Müllenbach & Thewald

Müllenbach & Thewald was founded in 1830 in the town of Höhr (today Höhr-Grenzhausen) in Germany's Westerwald region, stamped its pipes with the M&T mark, and kept production going until 1972. The firm's story is interesting for summing up, under a single roof, the German pipe trade's transition from handcraft to factory, and from clay to wood.

A Workshop in the Town of Clay

Westerwald has been known for centuries for its fine clay and stoneware; the region's kilns supplied a good part of Europe with pottery. In such a place, making clay pipes was a natural specialty, and the firm started out exactly there: alongside its own clay pipes, it traded in Höhr's pottery generally. The partners were brought together by family ties. Jakob Müllenbach (1800–1876) and Wilhelm Thewald (1807–1888) were brothers-in-law, having married Maria Magdalena and Catharina of the Friesehahn family.

Wood and the Lathe

By the middle of the century the firm's range had widened: after 1848 it began making pipes from various woods grown in Germany, and in 1860 briar entered the line-up. This date is notable for showing how early the briar fashion born in France found an echo in Germany. Production methods changed just as quickly; a process that had initially relied entirely on the hand lathe was mechanized after 1864. After the turn of the century — sources give no exact year — a second workshop devoted solely to briar opened in Vallendar. M&T was a respected name in the trade, but it never ranked among the largest of the German pipe industry.

Destruction and Rebuilding

The air raid of 5 January 1945 badly damaged Höhr; the firm's administrative buildings and pipe workshop were rendered unusable as well. Repairs began that May, and production resumed only on 15 January 1947. Because the facility set up in Höhr-Grenzhausen was larger than the old one, the Vallendar briar workshop was no longer needed and was closed. Records show forty-seven people working in the pipe division by the end of 1949, still producing in briar alongside other woods; the same records note that by the mid-1950s more than a third of the workshop staff were women.

The End Arrives

Trouble became visible around 1970. The firm's core economic price tier was flooded by products from Italian and French workshops that sourced briar from their own soil and worked at much lower labor costs. Add to this the aging model range, and even M&T's upper lines could not hold their own against Oldenkott and Vauen on the German domestic market. Thus a production history spanning more than 140 years came to an end in 1972. The workshop's last manager, Norbert Gerharz, did not abandon the trade; he continued working as an independent pipe maker and signed his pipes "Vallberg." The firm itself left pipes behind entirely and turned to clay mining, a business it is reportedly still active in today.