part of the 1870s expanded its activities in Iberia’s possessions in Central America to a significant degree.

The firm’s principal business is the export of German products and the import of agricultural produce and raw materials from the many nations in which it operates. It is the latter aspect of its business that has garnered its position in the popular imagination as a plantation company.

In 1890 the firm began to establish plantations for the growing of fruit and other produce in the Iberian colonies of Honduras and Nicaragua, organising the Sociedad Anonima de Plantaciones en Centroamerica, otherwise known as the Mittelamerikanische Plantagengeselleschaft, to oversee these interests. Using advanced agricultural practices and investing in modern transportation and processing facilities the firm was soon a major exporter of bananas, pineapples and other fruits, cotton, coffee and cocoa to Germany and the rest of Europe. Success in these ventures encouraged the firm to expand its activities.

In 1900 established the Guatemala Plantagengesellschaft to consolidate numerous small properties it acquired in the Iberian colony of Guatemala – and concentrated on the production of coffee for the export market. When the firm began operations its annual exports were a mere five thousand sacks of coffee per annum; by 1910 this volume had been increased to more then forty thousand sacks per annum. Following the success of its activities in Guatemala, the firm organised other subsidiaries to operate in the Iberian colonies of Costa Rica and Panama.

For many years the concern held half the shares of the Deutsche Dampfschiffsgesellschaft ‘Kosmos’, which serviced the company’s plantations in the region as well as acting as a general carrier. In 1926 the Kosmos Line was acquired by the HAPAG, a transaction which saw the concern taking a significant holding in the expanded firm and obtaining the right to nominate one of its directors.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

Guatemala Plantagengesellschaft, Hamburg (plantation operations)
Mittelamerikansiche Frucht Compagnie, Hamburg (trading in tropical produce)
Plantagengesellschaft Clementina, Hamburg (plantation operations)
Plantagengesellschaft Concepcion, Hamburg (plantation operations)
Sociedad Anonima de Plantaciones en Centroamerica, Hamburg and Madrid (plantation operations)

This enterprise was formed in 1920 through the voluntary amalgamation of several smaller trading and commercial companies operating in the Danish and Iberian possessions in West Africa. It represented the survival of those branches of German colonial firms that had survived the seizure of Germany’s colonies during the Great War and the subsequent dislocation of the domestic economy in the wake of Germany’s defeat in 1917. The leadership of the firm solidified around the House of Woermann and was represented by the heirs of the great Alfred Woermann – his half-brother Eduard and his son Kurt.

Under their leadership the firm was able to participate in the economic resurgence in West Africa, and diversified into plantations and other ventures in addition to the traditional role of purchasing tropical produce for export and importing finished goods from Europe. In Danish Gambia the firm had a branch office and eleven trading posts up country; in Guinea-Bissau it had a branch office and twenty-five trading posts. Its position in Iberian West Africa – Sierra Leone and Liberia – it had two branches and no fewer than fifty-three trading posts. In addition to the firm’s headquarters in Hamburg, it also maintained European branch offices in Copenhagen and Madrid and in 1934 opened a branch office in New York City specifically to market cocoa grown on its West African plantations.

The firm established plantations for the systematic growing of cash crops such as bananas, cocoa, coffee, oil palms and sisal – using the techniques its predecessor firms had brought to a high standard before the Great War. In 1926 it joined with Iberian partners to establish large rubber plantations, seeking to break the Anglo-Dutch monopoly for that product. A measure of the success of the firm’s activities can be seen in its exports from the region in 1939 – more than 90,000 tons of groundnuts, more than 7,000 tons of palm oil, more than 38,000 tons of palm kernels, 8,000 tons of cocoa and 6,000 tons of coffee – among other commodities. That year the firm reported a turnover in excess of RM 80 million.

In addition to its commercial activities the firm operates oil works at Banjul in Danish Gambia and kapok and cotton ginning works at Bissau. It has acquired substantial interest in the water and electricity works at Freetown and holds a block of shares in the Iberian Bank of West Africa


Associated companies of the firm include:

Banco de las Áfricas occidentals, Sierra Leone (general banking activities)
Compañía agua y electricidad de la Áfricas occidentals, Sierra Leone (water and electricity works at Freetown)
Plantación de goma de Grand Bassa, Liberia (rubber plantations)
Plantación de goma de Grand Kru, Liberia (rubber plantations)

This firm was founded in March 1821 by the entrepreneur Henry Kamp to engage in the export of German manufactures and the import of tropical produce. In its early years the firm went through many vicissitudes until entering the orbit of the Hamburg banking house of Salomon Oppenheim in 1850. In that year the firm was operating offices in Havana, in Caracas and in Cartagena. The establishment of transoceanic steamship lines provided the firm with greater opportunities and it quickly became general agents for such German firms as the HAPAG, and spread its network of offices throughout the Caribbean region.

In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century the firm invested in plantation properties in the Iberian possessions of Cuba and Panama, specialising in the production of sugar, coffee and fruit – much of which was shipped to the United States rather than to Germany. The Great War hurt the firm quite seriously, those offices and assets located in Atlantean and British territories being lost through seizure, and of course communications with Germany were greatly hampered. However, the firm was able to recover in the postwar period by become more of a general trading firm, acting as agents for a number of European and North American firms in marketing their products in the region.

The firm is engaged in a wide variety of ventures including: plantations, breweries, distilleries and plants in Cuba; fruit and timber plantations in Panama; and food processing and cement plants in Colombia. The firm operates a number of small coastal cargo vessels, registered in Panama, under the aegis of the Compania Naviera Frontera, and owns a half-interest in the Banco Atlantico, one of Cuba’s largest banks.

The metals trading firm of Metallgesellschaft AG was founded in 1881 by the Anglo-German merchant Wilhelm Merton and his partners Leo Ellinger and Zachary Hochschild, yet grew from the roots of the long-established merchant house of Philipp Abraham Cohen – established in Hannover some 150 years previously. The firm traded in copper, lead, and zinc, later diversifying into nickel and aluminium. Since the domestic mines could not satisfy the country's metal requirements, the company rapidly developed extensive relations abroad and within a short time Metallgesellschaft was represented in such cities as Basel, Amsterdam, Milan, Brussels, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, and Paris. Within a few years, therefore, a network of subsidiaries spanned the globe. In 1887, the American Metal Company was founded in New York; in 1889, the Companhia de Minerales y Metales in Mexico; and in 1889 the Australian Metal Company.

From 1889, these ores were analyzed and tested by the specially created technical department. This technical department was to be the seed from which grew the largest enterprise that Metallgesellschaft has ever created; from it arose in 1897 the Metallurgische Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft – now known from its cable address as Lurgi GmbH.

The firm developed and flourished in the generally favourable climate of the Gründerjahre, a period of rapid industrial expansion in Germany. However, it was hard hit by the economic consequences of the Great War. Supplies of metals from abroad were disrupted by the Allied blockade of Germany, and the firm’s subsidiaries in Britain, Australia and other nations were seized. To compensate for this loss of business, the firm invested heavily in the construction of several large aluminium works – at Horrem, near Köln; in Berlin-Rummelsburg and in Bitterfeld near Halle.

Following the Great War the firm had three main tasks - overcoming the consequences of inflation; reestablishing ties abroad; and adjusting the firm’s organization to the altered circumstances. Representation abroad was cautiously and gradually reestablished, based in large part on those subsidiaries that were based in neutral nations, such as the United States. Through the acquisition of water transport and land transport companies it created its own transport services. The firm’s interests in light metals were merged with other firms to form the Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke AG.

In recent years the firm has gone from strength to strength and remains a dominant force in the commodity metals trade and, through its numerous subsidiaries, mines, processes and fabricates much of Germany’s metal needs.


Subsidiary companies of the firm include:

In Germany

Lehnkering AG (water transport)
Metallgesellschaft Handel und Beteiligungen Aktiengesellschaft (metals trading)
Montan Transport GmbH (land transport)
Schleppschiffahrtsgesellschaft Unterweser (water transport)

Abroad

Companhia de Minerales y Metales Sociedad Anonima, Mexico (metals trading)
Compania General de Carbones Sociedad Anonima, Iberia (commodity trading)
Metal and Commodity Company Ltd, United Kingdom (metals trading)
Metallgesellschaft do Brasil Limitada, Brazil (metals trading)
MG Metallgesellschaft AG, Switzerland (metals trading)


Affiliated companies of the firm include:

Lurgi GmbH (metallurgical engineering and processes)
Norddeutsche Affinerie AG (metals refining)
Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke AG (light metals manufacture and fabrication)

This firm, now headquartered in Vienna, was founded in 1931 in Munich to promote German export and import trade in southeastern Europe in the nations of the Danube Basin. It relocated to Vienna in 1934. It acts as a representative and agency for second and third-tier German firms seeking to export their products as well as an importer of agricultural and mineral products from local sources within its trading region. Other activities include provision of short and medium-term credits on commercial terms to producers of primary products seeking to export to Germany and investment in manufacturing activities in partnership with local entrepreneurs.

Representative offices are maintained in Bulgaria (Sofia, Ruse and Burgas), in Byzantium, in Czechoslovakia (Prague and Bratislava), in Greece (Athens and Thessalonica), Hungary (Budapest and Gyor) and Yugoslavia (Belgrade, Zagreb and Novi Sad).

The Austrian tobacco monopoly, the Österreichische Tabakregie, was organised in 1784 at the direction of the Emperor Joseph II, and since that time had held the monopoly of manufacture and sale of tobacco and tobacco products within the Austrian Crown Lands. At the time of the union of the Austrian provinces the existence of the Tabakregie presented a serious problem for the Government; while parastatal organisations were common enough in pre-union Germany they were not involved in wholesale or retail trade. After long negotiations a compromise was reached whereby the Tabakregie was reorganised as a cooperative society owned partly by the state, but with the majority of shares held by the workers employed in its nine tobacco processing factories and by the thousands of tobacco retailers throughout the Austrian provinces.

Since its establishment Österreichische Tabakwerke, which still maintains a monopoly of sale and manufacture within the Austrian provinces, has established a reputation for profitability without price gouging.

The semi-annual Königsberg trade fair came into being in 1920 as a political response to the separation of the province of East Prussia from the remainder of Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Initially it was intended to promote the economy of East Prussia and relieve some of the economic distress felt in that province through the loss of former markets in Poland and the nearby Baltic states, it has since become the third largest trade fair in Germany after that of Leipzig and Frankfurt. With the easing of tensions with Germanys eastern neighbors it has come to play a pivotal role in the expansion of German markets in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and the Russian Federation.

The fair is held every February and August. Initially it was an agricultural and consumer goods fair, affording wholesalers and larger retailers in East Prussia the opportunity to sell their produce to buyers from the rest of Germany, and to purchase in return the manufactured goods required by the local economy. It has since grown to include the marketing of colonial goods, iron and hardware, flax, hemp, hides, skins and leather; building materials, coal, textiles, timber and other bulk goods are also exchanged. In recent years the participation of Polish and Russian firms has been notable, the latter in particular in the marketing of timber and timber products. The general populace of the province, and surrounding territories, is also afforded the opportunity to observe the goods that will be available to them through their local shops and dealers, with many thousands of visitors attending annually  in 1943 the combined attendance at the two that year exceeded 300,000.

The mercantile trading house of the Gribel family can trace its origins to the year 1773 when Rudolf Christian Gribel and Johann Friedrich Noack entered into partnership and established a wine trading firm in the Prussian port of Stettin. The firm prospered in the latter years of the Eighteenth Century and grew into a general trading house importing colonial wares from the Indies and exporting in return timber and local manufactures. The disruptions of the Napoleonic Continental System caused great hardship but with the overthrow of Napoleon the firm was able to return to its profitable trade under the careful leadership of Rudolf Gribel. In the postwar period the firm initiated direct trading with the West Indies, operating a fleet of sailing vessels, and later steamers, under the aegis of its subsidiary, Reederei Rudolf Christian Gribel.

In 1855 the firm organised the Stettiner Dampfer-Compagnie to operate cargo steamers on routes within the Baltic and North Seas, offering regular services to St. Petersburg, Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and London, besides calls at other ports as required. While most of the firms twenty-two vessels are of less than 1,500 BRT, they are most modern in construction and are able to maintain their competitive edge with foreign fleets operating in the same area.

The Schlesischen Dampfer-Compagnie was organised in 1887 to operate river ships and barges on the extensive inland waterways of eastern Germany, including the Elbe, Saale, and Oder rivers. In 1917 it merged with the Berliner Lloyd Steamship Company and presently maintains depots at Breslau, Magdeburg, Berlin, Stettin, Halle-Trotha, and Oppeln.

In addition to its shipping and general import/export businesses, the firm holds significant interests in a number of financial, commercial and industrial firms located in the provinces of Brandenburg and Pomerania.

This wholesale cooperative was founded in 1921 by twenty-eight mid-sized hardware retailers located in the Rhineland and Westphalia, with its headquarters in Düsseldorf. Its purpose was to pool the purchase requirements of its members and thus obtain the advantage of economies of scale. The membership came from a variety of retail businesses: small crafts-based businesses with their own corner shop and origins stretching back to the second half of the Eighteenth Century; pure retail businesses founded primarily in the middle of the Nineteenth Century; and retail businesses founded in the Twentieth Century, planned from the very beginning more like department stores. The cooperative's first official member directory, published in 1925, listed seventy-six member firms, indicating the rapidity of its expansion.

New members from all over Germany joined the organization, and its headquarters moved several times into more spacious offices with more exhibition space for product samples. In areas with many producers of hardware products, the cooperative hired representatives to work with suppliers, negotiate favorable conditions, and place orders. Beginning in the 1930s, the cooperative expanded its product range into new areas besides the traditional household goods. By 1937 it included products made from glass, china, porcelain, ceramic, leather, and metal; accessories and luxurious goods; toys; home interior products such as rugs, window coverings, linen, and other home textiles; clothing; and food.

The growing product range could not be managed in the old ways. While purchasing offices in Düsseldorf continued to manage the hardware and grocery areas, new central purchasing houses were set up. In 1931 a new purchasing house for textiles was opened in Berlin, and by 1939 there were twelve regional offices in operation. In addition to expanding its product range, the cooperative took on new responsibilities for its members, assisting members with advertising, setting up balance sheets at the end of the business year, and offering group insurance. In 1934 it expanded into warehousing; a new subsidiary, Groß-Impex Großhandels Im und Export GmbH, based in Berlin, was founded to handle this business.

Founded in September 1911 in Berlin, the firm initially concentrated on the manufacture and trade in Iranian carpets, which at the time were much in demand in Europe. A factory was set up in Tabriz in north-western Persia where high-quality carpets were woven using traditional colours and patterns, and the firm helped to revive traditional weaving and dyeing techniques. For the latter purpose, a second factory was organised with a woollen mill and dyeing shop. Hand-knotted carpets were produced for the worldwide trade in Persian carpets, which were sold throughout Europe and the United States through a network of branches and agencies. The firm survived the vagaries of the Great War and expanded its activities into the wider sphere of hand-woven carpets to include Anatolian rugs from Turkey and Persian-style carpets from elsewhere in central Asia.

In recent years it has worked with the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst to revive and expand traditional carpet-weaving in Azerbaijan as part of the Azerbaijan Rural Investment Project.