David Sachs seed farm

Around 1870, David Sachs (1836-1918) was employed as an accountant by the widow of the head bailiff and seed grower Grasshoff in Quedlinburg. As a Prussian subject of Jewish faith, David Sachs was able to acquire August Gebhardt's nursery in Kleersstra e 47 and founded his own seed nursery in 1878. The company grew rapidly. After 1890, the company moved to the premises of the former sugar factory of Hanewald u. Weber, formerly Hanewald u. Zerbst at Badeborner Weg 4.  It was the third largest seed breeding company of international importance. This company was active in the breeding, production and distribution of vegetable, flower, fodder and sugar beet seeds and produced, among other things, pea seed alone on 800 hectares. David Sachs retired from the seed breeding company in 1900 and his eldest son Hugo Sachs took over the management of the company in June of that year. In the same year, Rudolf Schreiber (1864-1956) - a long-time friend of Hugo Sachs - joined the company as a partner and co-owner (40% share in the company). Hugo Sachs died in 1917.

Hans Sachs - retired district court judge in Torgau, just back from the First World War. Having just returned from the First World War, he left the civil service, renounced his pension and joined the family company in 1918 as the successor to his brother Hugo at the age of 49.

Hans Sachs, who had converted from the Jewish faith to Protestantism, was considered Jewish during the Nazi era.

In order to avoid ‚Aryanization‘ (expropriation), Hans Sachs and his sister Henriette Jacobs, née Sachs, transferred their shares to co-owner Rudolf Schreiber in 1937. In 1942, Elsbeth Sachs (wife of Hans Sachs) also had to transfer her shares in the company to Rudolf Schreiber. This meant that the seed breeding company was effectively no longer under Jewish ownership and was continued under the name ‚Schreiber & Söhne‘.