In the town of Güstrow the entrepreneur Max Oppen, who had been born Max Oppenheimer in Mannheim, built up a bed-feather factory which received its modern plant on the Heideweg in 1927 [1][2][4]. Because of the Jewish descent of its owner the business was "presumably under duress" sold to a National Socialist in 1938 [1]. The file "Entjudung der Bettfedernfabrik von Max Oppen in Güstrow" (de-Judaisation of the bed-feather factory of Max Oppen in Güstrow) in the State Main Archive Schwerin has the dates 1938-1946 [3]. Oppen died in Berlin in 1939, while the factory still operates today as Mecklenburger Bettwaren Manufaktur [4].
Building up the business
In Güstrow the bed-feather factory of Carl Blauert had existed on Schweriner Straße since 1882; according to Güstrow History, Max Oppen was at first a partner in it and is said to have been its owner since 1928 [2]. The older Güstrow bed-feather firm Otto Hoeck & Co., which had been founded in 1867 at Am Werder, then got into financial trouble in the world economic crisis at the end of the 1920s and had to be sold to Oppen. A new, modern production site was thereupon built on the Heideweg, while the Am Werder site was given up [2]. The factory building on the Heideweg was already built in 1927 for the entrepreneur Max Oppen as an ultra-modern plant [1] and stands at Heideweg 45 [5], and according to the Wikipedia account of Güstrow it was the most modern bed-feather production site in Europe [4].
Max Oppen
According to the Mannheim birth register (no. 910), Max (Israel) Oppen was born on 3 June 1885 in Mannheim, the child of Friederike Oppenheimer, and in 1922 the surname was changed to Oppen. He died on 3 September 1939 in Berlin.
1938: the sale
Güstrow History notes that the business was "1938 wegen der jüdischen Abstammung von Max Oppen vermutlich unter Zwang an einen Nazi verkauft" (sold to a Nazi, presumably under duress, because of Max Oppen's Jewish descent) [1]. The State Main Archive Schwerin holds, in the records of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Ministry of the Interior (group "Sale of Jewish property"), file no. 13764/40 "Entjudung der Bettfedernfabrik von Max Oppen in Güstrow", dated 1938-1946 [3].
After 1945
After the war came expropriation under Soviet administration and conversion into a state-owned enterprise. After the political turnaround ("Wende") the business was reprivatised and repeatedly threatened by insolvency, and bed feathers are still processed there today [1]. The factory is, moreover, the only surviving industrial building from earlier times on the Heideweg [1].