The Old World – Grotrian-Steinweg | Crises

Just like Steinway & Sons, also Grotrian-Steinweg was also affected by the two world wars and the Great Depression in the 20th century. 

Kurt Grotrian (1870–1929) was enlisted during WWII, became prisoner of war and only returned to Braunschweig in 1919. His brother Willi (1868–1931) kept the company afloat with great difficulty; there was almost no demand on new pianos.

In WWII, the factory at Zimmerstraße was turned into a plane repair workshop under the management of Erwin (1899–1990) and Helmut (1900–1977) Grotrian, sons of Kurt. The heart piece of the factory, the house at 48 Bohlweg, caught fire during one of the bomb raids on Braunschweig. Writer Uwe Friesel (*1939) remembers the view of the ruin:

„The Grotrian-Steinweg pianos were the oddest thing. To see them, one had to walk a long stretch into town through the rubble and cross Gliesmaroder Street – but that wasn’t too bad, as apart from the half-hourly streetcar, there was nothing running there. The pianos would be standing in groups or by themselves on see-through storeys: The factory was nothing but a concrete skeleton. The outside walls had been blown away in total. When I told my mother that we had climbed up to the first floor on an improvised ladder, and had played “Abendstille überall” (German cradle song) in the open air, that was it. We were grounded for a whole week.”  

Disputes concerning the brand name accompanied Grotrian-Steinweg for years: On selling his shares in 1865, Theodor Steinweg (1825–1889) had allowed the new owners to continue the company under the label “C. G. Theodor Steinweg Nachf.” (Theodor Steinweg successors). However, in 1874 he opened the “F. Th. Steinweg, European General Depot of Steinway & Sons in New York” – and consequently began to worry about the risk of confusion with the local piano workshop. The lawsuit he filed against the use of the name “Th. Steinweg Nachf.” by the Braunschweig company was the prelude to a whole series of lawsuits that were conducted on both sides of the ocean for decades. In several stages, it was finally agreed that Grotrian had to use a hyphen when using the name “Steinweg”. Thus, in accordance with the ruling of 1924, the new label “Grotrian-Steinweg” came to pass. This label may only be used in Europe; outside Europe it is simply Grotrian, according to a ruling from 1980.