Heinz und Gisela Friederichs Stiftung

The donor Heinz Friederichs is a descendant of an old coachbuilder family in Frankfurt. On 1st of July 1840, Heinrich Friederichs founded a saddler and car-body company in the Bockenheimer street in Frankfurts city centre. Many years of learning were preceding the step to self-employment. From 1832, Friederichs, being twenty years old at time, passed his apprenticeship in the native Frankfurt, and after that he moved from town to town, such as London, Petersburg and Moscow to improve his knowledge first-hand at the most distinguished locations all over the world. Within a very short time, his company in Frankfurt was very successful, and it became a noble address for quality and progressive styling at the same time.

In the year 1900, the sons took over the company of the father, and they dedicated to automobile manufacturing being a new field at that time. Corner marks were set: Heinrich Friederichs got the first patent for a cabriolet body. Luxury vehicles on the chassis of Maybach, Benz, Mercedes, Packard, Adler, Horch, Lasalle were build for customers in the whole of Germany. The assembly-line production of Ford vehicles in the United States of America heralded the new times, and the Friederichs company changed over in good time to the production of bodies for utility vehicles.

After the war, breakdown and reconstruction, the company expanded, moved into new premises and created new production equipment. Due to the inheritance of clever management, Heinz Friederichs, the great-grandson of the company founder, turned the former small mechanical workshop into a large enterprise with most advanced mechanical aids. In 1990, the 150th anniversary of the present Carl Friederichs GmbH was celebrated.

Already in 1984, Heinz Friederichs took over a company in Alsfeld and extended it to the Hartmann Spezialkarosserien GmbH, which is today a leading manufacturer of vehicles for cash and value transport in Germany.To ensure the continuance of the company, Heinz Friederichs and his wife Gisela founded the Heinz und Gisela Friederichs foundation, shortly before his death in 1991.

The aim of the foundation Heinz Friederichs has always set great store to the sponsorship of the contemporary art and young artists. Ha always was very active in vocational training and further education of young people in the field car body and vehicle construction by a particular extensible apprentice training. Last but not least, as a conscious inhabitant of Frankfurt, he was always endeavoured to support social project of the town. So, these fields became aims of the foundation.

These assets of the foundation The foundations assets comprise the company Carl Friederichs GmbH in Frankfurt with two operational facilities in the Schlitzer Street 10 and the Hardenberg Street 3-7, as well as a participation of 60% in the Hartmann Spezialkarosserien GmbH in Alsfeld, Carl-Zeiss Street 2. Both companies, employing about 200 persons at present, are active in the vehicle construction and the repair of passenger cars and trucks. In the field vehicle construction, the following special bodies are manufactured: Cash and value transport vehicles, also for foreign central banks, squad vehicles for police units, guard containers, prisoner vehicles, workshop vehicle, mobile branch office of banks and savings banks, mobile libraries, fire fighting vehicles, exhibition vehicles and a lot more. Apart from that, the foundations assets include real estate holdings, mainly storehouses and production halls in Frankfurt, which are leased. Also part of the art possessions of the donors developed to the assets of the donors, above all the facilities of Wols.

Der Vorstand der Stiftung setzt sich zusammen aus: Erich Schneider (Vorsitzender), Gisela Friederichs (stellvertretende Vorsitzende) und Immo Decker.

Links:
http://www.friederichs-stiftung.de
http://www.frankfurter-stiftungen.de unter Stiftungen A-Z bei H
http://www.hartmann-alsfeld.de