Einwilligung zur Nutzung.

This cotton mill was the largest industrial enterprise in Erlangen until the beginning of the 20th century. Founded in 1862 by a public company with an initial share capital of 900,000 guilders, it already employed 200 workers in its first few years of operation, more than any other factory in Erlangen at the time. Due to unfavourable economic conditions and bad investment choices, however, the company went bankrupt twice – first in 1870 and again in 1879 – before it began operating on a more secure footing.

Between 1913 and 1927, the company expanded beyond regional boundaries by merging with textile factories in Wangen/Allgäu, Schwarzenbach a. W., and Bamberg, enabling it to encompass two steps of textile production by also incorporating weaving mills. In the middle of the 1950s, with a workforce of 6000 and 22.5 million DM in share capital, the 'Erba' company was one of the largest textile producers in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Erba factory in Erlangen then employed more than 1200 wage and salary earners.

The Erba-Siedlung

Making rental housing available for employees was among the first social benefits provided by the cotton mill. As early as 1900, the company was one of the first in Erlangen to maintain several workers' cottages, which were erected between 1867 and 1898, and situated mainly along Spinnereistraße ('cotton mill street').

Later, from 1906 until 1913, the workers' tenements later called Erba-Siedlung ('Erba colony') were built south of the factory site on Brucker Straße, then still located outside the town boundary. The first core estate comprised 14 double-storey tenement buildings containing 80 flats. It was extended by another 107 flats over the following decades, whereby the original concept for an architecturally well-structured, leafy layout was still followed through.

However, the construction of tied workers' accommodation was not only an expression of social responsibility, but also the result of an intention to more tightly bind the workforce to the factory. Apart from loss of employment, dismissal also meant termination of tenancy, creating further dependency on the employer.

When the Erba company ceased production in Erlangen in 1981, the Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft ('Benevolent Building Society') acquired the company housing estate in order to adapt it to contemporary housing standards by means of comprehensive renovation and modernisation works. As an outstanding example of a Bavarian workers' tenement, the historic centre of the colony is listed under heritage protection legislation today. In contrast, the workers' cottages erected on Spinnereistraße before 1900 were demolished in 1975/76.