Scherk (company)

Scherk was a Berliner cosmetic companies in family ownership. Scherk - products have been sold in the 1980s.

Foundation

Ludwig Scherk worked at the cosmetics company Dr. M. Albersheim / Khasana in Frankfurt am Main. In 1906 he moved from there to Berlin, where he opened a shop for drugstore products in Joachimstalerstraße. He had the exclusive license to sell Albersheim products in Berlin. In 1911 he married Alice Carsch, a niece of the founder.

From 1911 he started his own production and focused on a few high-quality products, such as the Mystikum series consisting of perfume and powder and the Rauchverzehreressenz Platina. In the 1920s, he built a small network of foreign branches; was particularly important in the U.S., where he also produced from 1923. Around 1920, bought Ludwig Scherk land in Berlin- South End, Chalice Straße 31, in the 1925/26, a new factory on a design by Fritz Hoger was born. It created 53 branches worldwide. In Berlin alone, the company employed over 400 people.

" Linearization "

1938, the company was established in the wake of the " linearization " of the Schering AG, then next Nivea one of the biggest competitors of Scherk sold. The first products retained their names, because Schering, deferring for the removal of Jewish name caught on the grounds that the disappearance of Scherk would affect geschäftssschädigend as a brand name in the business title. The factory operating in Vienna, Penzingerstr. 39, the end of 1941 was deleted from the commercial register on the recommendation of the newly founded after the sale in 1938 Scherk GmbH " ex officio ". From 1942 the production was continued under the name of Tarsia. In July 1942, a camp for foreign forced laborers was built at the factory in the south end, it was produced for the OSRAM GmbH.

After 1945

Ludwig Scherk died in 1946 in London, whither he had fled from the persecution of Jews, leaving behind the legacy of his son Fritz Scherk. This applied in August 1949 by Israel from reparations based on the arrangement of the Allied Command refund. He bought the company from Schering back for nearly the equivalent of the purchase price of 1938 and the end of 1950 returned back to Germany.

In 1951 the factory building was set on the cup in Berlin- the south end repaired and the company re-entered in the commercial register. The production initially focused on face water and compact powder in the old Scherkdesign. Later, other care cosmetics were added, such as facial lotion and skin creams.

The company was sold in 1969 to the U.S. American company Alberto - Culver, who moved the production to Brunswick. In 1980, the brand rights for Scherk - products have been adopted by Lingner & Fischer (now GlaxoSmithKline) and 1982 Scherk disappeared from the commercial register.

Fritz Scherk

Fritz Scherk played temporarily at the cabaret The porcupines with. Occasionally, also found in the performances of the ensemble factory building in the cup road instead. With the virtuoso violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin, Fritz Scherk joined intimate friendship.

In the sixties, Fritz Scherk built a Montessori kindergarten in the Elgersburger Straße 2 in the former Berlin- Schmargendorf. He also built the Montessori school district on the Delbrückstraße in the former Berlin -Charlottenburg. On March 31, 1993 Fritz Scherk died in Jerusalem. He was visiting his daughter Irene, who lives again in Steglitz now.

Factory building

The former factory building was rented by the FU Berlin and bought in 1974. It is a listed monument. Currently, there the Institute of Pharmacy. Since the September 26, 2006 there is a memorial plaque to the expropriated by the Nazi regime entrepreneurial family Scherk.

Reception

• The home club Steglitz showed Scherk in an exhibition.
• The Jewish Museum Berlin opened a cabinet exhibition on Scherk in September 2010.
• Currency cleanliness. The cosmetic companies Scherk and Dr. Albersheim, exhibition at the Museum of Jewish street in Frankfurt am Main, 2011 to 2012.