1911: Hörner & Koch founded
Hörner & Koch, an important company in its day, has no longer existed since 1973. Nevertheless, its 100th anniversary was duly celebrated. This was ensured by former employees, who still maintain the solidarity of the past at regular meetings. Seventeen pensioners still do. They call themselves the "Höko-Spatzen", although it is no longer entirely clear how this name came about.
The history of the company shows how the leather goods industry once stimulated the industrial location of Offenbach with its need for accessories. Hörner & Koch supplied leather goods manufacturers with specialty papers and boards. In addition, retail and industrial companies were also supplied with other packaging materials and stationery.
The Offenbach-based company secured customers throughout Germany, in Scandinavia, Switzerland and South America. The company never lost its down-to-earth attitude. Helmut Wäscher, one of the "Höko sparrows", knows of the market women who used to cover their needs for bags on the short journey from the weekly market to the company headquarters in Wilhelmstraße.
Johann Friedrich Hörner and Heinrich Koch founded their company in Domstraße. However, they moved into premises at Wilhelmstraße 7 as early as 1912. Two years later, the First World War began, taking the men out of the business and imposing unprecedented difficulties on the remaining women. They had to reorganize the business.
At first, they glued bags for the ration cards that every household now needed. This developed into a considerable bag production after the war. Soon paper bags were printed, then bags made of polyethylene film. Additional premises were added at Kaiserstraße 46, and a branch was opened in Wiesloch in Baden. In its best days, the company employed around 80 people.
The circumstances of the time always forced the company to act flexibly. When Offenbach found itself in the American occupation zone in 1945, the local leather goods industry was able to get back on its feet faster and more elegantly than other sectors of the economy. The occupying forces showed an interest in leather goods from Offenbach and provided the manufacturers with otherwise unobtainable raw materials. This also benefited the suppliers. American trucks brought in specialty papers for Hörner & Koch from other occupation zones. The company was able to work again.
When the former employees tell their stories, insights into forgotten life circumstances open up. Friedhelm Meier tells how the first car replaced the handcarts used until then. When Managing Director Koch visited customers in Rodgau by car, he used to park the car on the outskirts of the town. He would walk to the customers. He didn't want them to realize that he could afford the luxury of an automobile.
Stories like this come up when pensioners remember their company Hörner & Koch. But at the moment, they are mainly talking about how the anniversary will soon be celebrated. They look back on a hundred years, some of which were also good years in their own lives. Lothar R. Brown