Industrial history of Austria # 2022

Riedel, Swarovski & Co. - History of glass production in Austria

The documentary tells us about the history of glass production in Austria. With Riedel, Swarovski and Stölzle, Austria had three important glass manufacturers at the beginning of the 21st century that can look back on a long history. In addition, with Lobmeyr and Bakalowits, Austria can boast of two other well-known glass-laying families that are still active today. 

Even before the turn of the 20th century, these glass manufacturers began to have their glass products designed by well-known artists of the time, which they then mostly had manufactured in Czech glassworks. In this documentary, the cultural scientist and director Martin Vogg goes on a search for traces of Austrian glass production. He also travels to the glass production centers in northern Bohemia, where the stories of the Swarovski and Riedel families began, among other places, he visits the southern Czech Republic, where the glass industrialist Stölzle established his first glass factories. 

The film also sheds light on how glass manufacturers had to react to social and above all political developments in the 20th century. An important turning point here was the end of the Danube monarchy, which not only called for new, cross-border sales strategies, but also meant that some companies had to operate across national borders. National Socialism also brought great changes with it, and the expulsion of the Germans from the Czech Republic after the Second World War had a great impact and explains why many German glassmakers and the Riedel family had to start from the scratch in Austria. 

Ultimately, the film also shows existing developments in glass industry in Austria and the Czech Republic during the time of the Iron Curtain, right through to the economic difficulties faced by glass-producing companies on both sides of the border at the end of the 20th century.