Emaillerie Alsacienne Strasbourg - Hoenheim

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June 20 l923, Mr Georges Weill, signed the notarial act for the purchase and the creation of a Limited company Emaillerie Alsacienne for 99 years. This industrialist from Strasbourg had just acquired a briquettery which had been built in Hoenheim in 1872. He will transform it into an emaillery.

The activity of Emaillerie Alsacienne consisted of the manufacture and the marketing of all enamelled products. In front of the recrudescence of the request for advertising enamelled signs, Emaillerie Alsacienne became in 1927 the largest producer of signs in France. This monopole was due firstly to the very good quality of enamel and secondly to the lithography printing process. Other emailleries lost many customers. The enamellers such ED Jean, Japy, Emaillerie Lyonnaise, couldn't anything facing the influence of EAS. Some of these emailleries even closed between 1935 and 1939 for lack of markets.

The great force of EAS resided in its lithgraphy process. The customers liked to feel the thickness of enamel and most of competitors had given up the stencil key set for serigraphy, the signs did not have anymore relief. The EAS will adopt the serigraphy process only in 1951 and will call it "Stencyl".

The Weill family, owner of the emaillery, Jewish origin, will be evacuated in l939 and will go to Dompierre-sur-Loire. A large part of the hardware will be evacuated towards the Paris area by rail. As soon as they arrived in Alsace in 1940, the German authorities put Emaillerie Alsacienne under sequestration. June 30, 1941 the factory, included the buildings and the installations, was rented to the German firm Bossert and Co in Unterreichenbach (Wurtemberg). The goods in stock were sold for 64.063,90 RM.

The factory will continue to work during the war and will take the name of "Elshssisches Emaillierwerk Eterna Email". In front of the lack of raw material like sheet and enamel, some substitute products were used: the isorel and painting for example. Some people employed before war kept their job during all the occupation, but the staff shortage made obliged to employ prisoners of war imprisoned in Sainte-Marguerite prison of Strasbourg.

The production was primarily intended for Germany and will be directed within the years 1943 to a production of war for Wehrmacht (mines boxes, cooling units for torpedes etc...)

The Weill family could take back possession of its own in September 1945. It was first necessary to fix the production hardware,very damaged by the production under the occupation. The enamelling furnaces were dislocated in 1940 by the explosion of the bridge on the channel of the Marne to the Rhine being closed to the emaillery. August 2, 1946 Emaillerie Alsacienne lost its creator Mr Georges Weill. His wife Suzanne Weill succed to him and will stay at commands until the beginning of the Seventies where she will pass the board of directors activity to his brother Paul Weyl and his children.

After the war the company could not live only of publicity. Enamelling of cookers represented most of its activity. And, gradually, publicity reached again the top. But manufacture with the stencil key sets and lithography became too expensive. The EAS was thus directed towards serigraphy wich reduced the production costs considerably but did not allow any more the beautiful reproductions known before war. The arrival of serigraphy revealed a new market: "Tolaque" that is to say painted sheets, cooked in kiln. Less resistant than the enamelled sheet, these ones had their glory hours in the Fifties but could not replace the enamelled signs.

During these same years we noticed a development in the sector of architecture, illustrated in particular by the purchase in the United States of sandwich panel patent. Emaillerie Alsacienne also offered in its catalog some exterior wall panels for store fronts decoration.

Nevertheless, publicity did not lose its place in the productions of EAS, but it had to face a strong competition at the time of the opening of the Emaillerie Art France in Luynes and the Belgian emailleries. It is the tax on the advertisement by the government at the beginning of the Sixties which will make fall the advertising production of the EAS.

The advertising enamelled signs and "Tolaque" were manufactured until after the years 1975. It is during the change of direction, at the beginning of the Seventies, that the production intensified in the exterior walls panels.

In 1992, following problems of productions and the fall of the building market, the company is put in bankruptcy. Goodwill and production equipments were sold to the Wehr company, which will build few years after, a new production unit, near Molsheim, while preserving the name: Emaillerie Alsacienne.

Emaillerie Alsacienne of Hoenheim finishes its days in nonrespectful hands of its industrial and cultural past and was gradually destroyed by acts of vandalism (see visit the E.A.S.).

During its glorious past the EAS was not only one emaillery, an industry, but a source of artistic advertising creations. In spite of its destruction, today, is wanding in its walls the phantom of these workmen who worked in the heat of the furnaces, in the enamel dust, the noise of the presses to form sheets. The history will remain engraved in these walls, in these broken window pans and nothing will be able to make forget the "belles années" of Emaillerie Alsacienne Strasbourg-Hoenheim.

It is the memory of these people who, during decades, coloured the walls of our towns and countries, by their work and their creativity which was shown through productions, photographs, written documents, from the 6 to April 30, 1999 with the Hoenheim Town hall (see the Exhibition).

Pierre Meyer


* With the pleasant authorization from Emaillerie Alsacienne Duttlenheim owner of the name.

Some Dates

1923: Mr Gorges Weill purchased the briquettery located at the 82 rue de la République in Hoenheim.

June 22, 1923: Creation of the Limited company Emaillerie Alsacienne Hoenheim-Strasbourg.

1925: Inscrisption in the Register of Trade of Strasbourg under No B.110.

1926: The first advertising signs come out of the furnaces of the EAS.

1937: Monthly production of 50 tons enamelled sheets plates.

August 31, 1939: Setting under sequestration and departure of the Weill Family to Dompiere-sur-Loire.

1939: Evacuation of certain raw materials and finished products to Paris. Evacuation of the archives towards Saumur and destruction of those.

June 30, 1941: The EAS is rented by the German authorities to the firm Bossert and Co.

June 1945: Return of the Weill family.

Sept.l945: Resumption of the production.

1945 - 1948: The production of signs greater than a half square meter is prohibited.

August 2, 1946: Death of Mr Goerges Weill: his wife Suzanne takes the management of the firm.

1947: The EAS recovers part of its accountancy evacuated in 1939.

1951: Beginning of serigraphy.

1953: The first "Tolaque" manufacture.

1958: The first manufacture of the sandwich panels.

1960: Construction of a new kiln.

1969: Resignation of Mr Grundberg considering his great age. General agent, Owner of the S.P.A.P. and shareholder of the EAS.

1972: Change of the logo.

1973: Departure of Mrs Weill who is replaced by her brother Mr Weyl.

1972 - 1992: Manufacture of exterior walls panels (the European Parliament, Palais Omnisport de Bercy...).

1992: End of Emaillerie Alsaciene purchased by the Wehr group.

1996: The site of Hoenheim is abandoned to the squatters and vandals.

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