History

The Beginning

The history of the Stoeckel & Grimmler weaving mill dates back to the 18th century: At that time, it was Johann Georg Stoeckel who made a name for himself as a “publisher” and, thanks to his business acumen, soon became one of the wealthiest men in Münchberg. He eventually had a magnificent building constructed on Kulmbacher Straße, which housed not only the publishing offices but also storage rooms and his private residence.

Cotton

His role as a publisher was to bring cotton—from Nuremberg, for example—to the region, which he then distributed to the hand weavers living in the area. He would then take their products and sell them at the major trade fairs in Nuremberg, Bamberg, and Würzburg. The hand weavers, once independent artisans, became wage laborers for whom the publisher arranged orders. In this way, an interdependent system had emerged.

Coffee

Thanks to his strong connections to the market, Stoeckel was quickly able to establish another source of income: trading in foreign goods such as expensive dyes and coffee. His family owned one of the few porcelain coffee sets, which illustrates their standard of living.

His two grandsons were to prove even more important than Johann Georg Stoeckel: Carl and August Stoeckel had studied at the renowned school of economics and weaving in Wattwil, Switzerland, and brought several groundbreaking ideas back to Münchberg. They were the first publishers in the city to stop attending trade fairs and instead focused on sales through “sales representatives,” whom they sent directly to buyers and customers.
In addition, they introduced modern “Jacquard machines” for the first time, which were capable of producing much finer and more intricate patterns than traditional dobby looms. They purchased the necessary attachments themselves and then distributed them to the home weavers so that they could upgrade their looms.

Merger of the Stoeckel
Brothers with Karl Grimmler

On March 31, 1870, a landmark step was finally taken when the Stoeckel brothers joined forces with Karl Grimmler to establish a joint publishing business for cotton goods. As was customary at the time, the business relationship was accompanied by a family connection, and Karl Grimmler married Wilhelmine Stoeckel, the sister of the two brothers. The union was “... a relationship brought about more by external circumstances than by mutual affection,” as Elise Stoeckel writes in her memoirs.

August Stoeckel

Carl Stoeckel

Karl Grimmler

The entrepreneurs of Münchberg were members of the middle class who had worked their way up. This is also evident in the way they treated their fellow citizens. As early as the 1870s, the first health insurance associations for employees were established, along with other projects designed to make daily life easier, such as consumer and building cooperatives. They also advocated for the construction of local rail lines to facilitate commuting from the (affordable) countryside to the city.

In 1883, the Stoeckel & Grimmler brothers finally donated a staggering 10,000 marks toward the construction of the “Lutherstift,” the city’s first children’s home, and founded a supporting association of the same name. This institution actually still exists today!

They were also instrumental in establishing a “workers’ association” and, through a generous donation, made it possible to build the first community center.

The Triumph
of Steam

As early as the 1830s, Münchberg, together with Hof and Kulmbach, had been advocating for the construction of a railroad heading northeast. The reason for this was that in Saxony, as in England, the first machines powered by water and steam had begun operating, which put the hand-weaving industry in Upper Franconia under severe pressure.
The goal here, too, was to enable mechanization, but this required a urgent supply of coal as fuel. After the construction of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord Railway in 1848, coal could be imported from the Zwickau mining district—albeit at exorbitant prices. In the 1860s, Hof therefore built the “Bohemian Coal Railway” at its own expense to import cheaper lignite, which also enabled the industrial boom in Münchberg.

In 1868, the Knab & Linhardt dye works—later known as the Aktienfärberei—became the first mechanized factory to go into operation, producing dyes chemically for the Münchberg-based colored-fabric weaving mill. In 1883, after the first looms had come onto the market, Johann Georg Schlegel’s factory followed as the city’s first mechanized weaving mill.
In the years that followed, well-known names joined the ranks as more and more publishers ventured into modern entrepreneurship: Friedrich Schoedel, Johann Simon Fleißner, and Otto Kalbskopf are just a few of them. Through their dedication and courage, they set Münchberg—which had previously been shaped by trade, crafts, and farming—on the path to becoming a major industrial city.

This brought about a dramatic change in their appearance: Starting in the 1880s, the old hand-pumped wells disappeared from the streets after modern high-pressure water mains were installed; beginning in 1901, electric streetlights illuminated the streets, and a new sense of “urbanity”—that big-city flair—spread, while above it all, smoking chimneys towered as symbols of economic power.

Meanwhile, the Stoeckel & Grimmler brothers bided their time. Well into the 20th century, they continued to rely on hand weaving and focused on high-quality, small-batch Jacquard fabrics that machines could not produce efficiently. It wasn’t until 1910 that a change finally took place!

The Most Modern Textile Mill

Unlike any other entrepreneurs in Münchberg, Stoeckel & Grimmler had a different plan: Their factory was to be built quickly and cost-effectively, while at the same time being designed exclusively to optimize workflows. In Philipp Jakob Manz, the most prominent industrial architect of his time, they found someone who could turn these plans into reality. Manz had built a veritable “architecture factory” that used sophisticated modular principles to construct factory buildings on an assembly-line basis.

His ideas for the Münchberg factory were equally ingenious: He proposed a single-story hall with an external machine room, where all production processes could take place on a single level and in sequence. This saved time and money, since—unlike in older buildings—there was no need to navigate multiple floors or cover long distances. It also made it incredibly easy to power the machines.

For while the Schoedel Dyeing and Weaving Company was already relying on electricity—which it generated using steam power and then distributed to every corner of its labyrinthine factories—Manz built a central transmission system at Stoeckel & Grimmler that was powered by a low-cost locomobile.
This steam tractor, originally used in agriculture, powered the entire factory at once, turning it into a self-contained system - a perfectly interlocking set of machinery. Within just six months, the hall was built by the Carl Hegner construction company from Münchberg for just under 90,000 marks and was able to begin operations in 1910. Initially, the building housed 60 looms, along with its own sizing shop, winding shop, weaving shop, finishing shop, and shipping area. The “Manz beams”- designed by Manz and representing the pinnacle of structural engineering around 1900 - can still be found throughout the hall today.

Just how ingenious Manz’s plans were is also evident from the fact that the company did not need to be remodeled or expanded until the 1950s. In 1957, a modern machine shop was built to house the expansive new halls, and it has been preserved to this day - and whose bunkers still contain the Bohemian lignite that once fueled it. Instead of the locomobile, a modern “capsule steam engine” was in operation here, generating electricity using a Siemens generator.

After World War II, the mechanization of the firing process was the next important step toward modern production: The coal was transported to the bunkers via bucket elevators after the railcars had been picked up from the train station using “road rollers.” From the bunkers, it was conveyed via conveyor belts to the fireboxes, where it was mechanically fed by “stoker operators.”

The Ensemble

After the weaving mill had grown so successfully, Philipp Jakob Manz planned a villa in 1923 for the family that ran the business; the villa was set back from the street by a garden designed by the renowned architect Albert Lilienfein. The factory, villa, and garden thus form a unique ensemble of industrial heritage.

After the historic Manz Hall had become rather shabby and drab due to the ravages of time, the management decided in 1973 to clad it with steel panels. Although this was initially seen as the simplest option for cost reasons, it unwittingly sealed a time capsule, the Bergmann family was able to reopen it in 2021. The factory, designed by Manz, thus experienced a de facto rebirth. Recognizing the significance of the buildings, the long-established company planned their renovation, which was completed as early as the fall of 2022.

It was important to approach the industrial heritage
with the utmost care: Local carpenters faithfully replicated the old windows, while the originals were relocated into the newly erected interior walls. The plaster was carefully restored, and the interior of the structure was repaired only to the extent necessary to preserve its unique charm.

Inside, a replica of an original Jacquard loom and the two magnificently displayed Manz beams catch the eye, while two winding machines converted into bar counters invite visitors to linger.

Today, the former Stoeckel & Grimmler weaving mill - with its historic Manz Hall and the boiler house, which has been faithfully preserved along with its 1950s heating system -can confidently be considered the heart of the Hofer Land’s industrial heritage, this demonstrates the opportunities that a purposeful approach to historic buildings offers: discovering fascinating stories, exploring unique locations, and - most importantly - preserving a distinct regional identity.

Stoeckel & Grimmler

Address

Stoeckel & Grimmler GmbH & Co.KG
Gartenstraße 25
95213 Münchberg
Germany

Contact

Mail: [email protected]
Phone: 09251 890

Factory Outlet

Our factory outlet is always open for you on the first weekend of the month on Gartenstraße:
Friday 11:00 - 17:00 Uhr
Saturday 10:00 - 13:00 Uhr
Phone: 0157 315 299 18