Design Berlin
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Website: Pfeifenstudio db - Design Berlin
After WW II Hubert Hartmann started with pipe repairs to make his living. In early 1948 he founded a company and applied for the permission to start with tobacco pipe production. The later Pfeifenstudio Hartmann was among the first factories in post-war Germany licensed to start pipe production by the Allied Forces. Hubert Hartmann early hired mainly pipemakers coming from the area around Ruhla and Schweina in Thuringia-- Germany's most important center of pipe manufacturing since the earliest beginnings. Thuringia was now part of the Soviet zone of occupation (SBZ) which became the later German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Hartmann's mainstay for the next decades were cheap and small pipes in drugstore quality with Nylon stems. Called "Mutzenpfeifen" (also "Mutzchen" or simply "Mutz") in German, they were mainly used to smoke shag tobaccos. This slowly changed for the better after pipe maker and designer Lothar Schirwitz, who had joined Hartmann in 1954, became the head manager of the pipe production at the end of the sixties. Thanks to Schirwitz' efforts Hartmann pipes adopted more modern designs orientated to Danish pipemaking. According to the German smoking habits pipes got the typical 9-millimeter filter system. But doubtlessly the significant approvements on quality enforced by Schirwitz made the pipes a growing success. Around 1975 the brand name db - Design Berlin was adopted to underline the new image.
Lothar Schirwitz also made very fine one of a kind freehands. Today these db pipes wearing his name stamped are highly sought for after he retired having worked almost fifty years for Hartmann / Design Berlin. According to his potential he might have been one of Germany's praised highgraders, but he prefered to stay in the background unboastfully.
db by Lothar Schirwitz
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Export to England and the United States is the most important. Gradually the factory developed into a brand for series work. The selection runs up to about 45 different series of pipes, mainly in modern shapes that are especially popular among the younger pipe smokers.
In 1992 a factory from Thüringen is taken over, to add new techniques and new skilled workmen to the staff, increasing the level of quality production. The annual production is around 30.000 pipes.
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Pfeifenstudio db - Design Berlin c/o PLANTA Tabak-Manufaktur Dr. Manfred Obermann GmbH & Co. KG Hagelberger Strasse 52 10965 Berlin Germany Website: Pfeifenstudio db - Design Berlin