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Our company „Orgelbaugesellschaft Waltershausen GbR“ was founded on May
13th, 1991. We had been working together until then in the Gotha firm
„Orgelbauanstalt R. Böhm“. Even before the reunification we had considered
founding a separate firm in order to follow our own goals. The radical
changes at that time unexpectedly assisted us in our plans. At first we
opened a small workshop in the Krumme Gasse 4 in Waltershausen and carried
out repairs on various organs.
The founders of the firm at that time were Stephan Krause, Joachim Stade,
Dietmar Ullmann and also Bernhard Kutter, who has recently become
independent.
The contract for building a new organ in Völkershausen in the Rhön in 1993
was a fortunate circumstance and at the same time a great challenge for
us. The instrument has two manuals (great and swell) with 25 stops and
three extension stops. In our limited shop room (50 m²) we built the case,
the console and most of the metal pipes. However, as the organ is 8½
metres tall, we were of course not able to assemble the organ in the shop!
Besides building new organs we are especially commited to the care and
restoration of old and valuable instruments. Due to the special
circumstances in East Germany, where organ repairs rarely took place,
there is an unusually large treasure of historical instruments, many of
which have survived almost unaltered, but often in ruinous condition. We
make a great effort to study the methods of construction used by the organ
builders of the past, especially those of the 18th century. Our goal is to
restore the instruments to their original beauty, preserving as much
historical substance and making as few changes as possible.
One of the highlights in our work was the complete restoration of the
largest and most important baroque organ in Thuringia, the organ in
Waltershausen built by Tobias
Heinrich Gottfried Trost. This organ, which is located very near our
workshop, has greatly influenced the way in which we work today.
Owing to the good order situation we decided to enlarge our shop. Since we
were not able to enlarge on the premises, we bought a lot in the
Fabrikstrasse 5 with a factory from the 1880’s.
Now we have enough room available for both our shop rooms and our
warehouse. Since then we have taken on seven new employees, some of whom
have been trained in our firm.
Concurrent to our expansion we have changed the legal form of our company: as
of February 1st, 1996 we are called “Orgelbau Waltershausen GmbH” (limited
liability company). Presently the responsibility and liability lie in the
hands of Stephan Krause and Joachim Stade.
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