In one of our monthly luncheon get together, Simon Chu reminisced events in early Osterode days. Mr. Halpern recognized the importance of Germany as a center for the printing industry and arranged Polychrome's first appearance at the Drupa show in Düsseldorf in 1960. While Jerry O'Conner and Simon Chu were demonstrating small duplicator plates which were then made by hand dipping cut sheets in various tanks, Mr. Halpern together with Seth Cross, who spoke German, found a dealer; Mr. Feist to set up a joint venture to open a factory in Freiheit in Osterode. Mr. Feist apparently had a small plate factory in Berlin and knew the location as it was on his way to his vacation in Harz mountain. After looking around various locations such as Wurm and Wiesbarden, Mr. Halpern was happy to have found a good location in Osterode at the foot of Harz mountain as he thought it would provide a good source of clean water needed for the factory. It turns out later, as told by former Bremen resident Klaus Zimmerman that the water in Osterode came from Brement!
Mr. Feist had Mr. Aurich as his partner. Mr. Aurich was a technical person and with his son Gunther Aurich set up the original Freiheit factory. This explains why original Polychrome factory there was called Aufa-Polychrome.
The first product was a smooth plate similar to what was made in US and had experienced severe walk off problem. Simon was asked to go to Osterode to solve the problem and quickly found solution in stabilizing the walk off issue using a grained base. This was the time Mr. Halpern sought out Ilford for help financially and otherwise. ER Townley who later in 1966 came to work for Polychrome arranged an investment and sent Pat Heaney to Osterode to manage the ailing factory. Pat Heaney and Simon made a crucial move to offer a sizable volume to AB Dick Co. at close to a cost so that it would allow continuous production of sizable volume and lower the overhead burden. This stabilized the quality of products produced immensely and the long journey to the profitable European operation was underway.
We moved from Freiheit factory to Osterode location as we needed space for more graining and continuous line and then to Katzenstein for a larger production line where the current factory stands. Some may recall the mushroom factory in Katzenstein where we stored finished plate for sometime..... an inauspicious start of the big Katzenstein factory!
According to the published Polychrome history, the Aufa-Polychrome was set up in Berlin. Apparently There was a very small Aufa factory in Berlin and the office may have been set up there. It was for making small duplicator elecro-grain type plates, but not coated......was sold as base for diffusion transfer, etc. and other printing methods. Simon says; not 100% sure because we were not interested in such business …..only in the future of PS plates which was just opening..........probably the factory was on a verge of closing, if not closed by the time of Drupa as they did not have a booth......................just carried some samples to Dusseldorf and showed them around.......when we brought a sheet or two back to Yonkers, coated them with diazo (neg) ...they did not desensitize, just stayed yellow and took ink all over....the exposed area ( purple??) and yellow non-image area.... also......in fact during working at Freiheit, went to Berlin on week-ends, but never came up to visit a/The Factory/probably because it was no more..... more minutia for the record..........says Simon.
And the Polychrome history book says;
1962 Participated in establishment of Aufa-Pollychrome Offsetplatten GmbH in West Berlin to manufacture offset plates and chemistry for distribution in Western Europe, the near East and Africa.
1964 Severed relations with Aufa GmbH and relocated the German company to West Germany under the name Polychrome GmbH.