Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis by Michael Sontheimer, Götz Aly, Shelley Frisch Read Free Book Online Page A

location.” Despite this regulation, the building control authority issued him a building permit, provided certain conditions were met. This authority evidently gave precedence to potential economic benefits over safeguarding the rights of neighbors. The Industry Supervisory Board of Treptow-Köpenick ruled: “The gases and steam created by the vulcanization of rubber products have to be extracted and rendered harmless in a suitablemanner at the point of origin. Under no circumstances can these processes create a nuisance for the workers or the neighbors.” Enforcement of this regulation was only partly successful in defusing conflicts, however. Right from the start, Fromm was besieged with complaints from the neighbors. Solutions of natural rubber in a petroleum solvent posed an ongoing fire hazard. In May 1926, a local fire department reported: “When the fire broke out, three factory workers sustained slight injuries—burns and lacerations. They were treated by the Friedrichshagen volunteer first-aid crew and released.” 21
    Fromm commissioned the architects Arthur Korn and Siegfried Weitzmann, who subscribed to the Neue Sachlichkeit (NewObjectivity) style of architecture, to design the new factory floor and office wing (parts of which are still standing today). Now the neighbors complained not only about the noise and fumes but also about the aesthetics of the new building, which clashed with their gabled homes. A letter to the editor in a local newspaper, the
Niederbarnimer Zeitung
, argued that “the flat roof [of the new building is] an architectural impossibility.” Moreover, the angry neighbor who sent this letter warned “the highest authorities” that he and other established members of the community would “not put up with any further defacement of this area by buildings of this kind.”

    Fromm had a series of slides made for promotional purposes in 1935. The

thirty-seven extant photographs document work routines in his factory—

such as the condom testing displayed here
    “Complaints about the stench and racket emanating from the rubber factory,” reported the local paper in September 1928, “have not ceased since the day the factory began its operations.” The article went on to claim that adjacent properties were “subjected day and night to such powerful droning and thudding from the rolling mills and mixers as well as from the boiler plants and their steam exhaust pipes that heavy pieces of furniture in the neighbors’ rooms sometimes start shaking.” As a result, the residents were “robbed of sleep and unable to focus on their work.”
    “Our factory,” Fromm retorted in the local newspaper, “employs the latest technology to prevent unpleasant odors and disturbing sounds to the greatest extent possible, and we have spared no expense in making our company a model company.” 22
    Fromm himself may have been quite unpopular with his neighbors, but the opposite was true of his leading product. In 1926 Fromms Act manufactured 24 million condoms. Two years later, the business had agencies in Bremen, Breslau, Cologne, Danzig (today Gdansk in Poland), Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Kiel, Königsberg (today Kaliningrad in Russia), Leipzig, Munich, Rostock, and Würzburg. Exports were handled by branches in Antwerp, Constantinople, Czernowitz (todayChernivtsi in Ukraine), The Hague, Kattowitz (today Katowice in Poland), London, Riga, Reykjavík, Auckland, Budapest, and Zurich. By 1931 Fromms Act had undergone a major expansion. With added production plants in Köpenick and Danzig, the company produced more than 50 million condoms that year.
    Even the world economic crisis did not cause a slump in sales at Fromms Act. “Business is brisk even now,” the German Credit Bureau ascertained in February 1933, about the company and about Fromm himself. “Sales are in the millions. The company’s products are well established… Our sources describe Fromm as an extremely