1983 Loyal soul

How many employees have worked in this company in the course of the last century? We do not have a reliable figure on this. But most of them stay for decades and are rightly honored for it.

Mr. H., on the right in the picture, is one of them. At first, of course, there is nothing to indicate a stable relationship with his company. A colleague who organizes a large-scale theft of perchloroethylene harnesses the naive and gullible H. as a stooge for his own purposes. At some point, the story blows up and both are summarily dismissed. While the mastermind never shows up again, H. stands on Aachener Straße for hours on end over a period of weeks, watching "his" company. At some point, the bosses take pity on Mr. H. and he is rehired. A good decision! He works diligently and tirelessly in the solvent filling department until retirement age and even two years beyond. A loyal soul!

1983 Celebrating parties

In March 1983, Siegfried Bahr, warehouse foreman at "Gebr. Overlack", celebrates his 25th anniversary with the company. Such occasions, as well as the annual retirees' meetings, are celebrated extensively in the company with sandwiches, coffee and a glass of sparkling wine in a convivial atmosphere in the turret villa. Of course, the two bosses Eduard and Hans Overlack are always there to celebrate their loyal employees.

1984 Music of the future and the dying swan

In 1984, the "training of capable merchants" continued to be "one of the hobbyhorses of the management". On August 2, 1984, Hans Overlack writes to the managing director of the Mönchengladbach Chamber of Industry and Commerce: "Today, 6 young people (3 ladies and 3 gentlemen) have begun their training as wholesale and export merchants with us. At the moment we employ 14 trainees, which is a good 15 percent of a workforce of just under 100." Even though there is a lot of investment on the one hand, the commitment definitely pays off in the long term: "Of the 4 trainees who passed their exams a few weeks ago in the summer, we have kept 3 of them with us as employees."

The same cannot be said of the investment in the Teletex system, which is advertised in the July 1984 letter as the communications channel of the future. This text communications service will only be offered in Germany from 1981 to 1993: too expensive, too complicated, not versatile enough. As early as the end of the 1980s, fax machines and later e-mail displace Teletex technology, which has little future.

If only one could always know that beforehand!

1985 Small gifts keep the friendship

The management spends quite a bit of time and energy on the question of how to present itself to the outside world with woven gifts in the 1980s. Hans Overlack is convinced that customers immediately infer the quality and reliability of their trading partner from the quality of the gifts. That is why these indispensable household helpers are also provided with meaningful slogans: "OVERLACK – Your strong partner!" is a common motto here.

1986 The Overlacks

In May 1986, Eduard, the younger of the two managing directors and son of Lutz Overlack, succumbs to his long-standing cancer at the age of 47. His death marks a turning point for the company. Hans Overlack is initially without a distributor, and Eduard's family will withdraw from the company altogether eleven years later.

Commissioned by Peter Overlack, the artist Martin Lersch immortalizes the Overlack men in a large-format mural in the mid-1990s. He shows them each with a typical attribute: for Lutz it is hunting, for Heinrich wine, for Hans art, for Eduard music. The portrait of Dieter, Hans' older brother, who was killed in the Second World War and actually wanted to become a forester, falls out of line. The last panel remains empty – Peter is still a comparatively blank slate in the company.

1987 Rolling parade

Nowadays, only Harry Potter is taken to Hogwarts for magic lessons in such an exciting way ... – in any case, the start of the last working day of shipping manager Hans Stevens is legendary in the company's history.

Lothar Fischer reports about it on August 15, 1987 in the ERKELENZER ZEITUNG:

“Yesterday morning shortly after 6 o'clock in Venrath: from the direction of Herrath loud engine noise roars into the village. An orange-colored convoy of trucks slowly approaches, turns into Herrather Straße, drives up to the church, turns around there and then forms a parade. By now, even the last citizen on Herrather Strasse has fallen out of bed and rubbed the sleep out of their eyes. They look in amazement at the scenery in front of their houses: four tankers and 16 trucks, two of them with trailers, all spick and span, in front a Ford Transit, all with the company lettering "Overlack", slowly approach the single-family house with number 23 almost at the end of the street. Mr. Stevens, shipping manager at the Mönchengladbach-based company Overlack, lives here, and yesterday was his last day at work.

Hans Stevens, not yet fully dressed, stands at the front door with his wife Betty and, at the beginning of his last day at work, visibly moved as he takes off the parade of fat trucks. For almost 37 years, he has sent them on their daily journey. Behind the wheel are his colleagues, who have come to work an hour early this morning to give their departing boss this surprise.

But it's by no means complete. Company boss Hans Overlack climbs out of the transit, and his wife Isolde out of one of the trucks. Neither of them misses the opportunity to pick up their loyal employee for work on his special day. But not without breakfast for the Stevens couple and the Overlack delegation, 20 people in all. [...]“

1988 The junior steps in

July 1988 sees the next generation change. After a thorough education – bank apprenticeship, studies in business administration, work as assistant to the board of directors in a Hamburg company – Peter Overlack has his first day at work in the company as a representative of G3 (3rd Overlack generation). Before that, he has looked around at colleague companies in northern and southern Germany to complete his picture of the chemicals trade.

He could have imagined a completely different career field, architecture, for example. Years of transition are now ahead.

Even independent entrepreneurs, as Hans Overlack sees it, "have a right and possibly even an obligation to hand over the reins and leave the field to their successors."

1989 Growth I

CHEMISCHE INDUSTRIE reports on the dynamic chemical trader from the Lower Rhine in April 1989:

"Since the beginning, the Overlacks – the third generation is preparing to take over the company – have concentrated on chemical trading and expanded within this framework – also through company acquisitions. A few years ago, for example, the Cologne-based chemical trader "Carl Arnsperger Chemikalien GmbH" was taken over; this was joined by a subsidiary in the Netherlands: "Ella Chemie BV" in Eindhoven. The group's sales are now in the region of DM 60 million.

The family has never shied away from investment when it has been necessary to underpin growth through capacity expansion and rationalization."

1990 Environmental protection

Toni Niedergesäs' indignation is understandable. Since the sale of the Lagerfeld company to the Overlack brothers in 1925, the widow has been their immediate neighbor. Not everything pleases her. On May 18, 1932, she voices her displeasure and writes, among other things: "I take this opportunity to politely draw your attention to the fact that my orchard is suffering greatly due to the leaking acid residues from the smashed balloons and the vapors from the empty containers stored along the fence, and I hereby politely request that you take immediate remedial action."

Six decades later, Toni Niedergesäs would no longer be dependent on the good will of the Overlack brothers. Environmental protection has entered the scene as a noteworthy factor. Looking back on the company's history, Hans Overlack outlines its importance in 1990 as follows: "While environmental protection hardly played a role until about ten years ago, its importance for everything to do with chemistry has increased immeasurably. Not only has knowledge grown in this area, but the requirements and demands imposed by the authorities are immense. For more than two years, extensive tank facility planning has been underway, the outlines and design of which have been determined in frequent meetings with the fire department, trade supervisory authorities, regulatory authorities, building supervisory authorities, etc."

Gründung der AUC Leipzig    
Today: OQEMA GmbH

1991 Off to the East!

The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, changes the way we look at the map. And an almost logical conclusion: If everyone is already in the West ... – why not grow in the East? There is a gold-rush atmosphere and rapid action is called for.

As early as spring 1990, Peter Overlack is on the way to the former GDR to sound out business opportunities. He quickly reaches an agreement with the plant manager of VEB Kunstharzfabrik Leipzig, Frank Edler. The foundation of "AUC assoziierte Unternehmen Chemie GmbH" as a subsidiary of Overlack GmbH is completed in September 1990 at the Leipzig-Mölkau site. Frank Edler brings a number of good employees with him. The young man from the West also knows that employees are the real capital of any company. In his message to the team in his home town of Mönchengladbach, Peter Overlack writes: "But they [the problems of setting up a business in the wild East described above] will not be decisive for success or failure. The key question, and this certainly applies to AUC Leipzig as well as to all our subsidiaries and of course also to the parent company in Mönchengladbach, is rather the staff employed there. Their creativity, their enthusiasm, their ingenuity and their hard work will be of decisive importance for our success."

As early as 1993, the company was renamed Conlac Saxonia.