WesWorld

The family firm of Gummischuhfabrik Westheimer & Compagnie was founded on 1 July 1925 in the city of Hanau to manufacture waterproof overshoes. It soon expanded its range of products to include gymnastic, tennis, and sports shoes with molded rubber soles. Upon the retirement of the founder the concern was converted into a joint-stock company under the current style. It presently employs more than one thousand workers in its factory and holds a significant share of the national market for rubber-soled shoes.

This firm is headquartered in the town of Landeshut in Schlesien, and represents a considerable segment of the Silesian cotton and linen textile industry. Founded in 1907 as Schlesische Textilwerke Methner und Frahne AG it merged in 1931 with the AG für Schlesische Leinen-Industrie (formerly C. G. Kramsta & Söhne, founded in 1797). The firm employs no fewer than one thousand workers in two facilities in the town of Landeshut; a further five hundred workers in the nearby town of Schmiedeberg im Riesengebirge, and at a fourth factory in the town of Liebau, more than six hundred workers.

Founded in 1780, this firm existed as a private business until 1900, when it became a limited liability company, and in 1920 was converted to a joint-stock company in order to raise sufficient capital to reorganise after the disruptions of the Great War. Originally specialising in the manufacture of blankets it has since established a Continent-wide reputation for the production of high-quality woolen, camel’s hair, and alpaca jackets for men and women.

The origins of the firm lie in a yarn and twine factory organised by Friedrich Ackermann in the town of Sontheim. In 1842 he had opened a yarn, fabric, and haberdashery shop in Heilbronn, in 1868 he expanded his business to include the production to yarn and twine, acquiring factory facilities in Sontheim. At the outset the firm operated as Ackermann & Compagnie, utilising machinery imported from England. In 1878, due to financial difficulties, the firm was reorganised as a joint stock company; the first chairman of the supervisory board was Gustav Hauck. Production facilities were increased by seventy percent, and new products were introduced, including sewing threads, crochet yarns, and stuffing yarns were produced. Within a few years, the company grew to become one of the most important yarn producers in Germany. In 1897 the firm had 650 employees, and by 1907 this had grown to 760. Output exceeded one million kilograms of yarn.

In the wake of the Great War the firm underwent further reorganisation and founded a subsidiary, Holzwarenfabrik Königsberg GmbH to undertake the manufacture of the wooded spools required for yarn production. These had previously been imported from Nordmark. This subsidiary firm supplied more than eighty-five million thread bobbins a year to the parent firm and the German textile industry generally.

In response to the appearance of artificial fibres the firm diversified in their manufacture under the brand names Syncord, Synton and Rasant. The sale and distribution of these items are handled by another specialised subsidiary, Garnindustrie GmbH, based in München. In 1948 the firm merged with Nähfadenfabrik Göggingen, vastly increasing its production base.

Headquartered in the city of Freiburg in Lower Silesia, this concern was organised in 1923 to carry on the business of the firm C. G. Kramsta und Söhne, whose roots go back to 1797. Founded by Christian Gottlieb Kramsta of that famous family of entrepreneurs it had started in the wholesaling of linens and integrated backwards into the production of flax and forward into the manufacture of linen and cotton fabrics. During the Nineteenth Century textile mills would be erected at Bolkenhain and Merzdorf in addition to the original factory complex at Freiburg.

Upon the death in 1923 of Marie von Kramsta, the last of the von Kramsta heirs, the business, which had survived the Great War, was reorganised under the aegis of the Commerzbank, emerging as one of Germany’s largest manufacture of flax-based fibre products, linen, half-linen, cotton, and rayon textiles, as well as canvas for industrial applications, work clothes, outerwear, and particularly military uniforms.

Following the reunification of Memelland with the Reich in 1939 the former Lithuanian textile factories Klaipėdos medvilnės verpimo fabrikas “Trinyčiai” and Audimo fabrikas “Gulbė” were united under a single management. Production facilities ad outputs were rationalised, with two production units that between them operated more than four thousand looms and 240,000 spindles. Employing more than two thousand workers the combined output exceeded more than 100,000 square metres of cotton cloth per annum. Thanks to the prevailing customs union the firm was able to retain much of its former market in Lithuania as well as exporting its textiles to Latvia, Poland and Nordmark.