Two months ago, on a beautiful sunlit morning just like today, I found this surprising email in my inbox: "Good day! My name is Tim Breckwoldt. I am the son of Hayo Breckwoldt and grandson of Friedrich Wilhelm Breckwoldt. It was with joy and surprise that I just found your post and am therefore writing this email in the hope that it reaches you. First of all, this much: Unfortunately, Breckwoldt & Co no longer exists since 1980. However, there is actually still an active Breckwoldt branch in New Caledonia, which has been in existence since 1971. For several years now, a meeting of former Breckwoldt employees has been taking place once a year, at which I (born in 1971) am of course the youngest participant. I would really appreciate a response and learn more about your story. I would be happy to tell you a little more about Breckwoldt and the end of this great company. Best regards from Hamburg, Tim Breckwoldt".
The post Tim referred to was my "Vanished without a trace!" about the sudden disappearance of one of the trading-houses in the South Pacific in the 1960/70s which vanished, seemingly without a trace, in 1980.
At its peak, Breckwoldt & Co, headquartered in Hamburg and with offices in Sydney, Milan, London, Antwerp, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Hong Kong, sold German imports such as VOLKSWAGEN and MERCEDES cars, GRUNDIG radios, BAYER medicines, OLYMPIA typewriters, ROLLEI cameras, CONTINENTAL tyres, right down to HOHNER mouth organs and accordions and a host of local trade goods, from its island branches in Port Moresby, Madang, Lae, Kieta, Mt Hagen, and Wewak in Papua New Guinea, Honiara in the Solomon Islands, Apia in Samoa, Suva in Fiji, Papeete in Tahiti, and Noumea in New Caledonia. It also had branches in Liberia and the Gambia. And they all disappeared in the blink of an eye!
You couldn't travel far in the South Pacific without encountering a Breckwoldt branch. I bought my first portable typewriter, an OLYMPIA, from their Rabaul branch, and when I was the accountant and office manager with Camp Catering Services on Bougainville Island, we bought lots of supplies from their Kieta office. Later, when I lived and worked in Western Samoa, I became friend with their Apia manager and his wife.
Now that I have become friend with the grandson of Breckwoldt's original founder, Friedrich Wilhelm Breckwoldt, I am learning from him more about the company's history and its eventual demise which, with his permission, I hope to write more about on this blog in days to come.
