Strumpffabrik Moritz Samuel Esche

Around 1700, Moritz Samuel Esche’s ancestor, Johann Esche, became the first person in Saxony to successfully reproduce a hand loom in Limbach, a small village near Chemnitz. Initially, the Limbach-based Esche company was a one-man business, but as orders increased, so did the number of employees. The owner was noted for his social commitment, which was by no means a given at that time. The company expanded and maintained trade links far beyond Saxony’s borders. It was successfully passed down through the family from generation to generation.

In 1834, two brothers, Traugott Reinhold and Moritz Samuel Esche, finally took over the business from their father. The dual leadership proved ill-fated. Eventually, Moritz Samuel Esche continued to run the business on his own. Under his leadership, the business thrived, with exports flourishing, even as far afield as the United States. Just seven years later, Moritz Samuel Esche handed the reins of the company over to his two sons, Julius and Theodor. From then on, his name remained as the company name. Julius Esche died young, leaving his brother Theodor as the sole owner of the company.

It was the railway that prompted the long-established Moritz Samuel Esche company to move from Limbach to Chemnitz in 1870, under the leadership of Theodor Esche. They had no other choice if they were to keep pace with the age of industrialisation. Limbach was not on the railway line. Theodor Esche established the company in Chemnitz on a site on what is now Goethestraße. The company invested in state-of-the-art machinery and looms from France and England. Theodor Esche died in 1873. His son Eugen then took over the running of the business, once again as a partner alongside Georg.

It wasn’t long before the production facilities became too cramped. Plans for a new company building were set in motion. It does not take long for these plans to be realised. In 1886, the striking four-storey building with a red clinker brick façade interspersed with yellow bricks is inaugurated. A distinctive feature is the tower situated centrally on the north façade. As business is booming, new extensions are constantly being built on the site. Around 1900, some 500 employees were working in the factory halls. Eleven years later, the figure had already risen to 700. In addition, there were thousands of home-based workers, as was common practice at the time. The factories mainly produced socks, stockings and underwear, which were dispatched from Chemnitz all over the world. The production lines were always at the cutting edge of technology. In keeping with the family’s tradition of social entrepreneurship, a foundation was established following Eugen Esche’s death in 1902. Using funds from this foundation, houses were built on a municipal plot on the edge of the Zeisigwald. Deserving workers and employees moved into the new flats on Forststraße. The interest generated was used to pay old-age pensions to retired staff. This was truly exceptional in those days.

In the period after 1900, the brothers Fritz and Herbert Esche were the owners of the large Esche hosiery factory on Goethestraße in Chemnitz. As well as supporting numerous charitable foundations and causes, both brothers had also built themselves magnificent villas. Fritz, the elder of the two, already owned a villa on Kapellenberg, whilst Herbert Esche commissioned his friend, the architect and designer Henry van der Velde, to build him a magnificent villa on Kapellenberg, at the top of Stollberger Straße on the corner of Parkstraße, designed according to the most modern standards of the time. The villa has now been beautifully restored and is open to the public; it is used as a museum. It is definitely worth a visit.

The business was able to recover from the effects of the First World War fairly quickly. A new extension was built in 1922. In 1945, after the war, the premises were provisionally repaired following heavy bombing. In 1953, the Esche family were expropriated. That same year, Herbert Esche left the town and the country. Other tenants moved into the buildings, including an electrical engineering firm. After 1991, Reha-Aktiv, an orthopaedic technology firm based on Goethestraße, purchased the site – including the factory buildings in need of renovation – from Esche’s heirs and began renovating and converting them in stages. To this day, the buildings house, amongst other things, a medical centre, a pharmacy, the social security office and the company Reha-Aktiv.