[10] Station 10 - Spinning and weaving mill

Description

The spinning and weaving mill existed from 1868 to 1987

Almost at the same time as the lower factory, Jean Hartmann and W. Seemann founded the factory on the ‘Eberäckern’ on the border with Betzingen. The spinning mill with 7400 spindles was put into operation in 1870. It was financed by State Councillor Dr Jean von Schlumberger, a cousin of Hartmann. By 1895, the spinning mill already had 290 employees, Schirm and Mittler 283 employees. Nevertheless, the ‘Hartmann factory’ remained more important for the town. In 1904, the previous company and limited partnership, Hartmann & Co. was dissolved. The business was transferred to the newly founded company ‘Spinnerei &. Weberei Wannweil GmbH’, whose shareholders were the previous main shareholder, State Councillor Dr Jean von Schlumberger and his four sons. From this point onwards, the company was only involved in the production of raw and bleached weaving yarns, mottled yarns and twisted yarns. The production of coloured yarns was discontinued and the dye works closed. By modernising and renewing the machinery and building a new dyeing plant, the company was able to remain competitive even in years of poor business. The local spinning and weaving mill also prepared for the war at the beginning of 1915. As it was no longer possible to procure cotton, the company was one of the first in Württemberg to switch to paper yarn spinning in 1915. Soon afterwards, it was recognised by the Ministry of War in Berlin as a wartime operation and a high-performance company. Over 520 workers were employed in 3 day and night shifts and every day a railway carriage with 5,000 kg of yarn left the Wannweil station. After the war, the business was converted back to cotton and reorganised from scratch. Director Lucian Gasser returns from the field and becomes director again together with A. Brun. Company name: ‘Dr Ernst von Schlumberger Spinnerei und Zwirnerei Wannweil bei Reutlingen’. In 1924, Richard Burkhardt from Reutlingen takes over the business from the Brun and Schlumberger families. In 1934, Karl Conzelmann from Tailfingen becomes co-owner of the Wannweil spinning mill. With 440 employees, the factory reaches its highest number of employees outside the war economy, which will be an issue again six years later. In 1940, the spinning mill receives seven prisoners of war. The prisoners are housed in a carpentry workshop in Eberhardstraße as a closed camp. They are catered for by the Adlerwirt Künstle. In November 1943, Daimler-Benz relocates its gear production to the spinning mill in Wannweil. By the end of the war, nine Dutch, three Czech, seven Italian, eleven Belgian, one Polish, 106 Soviet and 85 French workers had been deployed there alongside a few Germans. In addition, there were the workers who had already worked there before the spinning and weaving mill was confiscated by Daimler-Benz, mainly Polish, Belgian, French and Yugoslavian forced labourers. The barrack camps on the factory site and in Jahnstraße that were set up during this time were occupied by the French occupying forces after the collapse and later by refugees who also came to Wannweil because of the jobs available. Not least because of their social behaviour towards the workforce, the factory owners Richard Burghardt and Karl Conzelmann were awarded honorary citizenship by the municipality in 1957 and 1960. In 1964, Karl Conzelmann became the sole owner after Burghardt´s death. The company remains in the possession of the Conzelmann family from Tailfingen until it is closed down on 31 March 1987. 106 workers and employees, including 90 foreigners, lose their jobs. The lower factory survived the demise of the German textile industry by switching to other products in good time. After technical glass fibre fabrics were produced in the old buildings, plastic parts are now manufactured in new halls by the company ‘Spritzgussa’.

The spinning mill had the first uniformed fire brigade in Germany. Link: https://simonwolperth.blogspot.com/2009/04/wannweil-hatte-eine-der-ersten.html

The spinning mill in the green era Link:  https://simonwolperth.blogspot.com/2011/09/spinnerei-und-weberei-wannweil-aus-der.html

Swimming pool and tennis court for the workforce Link: https://simonwolperth.blogspot.com/2009/07/spinnerei-und-weberei-wannweil-um-1943.html