eschke seidenmanufaktur history

Helga Eschke

emerged on June 15, 2003 from the Eschke GmbH Silk Weaving Mill, first established in 1868.

Timeline
1868 Founded by weaving master craftsman
Robert Eschke in Mühltroff i.V. as a cotton weaving mill.
1904 Eschke's sons Alfred and Richard join the business. The company is renamed Robert Eschke & Sons, gold, silver, cotton and silk weaving mill. The first brocade fabrics are manufactured.
Richard Eschke Company, 1912
1917 The brothers separate. Richard continues to successfully manage the company at the original location.
1938 Richard Eschke celebrates his 75th birthday. The
stafft gathers for a photo.
1943 After Richard Eschke`s death, the third generation enters the business with Karl Eschke as an associate.
1945 The company survives the war, rides out the after war confusion and escapes dispossession by the SMAD. (Soviet Military Administration in Germany)
1966 The then director of the textile studio of the State Castles and Gardens at Potsdam,
Baroness Helene Ebner von Eschenbach
visits the Richard Eschke KG. This visit marks the beginning of a continuing cooperation for the reconstruction of Prussian silks in Potsdam and Berlin.
1972 Karl Eschke's 70th Birthday on February 17, 1972. On April 24, 1974 mandatory socialisation of the company and renaming into VEB Brokat Mühltroff. The management remains in the hands of the family and is taken over by Wolfgang Eschke. Thereby the spirit and traditions of the company were preserved even under the socialist rule.

For the Potsdam Castles alone, 3000 metres of reconstructed silk are delivered in the following years.
1972 bis
1990		 Because of its highly creative staff the company was awarded several times (8 times) with th
Gold Medal of the Leipzig Fair, the design award "Good Design" of the Bureau of Industrial Styling and in 1987 as Enterprise of artistic textile production.
1992 "Brokat Mühltroff GmbH" is bought back from a public trust by Wolfgang Eschke on January 1, 1992 and henceforth incorporated as "Seidenweberei Eschke GmbH". Wolfgang's wife Helga Eschke enters into the company as sales manager and later becomes an authorised signatory.
1993 Eschke 125th anniversary. Wolfgang Eschke receives the honora
"Industrieae Sericae Pruss" medal of Friedrich the Great, by Baroness Helene Ebner von Eschenbach.
In the following years the company concentrates on the production of premium, fashionable jacquard wovens for the ready-made ladies' clothing and the reconstruction of historical silk wovens.
The silk weaving mill Eschke GmbH is the first East-German exhibitor at the Premier Vision in Paris (until today without interruption) and a long-time exhibitor at the New York Preview.
Following are participations in trade fairs at Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich, Yokohama, Beijing and Chicago.
At times the export rate reaches 70 percent.
Large investments are made:
Design computer, weaving preparation, PPS-system, electronic jacquard machines.
In 1993, the biggest electronic jacquard machine ever built (8064 boards) was bought in cooperation with Grosse company.
2002The gold medal for extraordinary achievements for memorial preservation is awarded by the Leipzig Fair management.
2003 After 135 years, the company leaves the town of Mühltroff and relaunches its business in Crimmitschau as eschke fabrics Helga Eschke.
Main product range: "Historical Silks".
The production is not interrupted.
2004 Since January 2004, eschke® is a legally protected registered trademark.
2007 On August 1st, 2007 the name of the company changes into "eschke seidenmanufaktur", owned by Helga Eschke.