Ahead of its time: The first headed paper existed before the company was even founded. The logo already worked with the symbols still used today.
For years, Erich Franke and Gerhard Heydrich worked tirelessly under the most adverse conditions to establish a joint company. Just when they had achieved the almost impossible, a stroke of fate shattered the project – but it could not stop it.
The fact that Gerhard Heydrich lived in Jena and thus in the Soviet occupation zone, while Erich Franke had been living in American-occupied Heidenheim since the summer of 1945, made the planned foundation of a joint company a nerveracking Herculean task. Especially as face-to-face meetings were just as impossible as telephone calls. Throughout the entire founding phase, the two communicated exclusively by letter.
Nevertheless, they reached an essential milestone in November 1947 with the approval of the patent exploitation by Zeiss. And while Erich Franke was recovering from his first heart attack in the spring of 1948, Gerhard Heydrich was already having headed paper printed in Jena, including the logo for the planned company. Despite Franke’s illness, the company took shape over the summer in the form of articles of association. These became part of the deed of incorporation of Franke & Heydrich GmbH issued by the Heidenheim district notary’s office on 18th September 1948, as did the agreement reached with Zeiss on the use of the patents for the wire race bearings. Their “commercial exploitation [...] by way of own production and manufacture or the granting of reproduction rights to third parties” was the express “object of the company”. Erich Franke contributed the value of his inventions amounting to 14,000 Deutschmarks as a capital contribution, Gerhard Heydrich, who had to be represented by an authorised representative at the notary appointment, made a cash contribution of 7,000 Deutschmarks.
He was unable to reap the rewards of his pre-paratory work: Gerhard Heydrich died unexpectedly in November 1948, before the new company was even entered in the commercial register. This took place on 7th April 1949 and marked the legal foundation date. Heydrich’s shares went to his widow Margarethe, from whom Erich Franke acquired them in 1955. The name Heydrich was still part of the company name until Franke GmbH was founded as an operating company in 1986. //