Chapter 1
Foundation of the company

It is February 9, 1849, a Friday. On this day, Carl Johann Freudenberg (1819–1898) and Heinrich Christian Heintze (1800–1862) establish a new firm based in Weinheim. It bears the name “Heintze & Freudenberg”1. 1849: It is already quite a feat for a company to have this year on its files as its founding year. And then in Baden of all places. Because this state was where the revolution in Germany had originated the previous year, and a civil war still raged here in the summer of 1849. It was in this revolutionary Baden, or more precisely, in Mannheim, that Carl Johann Freudenberg lived with his young family. There was uproar in Mannheim in the true sense of the word: “[Here, in February 1848,] a first revolutionary people’s assembly took place with more than 2,500 people; countless more followed across Germany in the subsequent days and weeks.”2 The demands were: freedom of the press, local militias, jury courts and, as the revolution progressed, a national German state with a freely elected parliament. In Baden, the revolutionaries were divided into two camps: the liberal constitutionals and the radical democrats. Unlike in Württemberg, the liberal forces in Baden did not manage to sway public opinion. From then on, it was no longer a matter of effecting change within the existing political system there, but of achieving radical upheaval.3

Anything seemed possible in this Germany which did not even exist yet as a unified national state at that time. The country was a patchwork of independent territories, and the Grand Duchy of Baden was one of them. The ruling order that had prevailed in the German Confederation4 and in Europe after the end of the Napoleonic era was beginning to falter. Businesspeople, who generally tend to favor stable political conditions, followed events anxiously. This also applied to the founders of what is now the Freudenberg Group, Heinrich Christian Heintze and Carl Johann Freudenberg, and their family members.

There was an additional factor: In the midst of the revolution, Carl Johann Freudenberg’s son Friedrich Carl was born in Mannheim on November 28, 1848. They were setting the course for both their professional and personal future, just wanted to have their peace – and got upheaval instead.5

Take over a business, even if it is with a partner – in uncertain times like these? That requires not just the right character traits, but also the right companions, in equal measure, in a person’s professional and personal life. Carl Johann Freudenberg was fortunate enough to be able to combine these ingredients. But this good fortune did not run in his family. These were turbulent times, people had much less money, but more children, than nowadays. They died younger, and their surviving relatives had to start from scratch over and over again.

In Freudenberg’s case, everything culminated in the events of the revolution, which was not merely a catalyst for change in European politics. It was also a key contributing factor in changing the way business worked, which in turn would enable former apprentice Carl Johann Freudenberg to gradually become a joint owner and later also sole owner of his own company. This development demonstrates how even bad news can give rise to promising new beginnings. For Heintze & Sammet, the precursor company to Heintze & Freudenberg, which we will cover in more detail further on, this bad news was the collapse of the bank through which it was financed.6

But up to that point, many questions still remain open: Why did the real company history start off in Weinheim of all places, when Carl Johann Freudenberg’s professional roots were in Mannheim? How did the young Carl Johann Freudenberg meet his wife, Sophie? And: What sort of company was Heintze & Sammet anyway? Why was leather so important in the region in question? To find the answers to these questions, it is time to leave the exciting revolutionary turmoil behind again – and jump back in time, back to the history preceding the newly established firm of Heintze & Freudenberg.

The history of Freudenberg is closely connected to the city of Weinheim and its leather-making tradition, although the firm started off in Mannheim. Because it was right there in Mannheim that entrepreneurs Heinrich Christian Heintze and Johann Baptist Sammet (1798–1870) established their leather business on March 1, 1823, under the name Heintze & Sammet.7 This business was officially registered with Mannheim’s business guild on August 4, 1823.8

Leather production, in its turn, held the “position of a key industry” in industrialization, because leather was comparable to iron in its significance as a “construction material”. Hence leather was an important material that could be used in many different areas because of its unique material properties. The reasons: The tanned hide was highly elastic, supple, heat insulating, tough, and impervious to moisture, heat and friction. It was used primarily to make clothing, particularly shoes, but also as saddle leather, as leather for drive belts, for gaskets, and furthermore as bookbinding and wallet leather as well.9

This means that Heintze and Sammet set up their leather business at a time when leather and the associated craft of tanning played a key role. Corresponding to this, the number of artisanal businesses in the leather-producing industry rose significantly up to 1850 in Germany.10

The success of Heintze & Sammet’s business far beyond the boundaries of Mannheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden was largely down to their trading network. For this reason, the entrepreneurs soon began to think about expansion, right up to producing their own leather. This would make the value chain deeper and they would gain better control over their own goods. These thoughts soon turned into actions: In 1828, and thus only five years after establishing the firm, they initially set up their own small boot-leg manufacturing company in Mannheim’s characteristic grid of streets.11 However, they continued to use bought-in leather for this. The desire not to merely process the leather, but also produce it themselves from then on, quickly raised the question of location. For what is needed to produce high-quality leather? The tanner’s expertise and the raw materials: animal hides, good-quality running water and tanning agents – in this case, oak bark – in sufficient, meaning large, quantities.12 None of these were available in Mannheim. There was no bark mill in Mannheim, which would have been necessary to process the tree bark into tannin. Likewise, there was no clean, running water available from a creek, and operating a tannery on Mannheim’s rivers, the Rhine or the Neckar, was impossible because of the danger of flooding. Moreover, the odor-intensive leather production would have violated the police regulations that were in force at the time in the City of Mannheim, so this ruled out the establishment of tanneries in the city.13

For this reason, Messrs. Heintze and Sammet searched for a location for their tannery outside of Mannheim. However, this issue of location had to take additional factors into account as well: Production had to be easily accessible to Mannheim and if possible be situated within the Grand Duchy of Baden, so that they would not have to pay tariffs for transporting the finished leather to the trading house in Mannheim, where the leathers were sold on. ...