Man of the first hour: Head foreman Fritz Meier is honoured for his decades of service.
Legally, the company “Franke & Heydrich GmbH” was fully operational after its entry in the commercial register in April 1949 – but in practice, things looked different. One of Erich Franke’s most remarkable achievements in life was his courage and drive in building up his company against all odds.
Initially, there were many obstacles: Erich Franke was still working full-time at Zeiss Opton; due to a lack of production facilities, he had the ball races for the wire race bearings manufactured by the company “Xaver Florentz Wwe.” in Chemnitz, then from 1950 by steel wire processors Rößler in Gauting. The accounts department was still based in Jena and an exhibition stand at the 1950 Frankfurt Spring Fair attracted a great deal of interest, but generated barely any customers. The few that it had – including Zeiss Opton, Voith and MAN – only placed small orders. Franke wrote resignedly to the widow of his deceased business partner Heydrich: “I deeply fear that our company will never get off the ground. What else am I supposed to do?”
But he soon found the solution. Initially, he persuaded five colleagues from Zeiss Opton to take over the production of the ball races for him after work, working from home. In 1952, a groundbreaking personnel decision was made: He hired his first full-time employee, foreman Fritz Meier, also a “Zeissian”. He was the perfect choice, because the Silesian, born in 1908, knew how to implement Franke’s ideas and plans. Meier remained a mainstay of the company until his retirement in the early 1970s.
There was also a room for a workshop in the basement of the house Fritz Meier lived in at Galgenbergstraße 9 in Aalen. And, determined to succeed, Erich Franke left Zeiss Opton at the end of 1953 and devoted himself full-time to building up the company out of an office in Heidenheim.
The measures took effect, and the company could look forward to a steady increase in incoming orders. In 1954, an extension was added to the production area in Galgenbergstraße in Aalen, creating space for the first second-hand lathe, among other things. Two years later, the site was bursting at the seams, making it necessary to build a much larger plant. This was primarily due to entering into a general licence agreement with a major Dortmund-based company, which quickly proved to be a groundbreaking starting point. But that’s another story. //
Start-up in the basement: Fritz Meier (left) created true wonders in the cramped basement workshop.