Pundt & Kohn OHG (general partnership) was a German timber import and wood processing company. It was founded in 1862 by F. J. S. Kohn in Geestemünde. Until it was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944, it was one of the oldest and most important companies in its branch on the lower Weser. The company was dissolved in the third generation in 1967 after the death of its last owner, Hans Kohnert.
The rise and fall of the company is considered exemplary for the history of a medium-sized Hanseatic family company, which Thomas Mann also used as an example for his literary monument, the social novel on the Buddenbrooks.
History
Founding (1863–1879) The sailing ship captain and shipowner Franz Johann Syabbe Kohn founded this wood import company in Geestemünde in 1862. He expanded a warehouse, with two floors and three cellars, on the Geestemünd dike near the old Geeste bridge to the residential office and warehouse. That summer, the firm merged with the timber trade of Captain Dietrich Pundt, also located on the Geeste dike. They cofounded Pundt & Kohn (P & K). Business flourished thanks to the construction of new port facilities on the Geeste river and the growing demand for pit timber, railway sleepers, and construction timber for residential and factory buildings. Once the domestic supply of wood could no longer meet this great demand, the company shifted to importing wood, mainly from Scandinavia, Russia and partly from America, from where precious woods were obtained. Given the weight of the goods, the waterway was by far the most cost-efficient transport until well into the 19th century. Wood importing companies concentrated on the lower reaches of rivers, such as the Weser and the Elbe, from which the imported and processed wood was distributed by barge and later by rail. This also applied to the P & K company, whose first wood storage areas were in Deichstraße (later called Bussestraße) directly on the Geeste dike shortly before the confluence of the Geeste with the Weser. Here the owner's original residential and office building stood until the Second World War. After five years of cooperation, co-owner Pundt left the company in 1868 due to illness. From then on, Kohn continued the timber import business, and supported his shipping company with ships and ship shares (‘’Guayana’’ and the Briggs ‘’Marianne’’, ‘’Auguste’’ and ‘’Salia’’), until he died on August 13, 1879. Son Franz took over the family business.
Prime-age and second generation (1879–1909)
The company outgrew its storage areas on the Geeste. In the new industrial port of Geestemünde, construction and storage areas were available, which were also separated from the Geeste by a lock. Therefore, these areas were unaffected by tides and largely ice-free. On the west and north side of the cross-canal, the connecting waterway between the main canal and Geestemünde, inaugurated in 1877, P & K built new storage sheds extending 300 m. Large two-story storage buildings were designed for import. Open storage buildings completed the picture. Storage space reached more than 10,000 m2. Around 1890 the company imported approximately 30,000 cubic meters of wood annually, compared to 25,000 solid cubic meters of its major competitor Chr. Külken, founded in Geestemünde in 1872.
To facilitate their imports, P & K founded its own steamship shipping company at the end of the 1880s with two ships of 750 and 1,150 tons, specially prepared for timber imports. Further ships were planned in 1890. A new office building at Schönianstraße 15 was built then. In 1887 the Kohn family moved into a new villa at nearby Borriesstraße 6.
Together with the two other large timber importing and processing companies in Geestemünde, Chr. Kuelken and Rogge, P & K systematically expanded the timber trade until the 1890s. It shipped via inland waterway to the Upper Weser region, and by rail to the Ruhr region and other industrial centers. However, the customs union of the Lower Weser towns (1888) and the inclusion of the timber harbour in a much larger spatial and economic sales area led to growth. Timber imports on the Lower Weser tripled within just a decade.