Chapter 16: Anschläge (Notices) 1931-1934

Anschläge 1931-1934 (GFA 5/69)

published November 2019

The favorite book of Iris Staubesand

Iris Staubesand was Scholar in Residence at the Iron Library in July 2019. As a sociologist and granddaughter of a lathe operator who worked at GF from 1933 to 1971, she was particularly interested in the social responsibility of GF toward its employees and their families in the 1930s and 1940s. Her favorite "book" is a collection of factory notices - internal announcements for GF employees – a hodgepodge of information that brings to life the daily existence of the factory workers, their wives and their children.

The reader

The file

I was able to verify many of the facts and learn more from my uncle, who was born in 1940. He remembers visiting the library in the Mühlental on Thursday afternoons, especially because of the Winnetou books. The "opening hours for family members" were already in force in 1934, while other times applied for employees and workers. He also remembers accompanying my grandmother to a warehouse in the Mühlental, where she could buy slightly damaged enamel cast iron pans at a discount. The gentleman there had spectacles "as thick as bottle glass". I came across this offer for family members in several of the announcements.

The file GFA 5/69 gave me the chance to immerse myself in the atmosphere that prevailed at the time, especially in the steel plants. The period interests me particularly because my grandfather started working at GF around this time. It was like a tentative sketch probing the question: What was normal at the time? (Work on Saturdays, for example.) What were people's concerns? (Nourishment was a big issue: supplies for the winter, self-sufficiency.) How did GF look after its workers and their families? How did the company affect their everyday lives? (Very much.) This tentative sketch was eventually fleshed out with depth and color from many other documents in the GF Corporate Archives and from excursions and discussions.

The file in ANTON

The dossier in the catalog of the Corporate Archives of GF