It all started with duck feathers: Dr.
Otto Rothe worked for Rudolf Chemie for 43 years.
Here the Geretsrieder tells his story.
Geretsried -
In Dr.
Otto Rothes dining room still has the huge camera microscope on a sideboard, with which he worked for 35 years.
The device manufactured by the Leitz Wetzlar company was a “miracle instrument” for its time, enthuses Rothe.
With it he was able to document exactly how substances change when treated with chemicals.
Rothe is one of the oldest former employees of the Rudolf chemical company.
"Microphotography was life-defining for me," says the 93-year-old.
On his living room table he has spread all the material from 43 years with Rudolf - starting with a black and white photo of him as a young intern in a trench coat in front of the company entrance, to a calendar with his microscope photos, to a booklet that his employer wrote specially for Rothes 65 . Birthday made.
Geretsrieder comes from Schönbüchel in northern Bohemia.
After elementary school he attended grammar school, which he was unable to finish because of the war.
In 1944 he was drafted into the Volkssturm and the Wehrmacht.
He was captured by Russia in Karlovy Vary, from which he was released in 1946.
Rothe made up his Abitur, did an apprenticeship at the TeLüxtilfachschule in Lauterbach and because he was interested in chemistry, he went to Geretsried to join the Rudolf company in 1950.
Laboratory work and study
Their boss Wolfgang Schumann offered him to work in the laboratory and at the same time study chemistry at the Technical University of Munich.
Rothe's wife Gisela shared her husband's double burden.
“It would not have been possible without their support,” he says.
He was married to his late wife for 61 years, the marriage resulted in three children, and there are now five grandchildren.
One of the young chemist's first investigations consisted of testing the effect of a detergent on heavily soiled duck feathers.
Rothe shows photos that he initially took with a simple microscope and a camera.
This clearly shows the difference between the cleaned and the uncleaned spring.
In 1952, the Rudolf company purchased the camera microscope.
Rothe: "The pictures were very effective in advertising."
When he talks about his job, he raves about it.
A cotton shirt, as it is hanging in the store, has more than 30 operations behind it - from removing the seed hair, which is the actual cotton fibers, to spinning, weaving, bleaching, dyeing and finishing.
Chemical aids would be required for each of these processes.
Untreated cotton does not have the same wearing properties as treated.
For example, synthetic resins are incorporated into the material so that it does not wrinkle.
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With trench coat and tie: Dr.
Otto Rothe as a young intern in front of the company entrance.
© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
The "Chemische Fabrik Rudolf & Co" was founded in 1922 by Reinhold Rudolf in Warnsdorf in North Bohemia, today the Czech Republic.
Ernst Schumann took it over in 1924, and in 1942 his son Wolfgang Schumann joined the management team.
After the Second World War, the Czech state expropriated the family.
Ernst and Wolfgang Schumann ended up in Zittau after they were expelled.
On December 13, 1945, the Rudolf company received the permit for the "production of textile auxiliaries and the processing of animal bones and skin waste".
In 1946 Rudolf moved into two former armaments bunkers in Geretsried.
In reality, bones were never processed, says Rothe.
Rather, one of the first products was a hand washing paste based on sand and surfactants.
In 1947 the production of textile auxiliaries could begin in large vessels.
However, many problems had to be solved before the first batch.
The bunkers were in a desolate condition.
There was no packaging material for the chemical company's partly liquid and partly paste-like products.
That is why an own cooperage was set up, in which wooden barrels with a capacity of 200 liters were made.
Nikolaus Geiger was the first freight forwarder
When it came to transporting goods to and from the railroad loading points, the company owners initially went unconventional.
The innkeeper and farmer Nikolaus Geiger was the first forwarder in the service of the company.
He used a tractor and a flatbed truck to move barrels and sometimes the chemicals that were delivered in bulk.
“We started with two men.
My son and I were the first to work in the bunkers, ”said Ernst Schumann in a radio interview that was broadcast in 1956, ten years after the first expellees arrived in Geretsried.
Employees were brought to Geretsried from the refugee camps, some also from the eastern zone.
The employees from the very beginning were particularly interested in new ideas, but also a talent for improvisation.
Before the currency reform, the raw materials just available determined the production program.
There were no difficulties in selling the aids produced.
When the currency was changed from Reichsmark to D-Mark on June 20, 1948, 180 tons of textile auxiliaries worth almost half a million marks had already been produced and sold.
Over the years the competition became tougher.
Rudolf mainly maintained business relationships with the East.
In order to survive, good contacts to the textile finishing industry also had to be established in West Germany.
Employees in the field service like Rothe, but also Ernst and Wolfgang Schumann themselves campaigned for this.
It was necessary to develop and offer textile auxiliaries that were as unrivaled as possible.
At many lectures all over Europe he extolled Rudolf's products and wrote scientific papers for specialist journals.
He received his doctorate in 1966.
“Personal contact with the customer was very important,” said Rothe.
It was not uncommon for him to have his business partners or their children visit him at home, even for longer periods.
A good customer from Augsburg, whose son had previously been on vacation with the Rothes for two weeks, once brought him a body-length salami as a gift, the 93-year-old remembers with a smile.
They were eaten by colleagues with bread and beer at the Geiger inn.
To name just one loyal buyer of the medium-sized Geretsried company, Rothe thinks of the fine tights manufacturer “Nur die”.
Company celebrations in "Old Austria"
Despite other offers, the chemical technician stayed with one employer all his life - an absolute rarity today.
The reason was simply that Rothe felt comfortable with Rudolf.
“It was a very socially minded company,” he says.
In the late 1960s, for example, Wolfgang Schumann gave employees and their wives a vacation every summer.
The bus took them to South Tyrol, Lake Wörthersee in Carinthia or Jesolo for two weeks at operating costs.
“Otherwise, many workers would never have been able to afford a vacation,” says Rothe.
After work, the workforce sometimes went to Königsdorf to go to the “Hofherr” for dinner.
Numerous festivals were celebrated in the “Alt Österreich” inn on Sudetenstrasse.
The company band "Ruco-Jets" played.
All of this has had a positive effect on the working atmosphere, says Dr.
Rothe.
Finally, from the pile of documents, he takes the booklet with photos and anecdotes that his boss and his secretaries made especially for him for his 65th birthday.
The Rudolf Group is now represented in seven countries with more than 20 branches.
It employs over 1000 people and has a turnover of around 300 million euros.
In Geretsried, the family business under the management of Dr.
Wolfgang Schumann, Ernst Schumann's great-grandson, has an excellent reputation in the fourth generation.
Tanja Lühr
Read more from our series “Geretsried Life Lines” here.