Re: [Harp-L] Re: Hohner Star of David

[David Payne <dmatthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The six point star was used by numerous companies in the 1800s. I think it was around eight companies. The biggest of those was Weiss. The six pointed star was the Weiss trademark. When Hohner started, Weiss was king, especially in Trossingen and Hohner learned how to make harmonicas by spying on Weiss' nephew, Messner. 
In 1928, I think it was, Weiss was still strong, but the heir, Otto Weiss, said to hell with it, he didn't want to run the company anymore. So he sold out to Hohner. But it wasn't like the usual situation when Hohner bought somebody out, Otto got a pretty good deal on the sale and he got a fairly high-level management job at Hohner. 
About the same time, we start seeing Hohner's standard-fare five point star replaced by the six point star. This is conjecture on my part, and is my speculation alone and I've never heard anybody else say this, but I think Otto Weiss had something to do with getting his family's former company's trademark on the Hohner harmonicas. There could certainly have been six-pointed stars on Hohner earlier, but I don't think it's merely coincidence that the Weiss six-point star appeared as the main trademark about the same time Hohner was either cutting a deal with Otto Weiss for the buyout of a major, major competitor, or had already hired him and put him in a position of influence.

One more company I can think of with a six point star was Emil Friedel, the guy who put the pics of naked chics inside his viewfinder harmonicas and stuff. There were others. I don't believe the points of the star for kids theory or religous theories, either. Around 1900, Hohner was using a crescent moon and star, an obviously Islamic symbol... I think they put that on there just because they thought it looked cool.

Dave
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www.elkriverharmonicas.com

 


----- Original Message ----
From: "MilwHarmonica@xxxxxxx" <MilwHarmonica@xxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, December 15, 2009 5:54:22 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Hohner Star of David

Hello, Jack Wartell.

There is no information found about the reason for the use of the 6-pointed 
star in the Hohner logo, religious or otherwise. There are also several 
other  harmonica companies that used the 6-pointed star in their logos at that 
time,  for reasons known only to them.

It's very possible that the Hohner 6-pointed star was a Jewish Star of  
David, as the German government claimed in World War Two, when the government  
asked the Hohner company to remove the star from the center of the Hohner 
logo,  between the two hands.

Hohner's factories in the city of Trossingen,  a primarily Catholic  area 
of Germany, could have placed a different meaning to the Hohner logo.

Another widely accepted theory is that the 6-pointed star was a symbol for  
the 6 Hohners running the company in 1902. That's the year that the founder 
Matthias Hohner passed away. 

The 6-pointed star was used until the mid 1910s, when a 5-pointed star was  
used along with the 6-pointed logo. The 6-star was continued in use until 
about  1937, when the German government asked that it be removed. Hohner 
covers  manfactured after 1937 have no star in the central logo, but some 
6-point star  spare parts leftover from the earlier years were still in use to 
about  1950.

Hohner's reasons for the mysterious markings on the harps' covers will  
remain mysterious until someone provides evidence to prove one theory or  
another. 

There was an 8-pointed star used pre-1900 in some Hohner models that was  
also never explained.

Althought the 6-pointed star in the central logo has not returned in recent 
covers, It's all over the place (a smaller version) on the Hohner 270 
chromatic  harmonica, as it has been since about 1928.

John Broecker
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