Max Cassirer is shown as the ‘Owner of the Polish Cellstoff Co/Timber Co, Berlin“ (See http://genealogy.metastudies.net/WC02/WC02_103.HTM))One may wonder where this comes from.  Even in those times it was not  good publicity to baptise a Berlin based company ‘Polish’. A first clue may exist in the Anecdote Booklet (page 17) where there is an account of a trip where Max and Martin traveled to Ziegenhals, which was in southern Silesia near the border to Austria until 1918.   Some more on Zieghals is given below

			We may add one further speculation to the above.  By 1920 the ‘Chemical PhD’ Cassirers were all dead and there is no mention of a University in the references to  these developments in 1920).   The direct line from Ziegenhals to Bratislava is about 240 km. Probably Max and Isidor, were already cooperating in their wood-business in the good times before WW I,  with the timber industry of the Sudeten-Silesians and perhaps also with the moravian Czechs of the Habsburg monarchy.   So, as Bratislava became part of then Czech Moravia, Max and Isidor moved down to this city near Vienna, familiar to Silesians. This coincided well with the  invention of synthetic cellulose by Carl Kellner: ‘One day while working in the factory’s laboratory, Kellner made a mistake in a standard quality-control analysis - and discovered that heating wood-pulp in a sulphite-solution produced cellulose - a valuable product that until that time had been difficult and expensive to manufacture. The invention was patented in 1882 as the “Ritter-Kellner” process; it quickly revolutionised both paper-manufacture, and cellulose production - but it also meant the beginnings of widespread de-forestation, and serious pollution - not that this seems to have concerned anyone much at the time. In 1888 Kellner circulated a memorandum to a number of big financial institutions, in which he called for closer co-operation between North American manufacturers and the Carinthian forestry industry, aiming “to rule the world cellulose market”. His scheme held out alluring prospects to his potential investors; the proposed cost of the first planned factory was only 3 million Gulden, (50 million DM today); Kellner promised shareholders a “super dividend of 52.5%”. [This quotation comes from a file with an altogether different theme - theosophy, Kellner was a member in Pressburg.]. As you see, something’s wrong with ‘Polish’ Bratislava, Poland being to the north / northwest of Silesia or west oft Berlin. [*Expat]

			A mysterious “Jaro Cassirer” can be found among the papers of Ernst Cassirer at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Yale University under the heading: “Old copy-books”: Envelope #138 58 1130 Storage box labeled “Alte Colleghefte” with illustration of Cassirer family company pasted on outside of lid. On inside of lid is pasted the printed name and address “Wloclaweker / Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik / J. & M. Cassirer / Berlin-Wloclawek” and also written the inscription “Unserem lieben Bruder und Socius Eduard zur freundlichen Erinnerung an gemeinsame Taetigkeit. Charlottenburg 16. Dezember 1913. Jaro Cassirer, Isidor Cassirer, Max Cassirer.” 1913 Dec 16 The ‘“Printed name and address” says: “Wloclawekian Sulfit-Cellulose-Factory, J. & M. Cassirer, Berlin-Wloclawek”, and the inscription says: ‘To our dear brother and partner Eduard in friendly memory of  joint activity. Charlottenburg, December 16th 1913. Jaro [mispelling of Salo] Cassirer, Isidor Cassirer, Max Cassirer.“ Its not clear what the inscription has to do with old copy-books - it seems to be pasted incidently on Envelope 138, a survival of something else. ”J.[i.e.: I] & M.“ are Isidor and Max Cassirer, Prof. Ernst A. Cassirer’s uncles. Where’s Wloclawek? For basic information look at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82oc%C5%82awek> From the city homepage <http://www.wloclawek.pl/english/?id=3> we know that ”in 1799 a German manufacturer Gross established the first ever in Poland paper mill, in 1816 a chicory factory [Ersatz coffee] of Fred [Ferdynand] Bohm started its activities, and in 1896 - the biggest cellulose factory. (...) The first post-war years [after 1945] were marked with rebuilding and development of old factories and workshops, and their modernisation. There were, among others: Cellulose-paper mill (Zaklady Celulozowo-Papiernicze) (...)“ Another source says that the paper mill, the toilet paper factory and timber or pulp factory were merged in 1992 to ”J. Marchlewski cellulose and paper factory“ (”zakłady papiernicze, papieru higienicznego, mech.-chem. obróbki drewna (razem tworzšce do 1992 Zakłady Celulozowo-Papiernicze im. J. Marchlewskiego“). Julian Marchlewski (1866-1922) is a polish national hero, born in Wloclawek. In 1893 he founded with Leo Jogiches and Rosa Luxemburg - both with jewish background - the ”Socialdemocratic Labour Party of Poland and Lithuania“. Jogiches and Luxemburg were also among the founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and both were murdered by anticommunist guards in Berlin in 1919. Before her death Rosa Luxemburg was brutaly inquired in their ad-hoc headquarter ”Hotel Eden“ (see David Werner Falk’s interview: ”And then we went back to Berlin and there was the 1919 revolution and all the anxiety connected with  that. I mean we had shooting in the street and went to school past a big hotel which had been turned into a fortress.“). Without any proof from a (not yet located) archive we suppose the 1896 constructed ”biggest cellulose factury“ belonged to Isidor and Max. Its geographic position on the border of the river Weichsel (Wisla), with canal and river connections to Berlin  (Netze/Notec - Warthe/Warta - Oder/Odra) and a railway connection to Warsaw and to Berlin (via the ”Ostbahn“ from Berlin to Koenigberg/Kaliningrad, passing through nearby Bromberg/Bydgoszcz in Western Prussia (province of Posen/Poznan). Up to 1918 the border of  this province was about 40 km away from Wloclawek. The position on a large river must have been very effective for such a business because 100 years later the ”Paper Works Zaklady Papiernicze we Wloclawku“ was still on the list of the 80 most poluting industrial plants in Poland (Regional Environmental Center, Szentendre, Hungary). Politically Wloclawek belonged in those years to the Russian part of Poland, after several uprisings severely oppressed and, we might presume, with low wages. Only datamining in special archives could reveal how long the ”Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik“ was really owned by the Cassirers and what exactly happened on December 16th 1913. In 1914 Germany and Russia got involved in WW I, Russia was defeated, but in the end Germany lost the Posen province to resurrected Poland. For most of the westprussian poles many of their jewish citizen (among them Salomon Abraham Friedländer from Krojanke) were just the same colonialist as the prussians, perhaps also because they spoke german or germanophone yiddish (Friedrich Engels wrote in 1848 just about these german-jewish and polish relations in the Posen province. He states: ”Everybody knows that the jews all over the world speak german“ - ”Deutsch ist bekanntlich die jüdische Weltsprache“). Only 15 years later for the former westprussian jews the decision between staying or leaving became crucial again. But what did Eduard and Salo Cassirer contribute to the ”joint activity“ mentioned on the envelope? Both faded away during WW I. For the moment there’s only one clue and more digging into the archives should be done: The clue is the (undated) anecdote in the booklett about Max Cassirer visiting with his nephew Martin, son of Eduard, the cellulose factory at Ziegenhals (’goat’s throat’, today literally translated into polish: Glucholazy), in the silesian district of Neisse (Nysa), near to the district Neustadt (Prudnik) where Siegfried, uncle of Max, owned a brewery at Oberglogau (Glogowek). Ziegenhals is very near to the border to pre 1918 Austria and after 1918 Czechia. Over the border lived Austrian Silesians who after 1945 were expelled from Czechoslowakia together with the other german speaking minorities of Morawia and Bohemia (the ”Sudetendeutsche“). Ziegenhals was also situated at a river, the ‘Biele’ (Biala Glucholazka) comming in from the sudetian mountains. On the homepage of Glucholazy there’s a short economic history of the town, unfortunately in polish. There, under the heading ”prawdziwe fabryki“ (ironicaly meant: a ‘real’ factory), Eduard and Salo Cassirer are mentioned: ”W 1883 roku na terenie między Białą Głuchołaską, a Promenadenstrasse (dziś Al. Jana Pawła II) zbudowano fabrykę celulozy Tillgner i S-ka. Jej właścicielami byli A. Tillgner oraz bracia Edward i Salo Kassirer.“  Arather shaky translation  is: ”In the year 1883 at the place beneath the river Biala Glucholazka at the Promenadenstrasse - today John Paul II avenue - the cellulose factory Tillgner and Company was built. Some time or other the former property of A.Tillgner was transfered to Eduard and Salo Kassirer.“ Of course the above story goes a little bit further, but with this kind of lay translation it would be irresponsible. Of the Tillgner company there’s only one mention in the internet (from pre 45 times): ”Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik Tillgner & Cie AG, Berlin-Wilmersdorf.“ Perhaps Eduard and Salo or even Isidor and Max were in the ”Compagnie“ (”Cie.“, company) or among the shareholders (”AG“, Aktiengesellschaft). I wouldn’t be surprised if the factory was closed down in the meantime because it was too small or to old or just not profitable anymore as a state owned company after 1990 in the global market (e.g. chinese coal beeing much cheaper today than the coal of the so much ‘coal-minded’ region of Katowice). [Expat* 29 Nov 2005]

			This is a bond certificate, apparently co-signed by Max Cassirer currently for sale on the internet through sammleraktien-online.de The municipal arms are on top of the bond and these arms are the same today. The comment below says that Tillgner’s factory was founded in 1910 - which probably means, it was sold to Tillgner in that year. This bond dates from 1924. One of the signatures appears to be Max Cassirer’s signature. (Eduard and Salo died before the end of WW II - but  Max died in 1943.  In the anecdote booklet under ‘List of collaborators & assistants’: ‘Das Buero Tillgner und Co.’ the comment says also that the Ziegenhals factory was closed down in February 1940 (in the war? why? was is too old?), but the company existed as ‘Ziegenhalser Zellstoffwerke’ til 1943 and later ‘A.G. für industrielle Anlagen’.   (This raises the interesting question of why the name Tillgner was removed? Perhaps it was because he was too long in touch with the Cassirers?). The seat of the company until August 1940 was in Berlin (in. Berlin-Wilmersdorf) and after that date in Peterwitz / Neisse Oberschlesien. Perhaps there was another factory at Peterwitz which continued to produce unter the name of ‘Ziegenhalser Zellstoffwerke’.[*Expat 14 Jan 2006] Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik Tillgner & Co. AG, Berlin-Wilmersdorf Datum: 30.12.1924 Nennwert: 1000 RM Branche: Papier, Textil einzige RM-Emission Firmensitz: Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Deutschland Wertpapier Typ: Inhaberaktie Wertpapier Art: Stammaktie Größe in cm ca.: 20 x 30 Entwertet: ja, Lochung Erhaltung: 2, gut, gebraucht Druckerei: Ad. Haussmann, Berlin Auflage: nur ca. 850 im Markt verfügbar Besonderheit: Vermutlich die einzige Aktienemission der AG überhaupt. Versandformat: Standardgröße

				Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik Tillgner & Co. AG 3614         Wertpapiere zu Sammlerzwecken - Lieferung ohne Rahmen - Texte © geschützt Die Gesellschaft wurde bereits im Februar 1910 gegründet. Geschäftszweck war die Herstellung und der Vertrieb von Zellulose für die Papier und Textilindustrie. Der Firmenname war Mai 1938 Sulfit-Cellulose-Fabrik Tillgner & Co. AG,danach bis Juni 1943 Ziegenhalser Zellstoffwerke AG und später dann AG für industrielle Anlagen. Bis August 1940 war der Firmensitz in Berlin, danach in Peterwitz, Kreis Neisse/Oberschlesien. Das Werk Ziegenhals in Oberschlesien wurde im Februar 1940 stillgelegt. Geschichtlich sehr interessante Wertpapiere, tolle Optik mit besoners filigraner Bordüre und Ziegenvignette in der oberen Borte. Bild dient als Beispiel, Nummern weichen ab. Für diese Aktie erhalten Sie ein Echtheitszertifikat.