1900: Paris World Exhibition - Gold medal for the company Dick & Kirschten
The official award certificate of a gold medal from the Paris World Exhibition of 1900 - issued to the Offenbach company Dick & Kirschten - has been returned to Offenbach through a purchase for the "Haus der Stadtgeschichte".
Against the backdrop of Offenbach's participation in the "Route of Industrial Heritage Rhine-Main", former Head of Cultural Affairs Stephan Wildhirt saw the return of the exhibit, which had been lost for decades, as an enrichment: "With this award, we have regained important evidence of the international appreciation of Offenbach's industry."
The extremely large-format document (58.5 x 68.5 cm) is not only an important testimony to Offenbach's industrial history, but is also of art-historical value as an original copperplate engraving by the French draughtsman and engraver Adrien Didier. Museum director Jürgen Eichenauer comments on his latest acquisition: "Official, state-approved artists were engaged for the documents of the Paris World Exhibition, not always the most advanced, but master craftsmen in their field." Indeed, there are no such stylistic elements on the masterfully engraved certificate from the then capital of Art Nouveau; instead, monumental allegories of the arts and work based on a design by Camille Boignard adorn the sheet.
Founded in 1782, the court carriage factory Dick & Kirschten embodies the best of Offenbach's corporate tradition: the company had a worldwide reputation. Long before there were motorized carriages, Emperor Napoleon I - certainly the most prominent customer - preferred to order his vehicles from Offenbach. The company's products were exported to almost all European countries. In 1808, branches were founded in Amsterdam and Hamburg
It all began with one of the many frictions between Frankfurt and Offenbach: when the two master saddlers Johann Christoph Dick and Johann Georg Kirschten founded their saddlery business in Frankfurt am Main in 1782, the Frankfurt guilds did not tolerate the manufacture of carriages. However, there was a great demand for carriages in the wealthy city, which is why carriages were ordered from half of Europe: from London, Paris and Brussels. The resistance of the Frankfurt guilds threatened to scupper the venture. What happened? Offenbach gave the two entrepreneurs the freedom they needed. They relocated.
Production began in Offenbach in 1797. Although hostility from the Frankfurt guilds did not abate, 120 craftsmen were already employed ten years after the company was founded. In 1805, production was moved to Geleitsstraße. Blacksmiths, locksmiths, wheelwrights, truss makers, box carpenters, painters, saddlers, strap makers, platers, belt makers, tinsmiths, turners, spring makers and wagon tighteners worked together under one roof. Hans-Georg Ruppel, head of the archive in the "Haus der Stadtgeschichte", states: "The early phase of Offenbach's industrialization began with a division of labour on this scale, not with the first steam engine."
Johann Heinrich Dick, son of one of the two company founders, plays a special role in Offenbach's city history. He took over the company, became a member of the municipal council in 1843 and was appointed mayor by Grand Duke Ludwig III of Hesse-Darmstadt on May 6, 1859. His term of office lasted until 1867 and included a number of lasting measures. He expanded the town to the west and replaced the previous lettered street names with a numbering system. Dick had already sold the company in 1856 in order to devote himself entirely to the tasks at hand.
The new owner, Karl Theodor Wecker, continued the success story. In 1865, he acquired an extensive area between Frankfurter Strasse and the later Körnerstrasse, Geleitsstrasse and Parkstrasse in Offenbach's Westend district. The Villa Wecker, designed by Mylius and Bluntschli, was built in the northern part of this property in 1876. In the southern part of the site, the new factory now also produced spring and patent axles, wheels and other vehicle parts within its own production branch, in addition to finished carriages.
Wecker's interests were of not inconsiderable importance for the development of Offenbach's Westend. As co-initiator of the Grand Ducal Hessian State Trade Exhibition of 1879, for example, he designated an area on the edge of his own property, which subsequently became a permanent municipal park as Dreieichpark.
The beginning of the 20th century and the development of the automobile put an end to the boisterous success of Dick & Kirschten. Although the company expanded for the last time on today's Odenwaldring, on a 12,000 square meter site just outside the city gates, the company had to cease the production of luxury equipment due to steadily declining demand and limit itself to the manufacture of axles and springs. In 1912, the traditional company name was lost as a result of a merger.
