275 Jahre Herrnhuter Wirtschaftsgeschichte

das Firmenarchiv der Abraham Dürninger & Co. GmbH

Abstract

Following the conclusion of a project undertaken over many years by the Saxon Economic Archives Inc., the archives of Abraham Dürninger & Co. Ltd, held in the Unity Archives in Herrnhut, are now open for use again for the first time since 1945. Despite significant losses due to amateurish evaluation and sale of documents between 1890 and 1935, and the fire that destroyed the Dürninger Museum and Archive when Herrnhut was occupied in May 1945, the holdings still extend to 105 linear metres dating from between 1747 and 2000. This unique inheritance is of regional and indeed wider significance, containing sources for various areas of research – for example the history of the Moravian Church; the manufacture and sale of linen goods; the sale of groceries; the import, production and distribution of cigars; fabric printing (blue-dyeing); the Great Depression; or the taxation of private companies in the German Democratic Republic. The project involved cataloguing over 900 items using the FAUST archives program, and arranging them in categories. Among these are: business correspondence from the period 1750-1900, the accounts, and the records of individual companies within the group (such as E. Erxleben & Co., Gnadenfrei).