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LUDWIG LOEWE & Co.
Berlin
1861 to 1938
(LÖWE & Co.)
Ludwig Loewe was born in November 27, 1837 in Heiligenstadt, Germany and was married to Sophie Loewe, née Lindheim. He had a son named George Loewe. Ludwig Loewe was a German-Jewish businessman and member of parliament. Ludwig Loewe died in Berlin in September 11, 1886.
In 1858 he opened a wool business in Berlin and then began repairing and selling machines.
Approximately in 1861 Ludwig Loewe changed the subject and founded the company Ludwig Loewe & Comp., as a general agency for machines, which initially devoted itself to the trade in machines and later also to the production of sewing machines.
Invention = Patents
In Prussia, as well as in the other German states and abroad, we provide the necessary preparatory work in the most prompt and reliable way.
From 1865 he was a member of the city council of Berlin, where he was particularly active in the field of education. Politically, Ludwig Loewe worked for left-wing parties at various levels.
Ludwig Loewe Commanditgesellschaft auf Aktien für Fabrikation von Nähmaschinen
In 1869 the conversion into the Ludwig Loewe & Co. KGaA for the production of sewing machines, which in the 1870s extended their production range around weapons (gun parts, ammunition) and machine tools, by appropriate orders.
As early as 1870, Ludwig Loewe traveled to the United States to study the new developments, new tools and production methods, particularly for mass production. He was very impressed with New England machine tools, the manufacture of sewing machines and Colt's factory. As with the army commission, he returned back home with Pratt & Whitney machine tools plus a design for a sewing machine factory. Since the American machine tool makers could not satisfy European demand in the early 1870s, Loewe, under license, started copying their machines and adapting them to the somewhat different properties of German iron.
In 1872 the company began producing rifles for the Prussian (German) army.
In 1873 the company received award at the Vienna World Exhibition. With the economic crisis of 1873, however, Loewe's dreams of selling hundreds of thousands of sewing machines vanished. What was meant to be the greatest German factory for sewing machines eventually turned into the greatest private ordnance manufacture.
In 1875, Ludwig Loewe took over his brother Isidor Loewe as a procurator to the company.
In 1877 he became a member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, where he represented the party of progress until 1884 and then the German-free party until his death.
In 1878 he became the sole owner of the company, he was also elected to the German Parliament for the constituency of Berlin. In the Berlin Jewish community Ludwig Loewe belonged to the representative assembly. He was also a member of the Committee for the Cultural Funding of the Eastern Jews and from 1876 onwards in the Society of Friends.
On September 11, 1886, Ludwig Loewe died in Berlin. His grave and that of his wife are located in the Jewish cemetery on Schönhauser Allee, Berlin. Isidor Loewe, who entered the business in 1875, took over the business.
Under the management of Isidor Loewe, the company developed and expanded until eventually it was called Gesellschaft für Elektrische Unternehmungen Ludwig Loewe & Co. A.G. and was comprised of three enterprises: electricity, machinery and the manufacture of arms.
In 1896, Ludwig Loewe & Co. obtained a majority interest in the Karlsruhe-based Deutsche Metallpatronenfabrik. In the same year, it was decided to merge the ammunition production of Deutsche Metallpatronenfabrik with Loewe's firearms branch in Berlin, creating a new company of which Loewe remained the owner: Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM).
In 1903 the company entered a joint venture with AEG and in the early 1930s a deal was made with the financially struggling AEG to purchase 25 Million German Marks of new AEG shares and to place elected representatives from each firm on the other firm's board.
In July 1936, the contract was redrafted due to Nazi pressure, leaving Erich Loewe, Isidor Loewe's son, who was on the boards of both Gesellschaft für Elektrische Unternehmungen Ludwig Loewe & Co. A.G. and AEG, with supervisory rather than managing powers.
In 1938, Erich Loewe and Egon Loewe, who were Isidor Loewe's sons and other Jews at the company, were expelled from both company's boards as part of a plan to minimize Jewish influence on German businesses. Erich Loewe left Germany in the late 1930s, probably shortly after the expulsion. The son of George Loewe, also named Ludwig Loewe, a lawyer who practiced in Berlin, after his father was expelled from the legal profession, he fled Nazi Germany to Brussels, Belgium and arrived in France, were he was arrested, managed to escape and was forced to live in hiding.
From 1938 onwards, I wouldn't consider any subsequent company activities such as Ludwig Loewe & Co.
Loewe suffered Anti Semitism due to his Jewish faith, which also affected his family. His estate was later claimed by the Nazi government and a claim was made against this action later on by his descendant George Loewe (great grandson of Ludwig Loewe) who obtained an Award on 13 October 2004.
Vienna World Exhibition 1873
Award-winning Exhibits
Sewing Machine Factory of
Löwe & Co., Berlin
The big competition in the field of sewing machine fabrication, the pompous and promising commitments of each such factory, make it very difficult to buy really good and inexpensive sewing machines.
We are therefore certain of the thanks of our readers when we draw your attention to the sewing machines of the Berlin company, a Limited Partnership quoted at the stock exchange for the manufacture of sewing machines by Ludwig Löwe & Co.
This establishment, like perhaps no other in all of Europe, has managed to achieve a firmly established world reputation in the short period of only three years. Starting with justification employing barely 25 people, the Löwe sewing machine factory now feeds well over 900 families. However, all the details seem superfluous compared to the fact that more than 10.000 sewing machines emerged from the establishment within three years and that despite the application of all the beneficial innovations to the machines used for fabrication and despite the greatest possible healing of work, it was hardly able to receive all orders in time to comply. A further proof of the excellence of the Löwe sewing machines lies in the progress medal awarded to them by the jury of the 1873 World's Fair. The so-called “Löwe machine” according to its producers is the only sewing machine in Germany that has received this highest award. By paying particular attention to the Löwe sewing machines, which are available in all major cities of the continent from specially appointed representatives, we make our dear readers particularly attentive to paying close attention to the factory brand when purchasing such sewing machines you can only be certain that you are buying a real Löwe machine, which is excellent, inexpensive and durable.
1873 Wiener Zeitung Nr. 293