Henneberger Porzellan: We don’t have to hide

In Thuringia, the Treuhand liquidated 2,480 businesses after 1990 and often sold them off to unsympathetic investors. Unemployment followed for many of those working there, which led to serious life changes and upheavals for thousands. This also affected the women and men who worked in Thuringia’s traditional porcelain factories.

Founded in 1771, the Graf von Henneberg Porcelain Ilmenau factory was one of the most famous. This tradition was continued in the GDR, with VEB Henneberg-Porzellan Ilmenau being designed to produce high-quality household porcelain in large quantities. Here, coffee services with illustrious names borrowed from the ancient world of gods were created that were in demand both at home and abroad. They were awarded gold medals at trade fairs and offered in various Western department store catalogs.

As the largest porcelain factory in Europe, the New Ilmenau Porcelain Works (NPI) began industrial production in 1973, intensified global trade relations and also exclusively supplied the Palace of the Republic in Berlin with tableware. Ilmenau attracted thousands of workers, partly because word quickly spread that there were apartments for factory employees. With the apartment blocks built in the immediate vicinity of the company with various social facilities, including the company kindergarten, a department store, library, restaurant and garden center, the plant resembled a small town.

In the mid-1980s, the workforce included 2,330 employees, most of whom had professional qualifications as skilled workers and earned relatively well, with the majority of women working in the various company departments and sometimes in a three-shift system.

A richly illustrated publication from the Rohnstock biographies series, which was created in cooperation with the Ilmenauer Porcelain Tradition association founded in 2019, reports on their everyday work and their experiences after 1990. It is based on the descriptions of women and men who experienced the phases of decline in their work in different areas. These are personal reports and individual perspectives that were discussed during several meetings, the so-called Rohnstock storytelling salons. These are completed by grateful memories from Cuban women and men of their years of training in Ilmenau.

The publication is a treasure trove for everyone who feels connected to Henneberg porcelain, as discussion moderator and publisher Katrin Rohnstock emphasizes. The work under sometimes very difficult conditions is described precisely without glorification and without mockery, the collective cohesion is highlighted and the exhausting uncertainties in times of upheaval are reported. It shows how people feared and fought for the continued existence of the company, ultimately unsuccessfully: In the end, the machinery of the Illmenau porcelain factory was sold.

Justifiable self-confidence becomes clear. Engineer Manfred Gräve says: “We don’t have to hide our achievements. It started with the training of skilled workers, continued through production and up to the quality of our products.” And skilled worker Helga Kühnlenz, who worked in the foundry and only worked as an assistant after 1990 when her professional qualification was revoked, says: “Our porcelain is in to be found in all corners of the earth – that makes me a little proud.«

»Porcelain liner tells. The end of the Henneberg porcelain tradition”, Rohnstock biographies. Available from Ilmenauer Porzellantradition e. V., Wallgraben 3, 98693 Ilmenau or via: info@ henneberg-porzellan-ilmenau.com