The traditional company Breckle has to close after 92 years, leaving around 300 people without a job. But how did it come to this? The story of a bitter end.
Every morning at 5 a.m. he drove to work in Northeim near Göttingen, Henning Rosenau explains, sounding melancholy. For around 25 years, from Monday to Friday, in summer, autumn, spring and winter.
Since August, that has been a thing of the past. The mattress manufacturer Breckle, where the 57-year-old was most recently department head and works council chairman, has ceased operations. The end, the end, the end of the day.
“It's a strange feeling that it's all over now,” Rosenau told t-online. “The company will definitely be missed.” After all, he has many memories associated with the company. “47 years ago I earned my first five marks at Breckle,” he says, back then he was making buttons. He can hardly believe that Breckle is now over.
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But how did it even get to this point? To understand this, you have to look at the history of the company and some of the mistakes that were made in the past. Mistakes that have now led to numerous accusations and allegations; a legal dispute has also developed over the company's bankruptcy.
The Breckle company was one of the largest mattress producers in Europe. At times, up to 4,000 mattresses rolled off the production line at the Northeim factory. And that was every day. From the company's own pocket spring core production to foam production: Breckle had the entire production range under one roof. Box spring beds were also made in the company's own carpentry workshop.
The company has its origins in Benningen am Neckar, where it was founded in 1932 by Emil Breckle. From 1974 onwards, his son Siegfried Breckle, a mechanical engineer, then produced in Northeim. The other sons of the company founder also developed companies, such as the Breckle Matratzenfabrik Weida. However, they are legally independent of the insolvent company Breckle Northeim.
At the beginning, around 150 mattresses were produced per day in Northeim. This increased quickly, and the number of employees also grew. In 1990, Siegfried's son Andreas and a little later his brother Michael Breckle, who was three years younger, joined the company. Together they took over the management. Until 2020.
Because no successor could be found and the Breckle brothers' children were either too young or had no interest in running the business, the Breckles sold their mattress factory to an investor. A step that Andreas Breckle now describes as “the biggest mistake of our lives” with a view to the buyer. Because, as they describe it, the misery began with the sale.
The company was handed over debt-free and with all the profits from 2019, Breckle told t-online. Today it shows a “deficit not covered by equity in the high double-digit million range,” says the business economist. “We chose the wrong buyer,” he sums up.
Ultimately, the mattress empire had to file for bankruptcy in March 2024. Talks with investors failed; other restructuring measures were not possible because the company ran out of money. In the end, the bitter news came: operations had to be shut down.
At the end of July, the last employees were laid off and most were laid off. A total of 300 people lost their jobs. The company is currently only working with a skeleton crew of around ten people to prepare for the sale.
The reasons for the end of the traditional company are varied – and sometimes not clear. Those involved agree on two points: Firstly, there is the current economic situation. Demand has fallen, especially after the Corona crisis, when many people redecorated their homes. A problem that the entire industry is suffering from. Not least because prices have risen significantly across the board.
In response to a query from t-online, insolvency administrator Markus Kohlstedt said that “external influences from the current market situation in the mattress and furniture market in particular” had led to a significant drop in sales. He continued: “The increased costs then reinforce the negative effect.” Breckle's last managing director, Christian Paar, also told t-online: “The furniture industry is not exactly the healthiest.”
