Dynasties in North Rhine-Westphalia: Falke
Ben Becker wears them, and so does Prince Charles: Sauerland knits.
With their high-quality stockings and textiles, the two Falke cousins from the Sauerland region of Germany, Paul and Franz-Peter, have managed to outmanoeuver their cheaper competition from the Far East and build up an international business that employs over 3000 people, half of them in high-paying Germany. For most of these employees, Falke is not just a place to work but also a professional home. Gisela Puff, for example, has been sitting at "her" machine in the Schmallenburger Straße factory for 45 years. For her as for most of her fellow workers, the "Falke Family" is a living business philosophy.
The members of that family naturally feel the same. The previous generation at the head of the company, Franz-Otto Falke and his brother Paul, sat facing each other across their desks for over 40 years. They ran the business as a pair; they even parked their VW Beetles side by side in the factory lot.
It's a tradition that reaches back to the last decade of the 19th century and to the company's founder, Franz Falke-Rohen, who earned his keep working as a roofer during the summer and a journeyman knitter for a local manufacturer during the cold winter months. He was earning just RM 3.50 a day, barely enough to feed his eight children. Then in 1895 he went into business for himself: the beginning of a success story.
The film documents the Falke company's rise from those first beginnings to the present day, following the development of knitting fashions and technology over the years and introducing two different generations of the Falke family.
Director: Ulrike Brincker
Photographer: Steffen Bohn
Sound: Andrä Klaukien
Editor: Oliver Held
Production Manager: Jörg Kobel, Uwe Herpich
Producer: Birgit Schulz
Commissioning Editor: Christiane Hinz (WDR)
