POV of Gottfried von Poznan
12-May/1915
I walked through the corridors of the factory, carefully observing how the production system my son had left behind operated without interruption. He had designed an entire organization of labor in which each man fulfilled a specific function. At a glance, it was a system imported from the Americans: each worker specialized in a single task, repeating it over and over until perfecting it. The result was evident in the precision and speed with which they worked.
The results were clear. After purchasing several factories that had gone bankrupt due to lack of raw materials, loss of clients, or poor management, production had surged under his model. We were well on track to fulfill the Army's order.
After investing several hundred thousand marks into this weapons factory, we were now producing around one hundred and fifty modified rifles per day. The modifications passed through a line of about fifty workers who never stopped, each focused on his task to earn his wage.
"Mein Herr, this shipment is ready," one of the workers said as he placed the last rifle into a crate.
I stepped closer, checked the contents with a quick glance, and nodded.
"Good. Make sure it is on the train before the last departure of the day. It must reach the front as soon as possible."
The crate was immediately sealed, nailed shut, and loaded onto a horse-drawn cart that departed for the station, which was only a short distance away.
As the war continued, there was something we never stopped producing: the ghillie suits my son had designed after that experience in the East, when he nearly fell into Russian hands. Recently, we had been asked for eight hundred more for his new units, now that he had been promoted and his command expanded.
Even so, production had not stopped for a single day.
I had secured a contract with the State to produce German Army uniforms. We had everything we needed: machinery, access to fabric, and labor. Once the official specifications were received, we began producing hundreds of uniforms a day using our textile machines.
We processed fabric from local suppliers and worked it without rest. It was, by far, our most stable source of income. At the front, uniforms wore out quickly, tore, and became dirty,replacements were always needed. In that section of the factory, there was never a lack of work. Around four hundred workers operated there, using the full capacity of the facility.
With sewing machines constantly running, we supplied both the army on the Eastern Front and the Polish forces being formed in occupied territories, supporting operations in Ukraine.
After ensuring that everything was running properly in the uniform section, I moved to what was, without exaggeration, the true gold mine of the factory: the optical workshop.
Fewer men worked there, but they were the most valuable. Craftsmen brought from the Ruhr, with years of experience, were dedicated to producing the most critical part of a sniper rifle. Each scope was assembled by hand, adjusted with extreme care to ensure every component fit with precision.
That small group generated more profit than any other section.
With the proper tools and skilled hands, production costs were relatively low compared to the price at which we sold to the State. A large part of our profits came from the sale of telescopic sights, whether through direct orders or replacements.
Although we had to fulfill an order of fifteen thousand units, new requests were already arriving to replace damaged optics and build reserves. Another thousand units had been added to production.
That meant another quarter of a million marks,a figure difficult to imagine.
Far more than our lands could generate through harvests or peasant rents. Here, we did not depend on the weather or luck, but on machines that produced income.
It was something I had also learned. I had saved every mark of my salary during my years in the navy. I did not spend on luxuries or whims. Everything was kept, accumulated with discipline. When I finally inherited my father's lands, which he himself had inherited, I continued along the same line: to build wealth, never lose it.
I always took pride in that. My contribution to the family was not small. With my savings, rents, and well-managed profits, I gathered enough capital to purchase a factory in the city. Through contacts in the Ruhr, old family acquaintances, I secured modern machinery and took a step that few of our class dared to take.
I built a cannery.
It was a major step forward. It allowed us to sell our products much farther and make full use of our harvests. For the first time, we did not depend solely on local markets.
But now… all of that seemed small next to Karl.
He was not my heir. By law, my firstborn, Wilhelm, was to receive everything. Even before Karl stood Adalbert. Yet Karl had built, on his own, a fortune that surpassed not only my savings, but the combined value of our lands and possessions.
I still struggle to understand when that changed.
And yet, I am glad it did.
I had intended to raise a large family. It was expected. It was proper. But that desire cost me the most valuable thing I had. After two sons and eight premature births… Karl came as the third who managed to live.
And his mother did not survive.
My other sons grew as I had planned: with a strict, demanding father, and a mother who balanced everything with affection and patience. That was how we had been raised, and how it should continue.
But Karl did not have that....With him… I had to change.
I was forced to be closer, more permissive than I had ever imagined, since he only had a father, and I refused to remarry, as it would create problems between children of different mothers. That decision had consequences. I raised a son who became arrogant, undisciplined, and burdened with a laziness that tested my patience. He flatly refused to follow my path in the navy.
I tried to yield in certain matters, but in the end I sent him to the military academy, hoping they would shape him where I had failed.
It only brought more trouble.
Karl never distinguished himself in his studies. He was combative, impulsive… and dangerously obsessed with mensur duels. He did not merely participate, he gambled. He lost tens of thousands of marks, debts I was forced to pay, while he carved his way through other equally foolish young men.
That said… in combat, he was exceptional.
He never kept count of how many duels he won, but I know he lost only one. That single mistake left him with the scar he still carries on his face.
When the war came, like any father, I was afraid of what might happen. I had served in the navy, but I had never faced real combat, only training and occasional deployments. When the war finally broke out, I worried greatly.
My heart nearly broke when I received the letter stating that Karl had been reported missing in action, only for him to return as if nothing had happened. He had managed to slip away from the Russians and kill many of them.
And he was different.
More humble, more attentive, more diligent… almost as if he were a completely different man. I do not know if that brush with death changed him, but he returned full of ideas he claimed to have heard at the front. One of them seemed to mark the next step in our family's growth.
Karl had supposedly spoken with some kind of engineer and farmer whose ideas had been rejected, and after paying him, he received the plans for the greenhouse system we now use.
Madness, I thought. I believed he had been deceived, especially after hearing the man had gone to Switzerland.
But when I saw tomatoes growing in the middle of winter… that madman seemed to be a genius. Tomatoes and potatoes growing in winter inside heated buildings, using something as abundant as pig manure for fuel. In Poznan and its surroundings, pig farms are common, so we were quite literally using the most basic resource available.
Selling tomatoes and potatoes was not difficult. With the war, the buyers were the usual ones. I simply ensured everything was preserved and sent to the front.
But that was only the beginning.
With a loan of more than three million marks, four hundred thousand invested into improving the military factory and three million used to acquire land, I secured much of the land intended for further German colonization in Poznan.
We ceased to be just another Junker family in the region. We became the wealthiest, and likely the most influential, with multiple contracts tied to the government.
Especially now, with hectares upon hectares of farmland where thousands of workers built greenhouses, even driving the local glass industry forward.
Hundreds of peasants worked within them, and beyond the increase in productivity for crops such as lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and other vegetables, there was another advantage.
Nothing was wasted.
A system had been established that used everything available. Waste that once had no value now became fertilizer.
It was clear in the mushroom production. Before leaving for the Western Front, Karl had said that mushrooms were the easiest way to secure multiple harvests each year, since it takes roughly a month to achieve a full and generous yield.
What concerned me was how close Karl had grown to the peasants. Before, he could not have cared less. Now he seemed overly invested in their daily struggles, and it showed in what he asked of me.
He insisted on giving them part of the harvest, twenty percent of total production, whether from factories or farms.
He also demanded higher wages. I had paid around eighty marks to peasants and one hundred twenty to factory workers per month, the standard in the region.
Karl wanted one hundred fifty marks for all, setting it as a base wage. Those in the most critical parts of the factories earned nearly three hundred fifty marks per month.
This, while beneficial, had clear consequences. We were drawing workers away from other factories, and peasants from other Junker estates asked to work for us instead. More than once, I had to attend meetings with those families to explain why I was raising labor costs in such a way.
There were also changes in diet. With the first greenhouse mushroom harvests, those not sent to the front ended up on the peasants' tables, turned into broth and preserved in cans. In recent days, it was enough to look around to see restaurants filled with dishes made from mushrooms.
Every method of cooking them was explored, every way of incorporating them into meals. Sold in local markets, they slowly began to flood the city. We could produce them in quantities that seemed absurd. The production cost was extremely low, as we only used organic waste that once had no value.
The only part with some cost was composting, which required land far from the city due to the smell. Those who could do it preferred raising pigs or farming directly, so we simply sent workers to collect pig manure from other farms and used it ourselves, either for compost or directly as substrate.
It was a complete cycle. Nothing was lacking to secure a second mushroom harvest, and once the six months Karl had mentioned for compost had passed, we could begin planting other crops more seriously.
Everything pointed in the same direction… I would likely have to expand my cannery.
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