Hoffmann Linen Weaving Mill – the classics

A final report by the Saxony State Institute for Agriculture from 1998 confirmed the advantages of flax cultivation in this region after a six-year study, including the following quote:

“Relatively shallow weathered soils, on which other market crops do not thrive sufficiently, can offer good growing conditions for flax if rainfall distribution is favorable. The eastern and central Ore Mountains, Upper Lusatia, and Vogtland are the classic flax-growing regions.”

For over 700 years, the greater Neukirch/Lausitz area has been a center for flax and linen production and processing. Until well into the 20th century, flax farmers in the region supplied the raw material, flax, to the now mature linen industry.

The year 1905, the founding of the Schulze & Hoffmann mechanical weaving mill

In 1904, Carl Friedrich Richter, a weaving mill owner from Oberneukirch, had a building complex consisting of a main building, factory hall, and drying tower constructed at Zittauer Straße 23. The purpose of the building was to bleach finished linen fabrics. However, he overestimated demand and was unable to run the business successfully. At the same time, Messrs. Schulze and Hoffmann were looking for premises to set up a weaving mill. In 1905, the three agreed on the purchase of the property at Zittauer Straße 23, and the Schulze & Hoffmann weaving mill opened in the same year.

From the outset, merchant Martin Hoffmann and manufacturer Karl-Gustav-Schulze specialized in high-quality damask and embroidery on linen. To this end, they equipped the factory with the latest Jacquard looms, which made it possible to produce elaborate patterns such as those found in damask. At the same time, women were commissioned to embroider tablecloths, handkerchiefs, and bed linen, both in the factory and at home. The two clever entrepreneurs recognized a gap in the market at the time. In the first decade of the 20th century, cheap cotton had already largely replaced linen. However, this left a niche in the luxury segment, especially in the upscale hotel and restaurant industry, where linen was irreplaceable due to the demanding clientele.

World War I and the Weimar Republic

In the years and decades following its founding, the weaving mill built up an illustrious customer base with its portfolio of exclusive linen goods, which extended as far as England. In England in particular, customers were clamoring for bedding and damask from Lusatia. Although the British were already growing a lot of flax and producing linen fabrics themselves at that time, the fabrics from Germany impressed with their quality. Even the First World War could hardly limit their success. But then came October 24, 1929. It was Black Friday, which caused the US economy to collapse. Believing that this would help the US economy recover, then-US President Herbert Hoover enacted a new customs law in June 1930. This law primarily included very high tariffs on imported goods in order to protect domestic companies from cheaper goods from abroad. However, this forced European countries in particular to do exactly the same. As a result, such high tariffs were imposed on the products of the Schulze & Hoffmann weaving factory that exporting to England was no longer profitable. In the end, everyone was a loser, but especially Germany, whose inhabitants were driven into the arms of the NSDAP and ultimately into World War II by the resulting poor economic situation.

With the loss of his English clientele, Karl-Gustav-Schulze withdrew from the company in the early 1930s and it was renamed Hoffmann & Co.

Nazi rule and the DDR

Little is known about the Hoffmann linen weaving mill during the Nazi regime. After the end of the war in 1945, the company was now located in the eastern zone of the four victorious powers, i.e. on Russian territory, and initially business simply continued as usual. Hotels and even shipyards continued to be supplied with bed linen and household textiles of the same high quality as before the war. Upper Lusatia, as a flax-growing region, was of little importance to the victors of the war, which is why, apart from Dresden, hardly any bombs fell in the region.

When the GDR was founded, Hoffmann & Co was not nationalized like many other companies, but production was forcibly converted to workwear and children’s trousers. At the beginning of the 1960s, the company was then tasked with producing bed linen. In 1972, nationalization finally came in the form of an initially independent VEB, which was then integrated into the state-owned Wäsche Union in 1975. Flax cultivation in the region declined steadily, leaving Hoffmann & Co. without raw materials. At first, the company made do by manufacturing half-linen products, but then it was only cotton. The employees mainly used this to make dish towels. In 1990, when the GDR dissolved, Hoffmann & Co produced 20,000 dish towels per day, which were delivered to retail chains in West Germany.