Im Räderwerk der deutschen Geschichte. Von Dr. Volkmar Klopfers Nährmittelfabrik in Dresden zum VEB Weizenin (1900–1995/97)

Abstract

The first part of the article describes the development of the German starch industry until World War II. The nutritional use of starch was manifold, both in the food industry and in the domestic sphere. From the 1840s the production of starch from potatoes, wheat, rice and maize acquired considerable importance and there was no reduction after World War I in spite of the loss of territory. On the contrary, during the booming 1920s, the production of starch rather increased. After the National Socialist seizure of power, the starch industry experienced an additional boom which, however, resulted from an ideologically embellished economic “mock bloom”. In the second part of the article the history of a particular firm is described in this context. The firm is “Dr. Volkmar Klopfers Nahrmittelfabrik” (Dresden), established in 1900, taken over and modernized in 1938 by the starch factory Crespel & Deiters, expropriated after World War II, transferred into “property of the people” as VEB Weizenin in 1952, and ...