Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is originally a German instrument manufacturer headquartered in Trossingen. The company is particularly well known as a manufacturer of harmonicas and accordions, but in addition to this, the company makes or has made many other instruments such as recorders, melodies, guitars, bass guitars, pianos, and kazoos.
Hohner’s story begins in the early 19th century in Trossingen, 106 km southwest of Stuttgart. At that time, the German Empire was alive and there was a strong instrument construction centre in Trossingen. Today, Trossingen has a population of about 16,000 inhabitants.
Matthias Hohner Harmonica Factory
Christian Messner (1805–1874) was enthusiastic about making harmonicas and had apparently purchased such a musical instrument during his visit to Vienna. Messner began making harmonicas in his spare time in 1827, with the actual main job being watchmaking. The instrument making proved to be a success, and his harmonicas was quite well known in the 1830s and 1840s.
Christian Messner tried to keep the harmonica production knowledge only to his own family. In the 1850s, Messner’s nephew Cristian Weiss joined the business, but soon Weiss started his own harmonica factory. One day in 1856, a Weiss’s school friend stopped by the factory. He was Matthias Hohner (b. 1833 – d. 1902). The visit lasted fairly long, and Weiss began to suspect factory espionage and threw Hohner out of the house. But Hohner had seen enough. The following year, Hohner founded his own harmonica factory in the neighbouring village. Soon, however, the company was transferred to Trossingen.
Matthias Hohner was born in Trossingen on the outskirts of the Black Forest and was a watchmaker. Hohner had made his first harmonica two years before he founded his company, so he knew the structure of the instrument before visiting the Weiss factory. Hohner studied existing instruments and in his business he used mass production to lower the cost of manufacturing musical instruments. He did not initially try to make the most fine models, but cost-effective musical instruments.
In the year of the company’s founding, Matthias Hohner produced 700 harmonicas, but ten years later the annual production was already 22,000 instruments. The growth rate was dizzying. In 1867, Hohner bought rival companies in the region and began exporting harmonicas to the United States. In 1871, Hohner sent an employee to Vienna to investigate the instrument manufacturing methods of his biggest competitors. They were at the time of better quality than the instruments made by Hohner. Six months later, the employee brought with him a lot of know-how, which was put into practice. In this case, Hohner learned the method of cutting brass and alpaca reeds and how the tuning was done on the so-called tuning table. By the end of the 1870s, the quality of Hohner’s production had become as good as the competitors’.
In 1875, harmonicas were made by Matthias Hohner (85 employees), Andreas Koch (60), Christian Messner & Co. (40), Christian Bilger (25), Joh Irion (10) and Gerb. Ultrich Talheim (8) in Trossingen. In 1880, Hohner invested heavily in his company’s machines, and the following year he built a new residential and commercial property between the upper and lower villages of Trossingen. In 1882, the Hohner factory introduced the first steam engine to power the reed press. The company’s significance increased throughout the late 19th century. It has been said that Trossingen Town Hall was built with harmonica money – the city was commonly known as the Hohner town for a long time.
At the right place on the right time
Matthias Hohner’s harmonicas quickly became popular in North America, where they were especially used by German immigrants on the West Plains. In general, European immigrants took the harmonica to the Southern parts of the United States, as well as the Midwest. In the Midwest, the harmonica began to be a part of local folk music. In addition to immigrants, the sales of Hohner’s harmonicas were developed by a marketing trick that stood out from other companies: the company logo had been added to the lids of the harmonica. In 1887, the Hohner produced the first millionth of harmonica in the history of the factory, and a note dated 1888 notes that the quality produced by the factory was so high that it could hardly be increased. 80% of production was exported.
The harmonica had an advantage over many other instruments. It was cheap and easy to take with you. With it, even one player could easily play music of their preferences. Much later, perhaps precisely because of the lightness of the instrument, wally Schirra, an astronaut on board Nasa’s Gemini 6 probe, played the first musical performance in space in December 1965. The instrument was Hohner’s Little Lady harmonica and the musical piece was Jingle Bells.
In the 1890s came the company’s first actual setback when U.S. import duties rose and the U.S. experienced an economic downturn. Demand fell a lot. Matthias Hohner had relied too much on the triumph of one market. It was only after this shock that during 1892–1893 Hohner began to look at the market elsewhere than only from the United States. New markets were found in England and its colonies. At this time, Matthias Hohner’s phrase “The world is my market” was true.
On September 19, 1900, Matthias Hohner transferred the management of the company to his sons Jacob, Matthias, Andrew, Hans, and Will. The company had more than 1,000 employees and the annual production of harmonicas was over four million. Jacob, the eldest of the boys, started running the company. Matthias and Andreas were in charge of the development of musical instruments. Will focused on the cultural side, showing that the industry and the music field should go hand in hand. Hans, the youngest of the sons, devoted himself to the development of the American market. He moved to New York, founded Hohner’s U.S. office, and became an American citizen.
Demand was so high that Hohner set up intermediate warehouses where they were needed. The first warehouse was founded in 1901 in New York, the second in Toronto, the third in London, the fourth in Warsaw, and the fifth in Vienna.
Matthias Hohner was a living legend and millionaire. Matthias Hohner died on 11 December 1902, the day before the 69th birthday. His descendants then sought to bring Matthias Hohner’s name to almost mythical spheres for partly marketing reasons: The company’s 1907 anniversary became the highlight of Matthias Hohner’s achievements. The road that traveled through the company’s territory was transformed into Hohnerstrasse, Hohner Street. Matthias Hohner’s bust was raised above the entrance to the new brick house and his image was added to the products and so on. This “founding cult” peaked in 1957, when the company had existed for 100 years.
Hohner’s company was family-run for a long time. Later, the sales director, who was also in charge of the company’s general financial affairs, was Matthias Hohner’s son Karl Hohner. One of Karl’s sons was responsible for the development of the harmonica production and production resources. This job description later came to Andreas’ youngest son Walter, whose eldest son Matthew was the director of M. Hohner Incorporated of America. The ceo of this American company was Will Hohner’s son Frank Hohner.
Accordions included in production
When the Hohner factories began manufacturing accordions in 1903, it had been manufacturing harmonicas for 46 years. The company built its own production facilities for the manufacture of accordions. The very next year, the accordion produced by the factory won a gold medal at the Saint Luis World’s Fair. In 1906, a new steam-powered transmission belt was installed at the factory, bringing productivity up again. In 1903, the production of Koch accordions began in Trossingen, too.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Hohner expanded rapidly, just as it had done in the previous century. On October 12, 1902, Hohner acquired Christian Messner’s harmonica company, the world’s oldest harmonica manufacturer at the time of purchase. From 1906 to 1907, Hohner acquired the competitors Hotz and Pohl. After that, in 1909, a company called Hohner AG was founded.
There seemed to be no limits to Hohner’s growth and product development. In 1912, Hohner produced his first chromatic accordions, and in 1913 Hohner produced more than 10 million harmonicas a year with his 3,000 employees. During World War I and World War II, Hohner’s harmonicas were popular with all battling parties.
In 1920, Hohner had 4,000 employees and produced 20 million harmonicas a year. At this point, Matthias Hohner’s grandson Ernst Hohner (1886–1965) was named the factory’s CEO. Ernst was Jacob’s son. Ernst Hohner had studied in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In the early 1920s, Germany experienced an economic crisis, which led to significant inflation. This made trading in foreign currencies attractive. In practice, between 1922 and 1923, harmonicas were sold only 5% of turnover on the German market. The domestic market began to grow in relation to exports from 1930 until the end of the decade.
In 1925, Hohner produced more than 25 million harmonicas, and from 1928 to 1929, Hohner acquired the big companies Christian Weiss and Andreas Koch from Trossingen. And’s Koch AG was Hohner’s biggest competitor, the world’s second largest free reed instrument producer.
Morino
One of the key figures in Hohner’s accordion production was Venanzio Morino, who was a particularly important person in the design of the company’s gold age products in the 1930s and 1950s.
Venanzio Morino was born on 11th of December 1876 in Burnasco, a village in northern Italiy, and was forced to work with his father at a young age. Morino was supposed to become a carpenter and he was best at organizing things. Morino liked music and had a dream of a musical instrument suitable for the general public. This led to making the first small accordion. When Morino moved from Italy to Geneva, he met an accordion builder from whom he learned a lot of useful things. After World War I, Venanzio Morino met Earnst Hohner, which ende with Morino moving to Trossingen in 1928.
Venanzio Morino was widowed in 1922 and in 1932 he married Fran Hella. This was good for Morino, who liked to have a family and a home. The children of Morino’s first marriage, Raymond and Germaine, lived in Genoa. Raymond ran an accordion school and Gerimaine was married (unfortunately the sources were not mentioning anything else). Morino’s second son Guido was an electrical engineer.
When Morino started to work at Hohner it meant that he had practically unlimited resurces – it was a global company that had prospered for decades. Morino’s intuition and know-how were combined with the big plans of Hohner.
One of Hohner’s most famous accordions is the Morino piano accordion, which design began after Ernst Hohner and Elias Messner had encouraged Venanzio Morino to design the accordion. Morino had also been in contact with his old master Herman Schittenhelm, and in addition to this, many parties had asked Morino to design his own accordion. The idea was to make it the best quality one. The Morino I piano accordion was released in 1938.
Venanzio Morino lived a humble life. He had good health and regular daily rhythms. He still worked for Hohner at the age of 80 and became familiar with his successor, Giovanni Gola. When asked about the political spectator, Venanzio Morino replied: ‘I am not a nationalist or a fascist, but an accordionist’. His hobbies included traveling. He went to, among other things, Italy, Switzerland, France, Denmark, and Belgium. Morino also studied technical literature and read books. Venanzio Morino died on the 1st of January 1961 in Trossingen.
1930s and 1940s
The Hohner company continued to grow and it also spread beyond its previous core business. 1931 was fast. Hohner-Musikverlag was founded, which grew into a large accordion publishing company in the 1950s. In the same year, Hohner-Handharmonika-Fachschule, the current Hohner Conservatory, was founded. To top it all, the German National Accordion Federation (Deutscher Harmonika Verband) was founded in 1931. This grew into being one of the largest accordion associations in the world.
In the 1930s, an accordion lived through its heyday. Advertising was developed and several different instrument models were published. At the end of the decade, planning became more and more consistent. In 1939, Hohner AG had 5,000 employees, an all-time high.
In the 1940s, Hohner’s factories were used by the state. The factory introduced the first conveyor belt when the company had to produce lighters for the German army. Most of the work was done by women. Before that, Hohner had already made harmonicas with a swastika on them. This was driven by a Nazi party that worked to normalize its own symbolism. However, many Germans rejected the harmonica, as it was often associated with American jazz and blues music and thus with the black population, which was despised by the Nazis. After the war, Hohner returned to make instruments.
During World War II, Hohner produced harmonicas for export. Exports to France and the United Kingdom were of particular importance. For this to work, Hohner set up a new factory in neutral Switzerland. Hohner’s rival, however, used flyers to provoke the audience and marked Hohners instruments as the “harps of allies”. As a result, the harmonica was withdrawn from the market or renamed. Hohner’s post-war economic upturn was again based on exports.
1950s to 1970s
In the 1950s, the Hohner Accordion Orchestra, led by Rudolf Würthner, toured the world. They went to play, for example in Australia and New Zealand, and through this Hohner’s familiarity grew. However, the post-war world was not the same as before the war. On the one hand, Hohner’s economic upturn was helped by the company’s location on the West German side, but on the other hand the world had been redistributed. The Eastern European market was its own, China expropriationed Hohner’s Shanghai office and Japan began selling harmonicas in Asia. This all had a negative impact on Hohner’s business. In 1952, Hohner began mass production of electronic and electromechanical instruments.
Hohner began manufacturing accordions more and more from metal in 1953. For example, the Atlantic and Atlanta models are metal-framed. The Gola accordion models were launched in 1956. This became Hohner’s top quality accordion. The first Gola test pieces were manufactured in Italy, but they did not reach production. 1957 was a turning point for Hohner. The company was 100 years old and production started to slowly decline in Trossingen. In 1957, 20 million harmonica and 400,000 accordions were completed.
Some of Hohner’s models were produced in Italy. These included the Goletta and Golina models in the 1960s and later Gola IV in the 1980s and 1990s. All other Gola models are made and are still made in Trossingen. Some of these instruments were Italian made bass sides for a few years, but in order to guarantee the quality of production, the production was moved back to Germany.
In the 1960s, rock music gained popularity, which in turn affected the sale of the instruments. Hohner was unable to adapt to the changing business conditions and therefore the company started towards a downturn. Although in the 1960s Hohner harmonica was played by both Bob Dylan and John Lennon, sales did not rise. The company couldn’t get in touch with the younger generation.
Adjustment efforts were taken at the beginning of the decline. In 1960, Hohner’s New Yorking office was moved to Hicksville, where the costs were lower than before. In 1962, Hohner began to make recorders.
In 1965, CEO Ernst hohner (1886-1965) retired after 45 years of service. He was nicknamed Königlicher Kaufmann, king of businessmen. There’s a street named after him in Trossingen. However, some considered Ernst Hohner to be part of the reason for Hohner’s downhill. According to the allegations, Hohner did not recognize the change in music culture in time.
The sales of free reed instruments fell over the decade, but the actual crisis was only in the 1970s. As Hohner had expanded beyond his business, the company did not see a proper decline in the sales of free reed instruments Hohner had started producing melodies in 1958 and recorders in 1962. The development of electronic instruments took a lot of resources since the 1970s until the closure of operations in 1995. With electronic instruments, the company did not compete against products in Asia. However, the company’s decision to manufacture computers for IBM and Siemens was the main stumbling block. From 1968 to 1976, Hohner lost millions as a result of this business. As a result, the workforce fell from around 3000 to 1900 between 1967 and 1977. However, this business delusion was not publicly criticised in Trossingen, because Hohner had a lot of power as a company.
1980s to 2000s
In the 1980s, Hohner focused on making electronic instruments. The basis for this had already been done in the mid-1970s, when the design work had begun. At this time, Hohner also had production in the United States.
In 1982, Hohner’s U.S. office was transferred to Richmond, Virginia. In this way, the office was closer to the cargo when it was entering the country.
The years 1986-1987 were the real crisis years for Hohner. The downhill had been going on for a long time, and a lot of things happened in a short timespan: the number of employees was dropped to less than a thousand and due to difficulties, the company sold away its collection of instruments. The wood product manufacturer Kunz-Holding GmbH acquired 2/3 of Hohner’s shares in 1989. Kunz-Holding had a turnover of about $1 billion a year. The Hohner family was involved in active business until 1986.
But there was some hope. Hohner-Sonor AG was founded in 1992 in Bern, and the Rainbow harmonica was introduced in 1994. It was designed for children because it had color-coded blowing holes so that the places of the sounds could easily be learn. In Trossingen, Hohner moved out of the city centre in the mid-1990s. By 1997, the company has suffered two decades of sustained loss. In the cityscape, this was reflected, for example, in the fact that Hohner moved his production to a new factory and the largest factory building was demolished from the centre of Trossingen.
In 1997, K.H.S. Musical Instruments in Taiwan acquired majority ownership of Hohner and the company Hohner Musikinstrumente Gmbh & Co. KG was founded. With the new private investor, the real revival of the company’s activities began. Matthias Hohner’s descendants left 9% of the company’s shareholding. At the same time, a new private investor acquired the Sonor brand. K.H.S. Musical instruments was founded in 1930 and had factories in Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States. The company therefore had a lot of experience and opportunity to get Hohner’s affairs right and at the same time maintain Hohner’s brand.
In 1997, when K.H.S. had a total quorum over Hohner’s production, a decision was taken to transfer part of the production to Asia. The new factory was opened near Shangai in 1998. The idea was that the cheapest beginner instruments would be made in Asia, but high-quality instruments in Germany. Other economic recovery measures were needed. In 1997, Hohner’s workload was dropped from 858 to 598. In Trossingen, the number of employees fell from 493 to 200. Later, additional cuts were made. The business hierarchy was simplified, production was harmonised, administration was reduced, and the products were revised to meet demand. The units that make electric instruments and pianos were sold. This also affected Finland, since from the 5th of March 1984 to the 14th of December 2003 Hohner and Finnish Hellas-Piano had a joint company Hohner-Hellas Oy, which produced Hohner-branded pianos in Hyvinkää. Hohner’s product development remained in Trossingen.
After very tough action, in 2001, Hohner made a profit for the first time in more than 20 years. It started Hohner’s new financial era. The company still produced most of the world’s harmonicas, but the focus of the economy had changed in Asia, and K.H.S Musical Instruments had been the key to this market. As competition tightens, company had to find cheaper parts.
In the early 2000s, Hohner moved to a new location in the U.S. office. This time to Glen Allen, Virginia. In the contact, Hohner had started working with Playful Harmonies, which was a only six years old company at the time, but which had it’s focus on children’s instruments. Sales gradually increased in both the United States and France. Most of the sales came from percussion instruments. In 2003, almost half of Hohner’s income came from the US market.
In 2006, Matth. Hohner AG consisted of the following sister companies: Hohner Musikinstrumentte GmbH & Co. KG in Germany and Sonor GmbH & Co. KG, Hohner SA in France, Hohner Inc. in the United States, Hohner-Sonor AG in Switzerland, Hohner Pisek in the Czech Republic, Hohner Conservatory in Trossingen, and Hohner-Lansheng Ltd. in Shangai, China.
Hohner nowadays
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH is still headquartered in Trossingen. In the autumn of 2020, Hohner had 35 employees in Trossingen, eight of whom were in the product development department. All design and production quality control of Hohner models is carried out by Trossingen employees; Trossingen personnel regularly visits to check production and the quality of musical instruments in China.
Hohner produces approximately 20,000 accordions in China every year and about 600 accordions in Italy (2020). Trossingen still produces chromatic Gola and XS accordions, as well as diatonic Corona Xtreme and Corona II accordions. For the most part, the work at the factory is assembly work. Hohner’s own reeds have been made in Trossingen since the early days of the factory, but Italian reeds is now used in Gola. For accordions manufactured in China, the factory produces locally its own reeds. The diatonic accordions made in Trossingen also come with Chinese reeds.
Hohner also has production in Italy. In 2017, Hohner acquired Industria Musicale Castelfidardo Srl (later IMC), which also produces the Piermaria brand. The factory is located in Castelfidardo. All Anacleto, Fun, and Mattia lines are manufactured at this factory. In previous decades, Hohner’s models have been made both Excelsior, Pigini, and Mengasini. Excelsior produced the N and S Morino series from the mid-1960s to 2001. All the other Morinos are produced in Trossingen. Pigini has produced mainly Hohner’s free bass accordions, and Mengasini produced Fun line accordions before both these model productions was moved to IMC in 2017. Frederic Deschamps brainstormed a lot of improvements to the Fun line series, and Hohner’s technicians did their best to set the ideas to production. The Mattia series production started at the IMC plant in 2019.
Hohner currently manufactures in China virtually all models other than those listed above: Nova, Bravo, Amica, and many other models. Some of those, who have been aware of the good quality instruments made by Hohner in Trossingen, have criticised the quality of the Hohners made in China. During 2013–2015, Hohner rise up and intensified production control. Personnel from Trossingen did visit the Chinese factory every week. This way they got the quality back to the desired level.
Musical instrument manufacturing information
Hohner has been making accordions since 1903, and since 1930, a serial number has been put on the instruments. The company started keeping production records at the same time. A date of manufacture and the destination of the shipment can be found. Sometimes the first owner’s name is also found in the archives. If you want to know the exact age and other manufacturing information of your Hohner accordion, you can contact Hohner. You need to know the exact model and serial number of your accordion. The information will be sent for a fee.
Harmonica Museum
The German harmonica museum (Deutschen Harmonikamuseum) is based on products and documents collected by the Hohner factory. The collection was purchased in 1987 by the state of Baden-Württemberg. German Harmonica and Accordion Museum opened in 1991.
The German Harmonica Museum expanded in April 2016 when it placed a new exhibition space in the fifth building of the Hohner factory. The museum shows 25,000 harmonica and lots of accordions from all over the world. The exhibition uses multimedia to show the effects of the musical instruments made in Trossingen around the world. Various videos show the history of harmonica bands, orchestras, and individual musicians.
The size of the exhibition is 800 m² and includes areas such as children’s area, sales facilities, and meeting facilities. The museum’s brochures and information boards are in English and German. The exhibition is maintained by the German Museum of Harmonica and Accordion Trossingen.
Sources
- Frederic Deschamps (9.8.2020)
- https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohner (10.8.2020)
- https://www.erih.net/i-want-to-go-there/site/show/Sites/german-harmonica-museum/ (10.8.2020)
- https://www.geni.com/people/Christian-Messner/6000000072980099000 (11.8.2020)
- https://harmonika-museum.de/en/start_e/about-us/ (11.8.2020)
- http://www.accordions.com/hohner/2007anni/history.htm (11.8.2020)
- http://accordion-museum.com/en/accordions/de/hohner (12.8.2020)
- http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/matth-hohner-ag-history/ (12.8.2020)
- https://boxandfiddlearchive.weebly.com/history-of-the-house-of-hohner.html (13.8.2020)
- https://www.facebook.com/HohnerMusic/photos/a.159549794088562/2017968628246660/?type=3 (13.8.2020)
- https://www.hohner.de/en/service/accordion/vintage-accordions (20.8.2020)
- Call 31.8.2020, Theresia Höllerich
- https://www.hohner-sonor.ch/%C3%BCber-uns/ (31.8.2020)
- Haik Wenzel, Martin Häffner – Hohner The Living Legend (2006)