The Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau is a medium-sized furniture-manufacturing business in the

Hellerau Hellerau is a northern quarter ''(Stadtteil)'' in the city of Dresden, Germany, slightly south of Dresden Airport. It was the first garden city in Germany. The northern section of Hellerau absorbed the village of Klotzsche, where some 18th cent ...

district of the German city of

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. The company archives are deemed a valuable cultural asset and were provided with legal protection. Dresden-HellerauDW

Company history

The workshops were founded October 1, 1898 by

Karl Schmidt-Hellerau Karl Camillo Schmidt-Hellerau (1 February 1873 – 6 November 1948) was a German carpenter, furniture manufacturer and social reformer. He was born in Zschopau, and is notable as the founder of Hellerau Hellerau is a northern quarter ''(Stad ...

(1873-1948) under the name Dresdner Werkstätten für Handwerkskunst Schmidt und Engelbrecht, or Schmidt and Engelbrecht Dresdner workshops for craftsmanship. His partner In 1898-1899 Karl Schmidt-Hellerau and Johann Vincenz Cissarz developed a closet using plywood panels. They continued developing the technique of using plywood. In 1941, they received a patent for thermally tempered wood. In 1907, Karl Schmidt-Hellerau established an industrial technical school and training workshops. Its first head was Joseph August Lux. The cornerstone of a new factory was laid in 1909 in what is today Dresden-Hellerau at the same time as work began on the garden city of

. Following the commissioning of the new production hall, the company moved there in 1910. At the time, the firm occupied 450 employees. Despite the severe global economic crisis in 1929, the years of National Socialism and the devastation of the Second World War and the socialist planned economy in the

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

, the company has endured. In 1967 the workshops began mass production of the Möbelprogramm Deutsche Werkstätten (MDW), a modular system developed by Rudolf Horn which remained in production for 24 years. Starting in 1970 Hellerau was the main plant of the

Volkseigener Betrieb The Publicly Owned Enterprise (; abbreviated VEB) was the main legal form of industrial enterprise in East Germany. These state-owned enterprise were all publicly owned and were formed after mass nationalisation between 1945 and the early 1960s, ...

Möbelkombinat Hellerau, an industrial grouping of furniture producers of East Germany. Following

reunification A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller politics or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal govern ...

in 1991, the company was transformed into a

GmbH (; ) is a type of Juridical person, legal entity in German-speaking countries. It is equivalent to a (Sàrl) in the Romandy, French-speaking region of Switzerland and to a (Sagl) in the Ticino, Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. It is a ...

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

and privatized by the

Treuhand The (, " Trust agency"), colloquially referred to as , was an agency established by the government of the German Democratic Republic to reprivatise/ privatise East German enterprises, Volkseigene Betriebe (VEBs), prior to German reunification. ...

. It then employed 80 people, with a focus on fulfilling public sector procurement. At the beginning of the 21st century, Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau employed over 200 people worldwide, with foreign subsidiaries and sales representatives in England and France.

Social Commitment

During his years in England, Karl Schmidt-Hellerau became familiar with the idea of the garden city. In reaction to the conditions of worker's housing in

, he decided together with other people, among them Friedrich Naumann, to build

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

's first garden city. This was accomplished in 1909.

Awards

*Three bronze medals at the Paris World Fair in 1900 *Awards at the Universal Exhibitions of 1904 in St. Louis and 1937 in Paris.

References

External links

Deutsche Werkstätten
– Official website

– Official website - historical timeline
Rustic Furniture
Manufacturing companies established in 1898 Furniture companies of Germany Manufacturing companies based in Dresden Volkseigene Betriebe 1898 establishments in Germany {{Germany-company-stub