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Leben's Bedürfniss Verein Life's Needs Association LEBENSBEDARFS
1 Mark - Lebens-Bedürfniss-Verein E.G. Karlsruhe
Features
Location Germany
Type Trade tokens › Co-operative token
Value 1 Mark
Composition Brass
Weight 0.5 g
Diameter 9.7 mm
Thickness .50 mm
Shape Round
Technique Milled
Orientation Medal alignment ↑↑
Demonetized Yes
Obverse
Script: Latin
Lettering:
LEBENS-BEDÜRFNISS-VEREIN
E.G.
KARLSRUHE
Reverse
Script: Latin
Lettering:
1 MARK
Edge
Plain
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FYI
"What one cannot do alone, many can"
On the history of the Lebensbedarfverein Karlsruhe
by Eric Wychlacz
Flour, oil, meat and coal - the purchase of everyday goods at affordable prices and the additional achievement of small savings: these were two reasons why consumers have been following the English model since 1850, but increasingly in the 1860s in the German Confederation under the motto of one of the founders of the German cooperative movement, Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen: "What one alone cannot do, das vermögen viel" to form consumer associations and cooperatives.
The foundation: Thus, on May 26, 1865, around 200 citizens of all professions joined the Lebensbedarfverein Karlsruhe at the constituent meeting. The number of members stagnated between 500 and 1,000 in the first few years, only to grow to more than 20,000 people by 1925. In the beginning, it was a so-called trademark association. On the one hand, there were small traders who, after concluding a contract with the association, granted its members discounts on certain goods, and on the other hand, the members who used stamps issued by the association's computer in various denominations as a means of payment for suppliers. The retailers received cash for the brands, but minus the negotiated discounts, which were usually 5 to 10 percent.
However, the brand association was to quickly switch to self-operation with its own production and sales outlets. The first shop was set up in the summer of 1868 in the building Innerer Zirkel 20. After the bread suppliers terminated contracts, a bakery was to be built in order to be able to offer "cheaper bread". This initially failed because the association could neither acquire real estate nor incur liabilities. The founding of a stock corporation, which was planned for this reason, also did not succeed. However, with the entry of the association in the cooperative register as "Lebensbedarfverein Karlsruhe, eingetragene Genossenschaft" on 19 October 1872, a milestone was reached, which finally required the election of an executive board in order to obtain legal capacity and, in addition to the existing need to form a supervisory board.
In 1873, he decided to buy the house at Zähringerstraße 45 (at that time: Zähringerstraße 49), which housed the administration, the main warehouse, a shop and a bakery. In 1891, the acquisition of the neighbouring building at Zähringerstraße 47 served as an extension, whose courtyard offered enough space to set up a bakehouse, several ovens and a flour store.
In the course of its history, the Lebensbedarfverein, like many consumer cooperatives elsewhere, has often been exposed to accusations and agitation from associations of small and medium-sized businesses, who claimed that cooperatives destroyed the livelihoods of merchants through their competition. In addition, businessmen argued that the range of goods included all areas of life and not only food for the most necessary daily needs, which would also be distributed to non-members. From this, they derived the demand for the same taxation as in profit-oriented trading. As early as 1881, the city council received a petition signed by 108 tradespeople to make consumer associations liable for acquisition tax, which was supported by both the city council and the Karlsruhe valuation council. However, the responsible Grand Ducal Ministry of Finance did not consider the Lebensbedarfverein to be a commercial enterprise, whereupon the municipal administration tried to work towards a change in the law.
In a "distress cry against the Lebensbedarfverein!" in 1892, the Merkur Commercial Association asked the Karlsruhe civil servants, who at that time made up a large part of the membership of 4,000 people, to turn their backs on the cooperative. The SME association also complained that the granting of high discounts was only possible through quality losses and called for a boycott of the suppliers, whose names were listed at the end of the letter. Consumer associations are "a socialist institution and socialism [lies] the greatest danger". In 1894, the Lebensbedarfverein exchanged blows with the Association for the Protection of the Interests of Trade, Industry and Commerce over leaflets enclosed in the local newspapers. However, representatives of trade and commerce also write anonymous letters to the editor, in which they complain, for example, about the "polyp-like expansion" of the association. The accusations bore fruit: the new cooperative law, according to which the association was converted into a cooperative with limited liability on May 1, 1889, also prohibited sales to non-members. Shortly thereafter, amendments to the law led to the application of income and trade tax to an almost complete extent.
With the increase in the number of members and sales outlets, which in 1900 comprised a total of 16 shops, the demands on business operations also grew. As a result, the general assembly in 1905 decided to purchase a 7,604 square metre plot of land between Putlitzstraße and Roonstraße. First, the Lebensbedarfverein had the architects Curjel & Moser build a bakery on the site, which was financed by a mortgage and the issuance of share certificates, by 1907.
The cooperative was finally able to pay for the construction of the two three-storey administration and warehouse buildings in the years 1911 to 1913 in full through share certificates. The association now placed the responsibility for the new buildings in the hands of the architect Bernhard Koßmann, who was also a member of the supervisory board. In the cellar area of the warehouse there were warehouses for cheese and spirits as well as the wine warehouse with 436 barrels, which was "widely known for the quality and purity of its wines". In addition to various warehouses, the ground floor also contained a room for shoes, tobacco, cigars and pasta were stored on the 1st floor, and the 2nd floor housed a roastery. The transverse building of the warehouse, which faces Putlitzstraße and is architecturally oriented towards the neighbouring bakery building, was also given an attic with a gable roof, in which there was a dry store.
The courtyard entrance between the two service buildings on Putlitzstraße, which existed until 1925, was spanned by a glass roof, while a round corner tower on a connecting component to the administration building further south formed the end of the warehouse towards Roonstraße.
Even before the outbreak of the First World War, which brought the association into difficult waters in terms of personnel, organization and finally also materially through air raids, the cooperative sold its properties in Zähringerstraße. Despite all the adversities, the work was continued. Due to the acute shortage of personnel and carriages, a rail connection was built in 1917 from the 3,000 square metre warehouse in the Westbahnhof, which had been set up in 1896, to the company headquarters.
After the war, a great upswing began: the number of branches rose from 30 sales outlets in 1914 to 55 in 1931.
After the end of the ban on the admission of new members during the war in 1919, the Lebensbedarfverein was able to look forward to 2,500 new cooperative members. He also acquired several properties in the city in order to maintain the stock of sales outlets. In 1921, the association expanded with the takeover of the Ettlinger Konsumverein. In the course of the National Socialist policy of enforced conformity, the Lebensbedarfverein was initially absorbed into the Reich Federation of German Consumer Cooperatives and was finally transferred to the Joint Association of the German Labour Front in 1942.
In 1947, the company was re-founded under the name Konsumgenossenschaft Karlsruhe eGmbH and the assets from the joint venture were retransferred. Durlach now also belonged to the sphere of influence. In general, the cooperative system in the post-war years was characterised by three developments: on the one hand, mergers of individual cooperatives led to ever larger associations due to strong competitive pressure, on the other hand, there was a steady advance of self-service shops and, most recently, there was an alignment of core elements of the cooperative with the independent retail trade, for example by legally limiting the payment of the rebate to three percent. As a result, dividends could no longer be distributed in full to members.
In Karlsruhe, the takeover of the consumer cooperative Bretten-Bruchsal-Mühlacker in October 1963 caused the number of members to skyrocket. The headquarters reached the limits of its capacity to supply the 124 branches and almost 44,000 members. Four years later, the Baden-Baden consumer cooperatives were taken over and further mergers were discussed. Therefore, from the mid-1960s onwards, the board asked the city for help in finding a larger company site, which would cover between 60,000 and 80,000 square meters, about 10 times the area of the existing area. Although the city submitted several offers, the request was not pursued. The reason for this was the further organizational restructuring that had taken place since the early 1970s.
In view of the continuing competitive pressure, the consumer cooperative, like many other West German cooperatives, introduced the co op brand. In 1974, the co op Karlsruhe Konsumgenossenschaft eGmbH said goodbye to the cooperative principle of reimbursement and gave up its in-house bakery. A year later, another merger was to take place with the merger of the Karlsruhe and Saarbrücken consumer cooperatives under the name Südwestdeutsche Verbrauchergenossenschaft eG. It was the final step towards integration into ASKÖ AG Saarbrücken, a holding company of various companies, supermarkets and department stores in Saarland, which was the first German consumer cooperative to change its legal form to a stock corporation in 1972. With the conclusion of this process in April 1975, the history of the independent Karlsruhe consumer cooperative ended. Since 1977, discussions have been taking place about the sale of the buildings and the further urban use of the company site for residential purposes. The warehouse and administration building were largely demolished in the 1980s.
Eric Wychlacz M. A., Historian, Karlsruhe City Archive
(VIDEO & PICTURE 11 & 12 FOR DISPLAY ONLY)
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