More Falke factory history 

The excellent researches of Volker in Germany have turned up yet more information about the Falke factory that help fill in some more blanks in its history, especially the early years, thanks to data taken from official Bennigsen town records.

Of particular interest, the following details include the fact that Herr Föhrenbach bought the old Bennigsen sugar refinery in 1953, when airgun manufacture was presumably just taking off - the underlever rifles were on the market and the advertising brochures were showing the whole range available for the first time. Could it be that the cost of purchasing the extensive factory buildings involved incurring a debt that hastened the company's bankruptcy soon after its owner had a heart attack five years later?

Secondly, it appears that Herr Föhrenbach did not in fact start his manufacturing company from scratch but rather took over another company.

Another fascinating fact is that the Falke company, Albert Föhrenbach GmbH, apparently existed in parallel with another company, Maschinenfabrik Föhrenbach GmbH, which we are told also existed until 1959. Or was it the same company, known by more than one name?

Here is the information supplied by Volker (with grateful thanks to him for his efforts):

<b>The industry register of the community of Bennigsen (since 1974 Bennigsen has belonged to Springe) only has two short entries.

According to it, the Albert Föhrenbach GmbH, Bennigsen, Nr 96, was entered into the commercial register on the 24.2.1947.

Its successor was the company Böttcher & Gessner, Maschinenbauanstalt (machine construction company) from 1.5.1960 on. No more entrys.</b>

[Volker adds this note: Böttcher & Gessner doesn´t exist as a normal company anymore, but their machines still do. The successor which took over Böttcher&Gessner later, in 2000, is:

http://www.ohmec.de/Ueber_uns.htm

OHMEC.de also still offers spare parts for Böttcher & Gessner machines.]

More exact information is in the book Industriegeschichte des Deister-Süntel-Raumes by Ulrich Manthey und Klaus Vohn-Fortagne, Hallermunter Schriften 1 (1996), hg. Museum auf dem Burghof Springe, S. 184ff, which is based upon many paper sources and also contemporary witnesses.

According to the book, the Arado Flugzeugwerke (headquarters in Brandenburg) used the former sugar refinery to continue their aircraft production during the war. Before aircraft production was ready to start, the war was over and the British army took some of the machines apart.

At that point a company called Deisterwerke started to manufacture household goods. This Deisterwerke company was taken over on 1.5.1947 by the Maschinenfabrik Föhrenbach GmbH and then operated as a supplier to Hanomag (which produced tractors and automotive parts), the State Railway and the German Federal Railways. In addition, the Maschinenfabrik Föhrenbach GmbH also produced household goods, alloy transport and traveling cases, ammunition boxes, machine gun spare parts, stacking boards, wooden tent poles and wooden gun stocks.

From the beginning of the 1950s it also produced airguns and air rifles, automotive parts and precision scales. Albert Föhrenbach bought the area of the old sugar refinery in 1953 and went bankrupt in 1959.

Föhrenbach's successor, Böttcher & Gessner, manufactured mainly wood processing machines and went bankrupt in 1974. Its successor was Böttcher & Renardy Holzbearbeitungsmaschinen (Böttcher & Renardy wood processing machines).

Employment data for Maschinenfabrik Föhrenbach GmbH, which existed until 1959, is not available.

The Bennigsen Town Chronicle by W. Jenkner and W. Sagemann (1980) says the same as what is written above.