Wolfgang Schöbl was responsible for the editorial team of G+L Forum, the predecessor of HERZ News, at HERZ in the early 1970s, before continuing his professional career as an export manager. As the son-in-law of the then managing director, Dr Richard Lehrner, he experienced the company and the Lehrner family at close quarters. Today, he looks back on an eventful time at HERZ and shares his memories, experiences and formative moments in the history of HERZ with us.

Richard Lehrner:
From Prisoner of War to Entrepreneur

At the age of 18, before the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, Richard Lehrner dreamt of a future as an airline pilot. But the course of history led him down a different path. In 1941, after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, he was captured by the Soviets as a war pilot. Unlike his two older brothers, however, he returned physically and mentally unscathed. His path was thus set: he took over his father's company, Gebauer & Lehrner KG. In an interview with HERZ News, Wolfgang Schöbl, employee and son-in-law of Dr Richard Lehrner, talks about the early days of the now internationally active company HERZ Armaturen.

HERZ News: What were the biggest challenges for HERZ after the end of the Second World War?

Wolfgang Schöbl: After the war, HERZ, then still known as Gebauer & Lehrner, faced massive problems. Our former markets, which had arisen as a result of the monarchy, lay in ruins. Austria was now a much smaller market. At that time, there was a decisive conflict between Richard Lehrner and his father Viktor.

HERZ News: For what the reason?

Wolfgang Schöbl: Gebauer & Lehrner manufactured 1,300 different products, but always in very small quantities. Richard Lehrner realised that in order to export, we had to specialise and produce fewer products in larger quantities. However, Viktor Lehrner was convinced that a proper company had to offer a complete range.

HERZ News: Who came out on top?

Wolfgang Schöbl: Father-in-law, that is Richard Lehrner. After taking over the company, he finally specialised in heating valves. The product range was reduced from 1,300 to 100 products. Turnover rose from 20 million to 60 million Austrian schillings.

HERZ News: Was that the turning point for the company?

Wolfgang Schöbl: I would describe it as the starting point of a turning point. Reducing the large-scale production programme has helped the company to enter into serial production. This is how we achieved international success.

HERZ News: Richard Lehrner was deeply committed to the motivation and development of his employees. This was rather unusual for that time.

Wolfgang Schöbl: My father-in-law was heavily exposed to Marxist ideology during his time as a prisoner of war. However, he managed to extract the human element from it. In theory, Marxism strives for a classless society in which, for example, the means of production belong to the people. Lehrner interpreted this in his own way: if the means of production – in the entrepreneurial sense – belong to the employees, then they should also take responsibility and be allowed to have a say.

HERZ News: Was that the basis for Lehrner's participation model?

Wolfgang Schöbl: Lehrner's participation model was strongly based on the conviction that people need more motivation than external pressure or financial incentives. He was very interested in American management literature, particularly the X-Y theory of Douglas McGregor. According to this theory, there are two approaches to managing people: Theory X states that people are lazy and only motivated by money. In contrast, Theory Y presents people as ambitious, willing to take on responsibility and keen to perform. My father-in-law was a fundamentally positive person, so he opted for the positive theory.

HERZ News: So it was also about addressing other sources of motivation besides money and free time, right?

Wolfgang Schöbl: Exactly. Lehrner's participation model saw 50% of the company belonging to his father-in-law, 25% to his partner Thomas Smolka and the remaining 25% to the employees. It was possible to participate with 5,000 Austrian schillings. He wanted every employee to feel a sense of ownership in the company's overall success and to take responsibility. They should have the will to contribute their innovations to the company.

HERZ News: What were the challenges?

Wolfgang Schöbl: It was important to convince both the workers and the managers of the participation model. Everyone, regardless of their professional position, was able to have a say. The workers had to be slowly introduced to taking responsibility. If you are only used to working according to instructions, this is not very easy. You have to give people time to adapt.

HERZ News: The participation model also received a great deal of media attention at the time and was described in detail in trade journals. What was the thinking behind this decision to reveal so much internal information?

Wolfgang Schöbl: Richard Lehrner has carried a ‘socio-political’ backpack. He wanted his insights to be applied not only at HERZ but also in other companies. He was proud of his model and believed that it was possible to make the economy healthier if other companies adopted similar models.

HERZ News: But the 1973 oil crisis threw a spanner in the works, didn't it?

Wolfgang Schöbl: The oil crisis was crucial to the failure of his model. If the oil crisis had occurred a little later, the model would have stabilised. History would have taken a very different course. At that time, about 160 employees had to leave the company – out of a total of 360. It was a very difficult time. It was a big shock, especially for the youngest people involved: although they were co-entrepreneurs, they were no longer sure whether they would lose their jobs. I was the first to be fired.

HERZ News: You? The son-in-law of the owner?

Wolfgang Schöbl: That was a perfidious policy on the part of my then-partner Thomas Smolka. By sacking me, the boss's son-in-law, first, he hoped to intimidate the others. Many employees saw it as a sign that hard times lay ahead.

HERZ News: So a wave of cancellations has broken out. How did Richard Lehrner deal with the situation?

Wolfgang Schöbl: He was in Tenerife and took part in a bridge tournament.

HERZ News: But he hadn't retired by then, had he?

Wolfgang Schöbl: No, he was still actively involved. However, he trusted his management team very much. His previous teachings and guidelines were understood by the management team, as was the message behind them. But for the employees, it was a shock. Their beloved ‘father’ was gone and they were now at the mercy of the management team, especially Thomas Smolka, who was better known for his stricter management strategy.

HERZ News: How did his final departure from the company play out?

Wolfgang Schöbl: After the oil crisis, my father-in-law withdrew more and more from the company. He also had the first signs of health problems. The last part of the Lehrner company was sold to Thomas Smolka. The assets were transferred to the three children of my father-in-law through an early gift.

HERZ News: Could you have imagined back then that Gebauer & Lehrner would become today's HERZ?

Wolfgang Schöbl: I couldn't have imagined that. I experienced the sand foundry. It is fascinating to see what the plant has become today. When I look at the HERZ News today, I am sad for the first time that I am out of the pension scheme. I would start here again in a heartbeat.

HERZ News: Thank you very much for giving our readers the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into the history of HERZ Armaturen.

el gusto español The Spanish Tasting Room

Wolfgang Schöbl has been importing Spanish food products since 1997 and is now one of the leading importers in Austria. He handed over the company to his daughter and son-in-law in 2015, although he still lends them his support. From Manchego cheese to sardines and salami, the delicatessen in Baden offers a wide variety of Spanish delicacies.

An agent in Stalin's service:
Peter Smolka / Smollett

In the early 1980s, Thomas Smolka acquired all the Lehrner family's shares and thus became the sole managing director of the company Gebauer & Lehrner. However, his father was no stranger to the history of Soviet agents: Peter Smolka, who changed his name to Smollett after emigrating to Great Britain.

The archives on the internet show Peter Smolka to have been an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police known for political repression and major operations under Joseph Stalin. Under the code name ‘ABO’, Smolka was, among other things, responsible for organising pro-Soviet propaganda in England. He is believed to have been recruited by none other than Kim Philby, a member of the infamous Cambridge Five who spied for the Soviet Union during World War II and the Cold War. Officially, Smolka worked as a journalist and his true role as an agent was only uncovered after his death.

During the interview, Wolfgang Schöbl also shared some interesting information about the first encounter of the Smolka and Lehrner families. According to him, Peter Smolka was active as a liaison officer between the British Royal Army and the Soviet Red Army, supporting anti-fascist training for prisoners of war at a time when Richard Lehrner was also a prisoner of war. In 1948, Peter Smolka returned to Vienna and became close friends with Richard Lehrner. This connection led to Peter Smolka's son Thomas initially joining Richard Lehrner's company as a partner and later becoming its sole owner.

The Third Man

Peter Smolka, who had close ties to Kim Philby, provided Graham Greene, the novelist and screenwriter, with crucial insights into Philby's life as a double agent, which significantly influenced the dark character of Harry Lime in the film ‘The Third Man’. The name Smolka was given to a bar in the film. Whether the bar was named after Smolka or to thank him for the valuable information he provided Greene, or whether it was a subtle reference to the secret location of their information exchange, will remain a secret that we will never know.

Animal Farm

Peter Smolka's influence extended not only to politics and the film world, but also left its mark on literary history. More specifically, George Orwell's legendary work ‘Animal Farm’. Originally, the publisher Jonathan Cape had agreed to publish the book, but shortly thereafter he withdrew his consent on the vague grounds that this was ‘on the advice of a British official’. This official was none other than Peter Smolka, who found Orwell's manuscript too ‘anti-Soviet’. It is no coincidence that Smolka is on George Orwell's infamous list of people he described as ‘crypto-communists, members of the Communist Party of Great Britain or agents’ and handed over to the British Information Research Department (IRD) in 1949. In this list, Smolka is described as ‘almost certainly an agent of some kind’, well before Smolka was officially exposed as an agent.