Wirkbau

In the history of mechanical engineering, it is rare to find companies that have developed as rapidly as the long-established Chemnitz-based firm Schubert & Salzer.

It all began in 1883 in a rear building at 69 Poststraße in Chemnitz. Karl Schubert and Bruno Salzer, both metalworkers by trade, developed a flat knitting machine based on the English model. Such machines are primarily used to produce chain-knit fabrics – the fastest method of processing yarns into textiles.

Demand was enormous. Before long, Schubert and Salzer had constantly full order books. Just three years later, they acquired a plot of land measuring just under 5,000 square metres on Adorfer Straße. Their first factory was built there. Six years after its foundation, the company was converted into a public limited company with a share capital of 500,000 gold marks. As its market share in the knitting machine sector continued to grow, the company invested in a steady stream of new sites. Alongside the expansion of the existing headquarters, further factories were built on Lothringer Straße/Annaberger Straße, Fürstenstraße and Zwickauer Straße.

From 1892, Schubert & Salzer began producing its first cotton machines; four years later, bicycle manufacturing was added to the portfolio. The product range was continuously expanded. Knitting machines, tulle machines, warping machines, sewing machines and winding machines rolled off the production lines. Machine tools and curtain-making looms were also added. The company successfully launched its own in-house development, the Jacquard-Petit sewing machine, onto the market.

To become independent of suppliers, the company increasingly manufactured its own steel and cast iron parts in its in-house foundries. This vertical integration strengthened its competitiveness and supported further growth.

The success was impressive: from 1918 onwards, the company was the world market leader in the field of flat knitting machines. In the years that followed, Schubert & Salzer Maschinenfabrik AG continued to expand. It established its own utility facilities, modern workshops and extensive new buildings.

One of the most striking structures from this period is the clock tower in what is now the Wirkbau complex, built between 1926 and 1928 to a design by the architect Erich Basarke. The Art Deco-style tower is regarded as one of the city’s most significant industrial buildings and is also popularly known as the ‘Chemnitz Campanile’. With its striking colour scheme of violet-brown clinker bricks, blue joint mortar and grain-yellow clock face, it continues to dominate the cityscape to this day.

In the 1920s, Schubert & Salzer grew to become Chemnitz’s largest engineering works. With an annual output of around 48 million Reichsmarks and some 5,500 employees, the company reached its economic peak.

With the Nazis’ rise to power, the production profile in the spinning machinery sector also changed. The company increasingly turned its hand to manufacturing armaments, whilst continuing to export textile machinery.

As early as 1938, Schubert & Salzer acquired a spinning machinery factory in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, where key cast components were manufactured. Towards the end of the Second World War, however, around two-thirds of the Chemnitz factory facilities were destroyed in Allied air raids. Machinery still in working order was subsequently transported to the Soviet Union as reparations. The remaining parts of the business were nationalised and incorporated into various large enterprises, including what would later become the Textima combine.

In 1948, Schubert & Salzer Maschinenbau AG Chemnitz was struck off the commercial register. From then on, the company’s headquarters were located in Ingolstadt.

As part of the Textima combine, VEB Wirkmaschinenbau maintained its position in the textile machinery sector for over four decades. Up to 2,000 employees work at the Chemnitz site, where, amongst other things, machines for the production of knitwear are manufactured. Following the political transition in 1989, attempts were made to re-establish the company under market economy conditions. However, on 1 March 1994, Wirkbau-Textilmaschinen GmbH was wound up.

Since 1996, the listed factory buildings have been extensively renovated, modernised and transformed into a business park. More than 14 million euros have been invested in the redevelopment of the historic site. Today, over 50 companies from various sectors are based there. Under the name ‘Wirkbau’, the memory of what was once Chemnitz’s largest company remains alive.

The architectural critic Dankwart Guratzsch praised this development in 2003, saying: “What cathedrals and castles are to other cities, the palaces and domes of mechanical engineering and the textile industry are to Chemnitz.” The successful conversion of numerous industrial heritage sites continues to make Chemnitz a pioneer in the management of its industrial heritage to this day.