Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis (7 page)

Until that time, customers had only the foggiest notion of where their condoms had originated, and the quality of these condoms was abysmal. To get around having to provide warranties for these sought-after commodities, Fromm’s competitors used an ever-changing array of fancy names—such as Ramses, Mikado, Uncle Sam, Dingsda, Souvenir, Viola, and Venus—to market their condoms in Germany. This practice continued into
the 1920s. The British company London Rubber did not introduce the brand name Durex—today the global leader—until 1929.

Max, Julius, Herbert, and Selma Fromm
,
ca. 1916

Initially Fromm also had to contend with serious quality issues. There were “large numbers of rejects,” one worker recalled after the war, “and Herr Fromm quite often took whole sackfuls of them, called us in, and asked, ‘Would you want to buy these from me?’” The production process was soon refined, and a combination of relatively high retail prices, a marked increase in demand, and a switch to piecework wages soon resulted in sizable profits.

Glass cylinders served as molds for the condoms. They were mounted on carrier frames, then dipped into a vat containing a
rubber solution liquefied with gasoline, benzene, and carbon tetrachloride. Experiments made it clear to Fromm that “Ceylon rubber is best suited to the manufacture of Fromms products.” After two dippings, a thin rubber skin adhered to the cylinders. This skin was then brushed to roll the open side into a bulging rim. Next, the condoms were vulcanized in special ovens using sulfur vapors. The key factors in making the little rubber skins sturdy yet elastic, and durable enough to be warehoused, were strictly calibrated ingredients, temperature, and timing. All this required, as Fromm said, “a very well-trained staff.”

The condoms were dusted with a lubricant to give them a “velvety surface,” then rolled off the glass cylinders, tested, inverted, and packaged. Using the technical principles still employed today, Fromm also manufactured surgical finger cots, rubber gloves, pacifiers, and nipples for baby bottles.

From the outset, he insisted on quality. In 1917 Fromm launched the advertising slogan “We guarantee our products—exchanges accepted at any time.”
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After a few years, he introduced a three-step inspection process. First, “each item, one by one [was] inflated with compressed air.” The condoms that passed this round then underwent a “second, even more rigorous test” and then a third in the rolling room, where “the tips of the items that proved satisfactory in the earlier tests are inflated to recheck their impermeability, sheerness, elasticity, and durability.”

According to a report by Magnus Hirschfeld, quality control was the reason Fromms products had attained an “international reputation”: “with unreliable brands, these tests are not rigorous or comprehensive… A good company is vigilant in rejecting all items that fall short of its high standards. One way to achieve this is to pay the testers according to the number of flawed items identified, which is the method used at Fromms Act.”

In 1931 Julius Fromm posted advertisements announcing
“Fromms Act—Information” on advertising pillars in “numerous cities.” The text read:

In 1919 Julius Fromm was able to buy a villa in Nikolassee for 95,000 Reichsmarks. The property was located near the Schlachtensee in an upscale section of Zehlendorf, a suburb in southwest Berlin, which is why its location is listed variously as Nikolassee, Zehlendorf, and Schlachtensee. Now the family of five could spread out in the villa’s eight rooms over two stories. There was also a maid’s room in the attic, a spacious kitchen, and a chauffeur’s apartment in the basement. The up-and-coming condom manufacturer felt that he could finally consider himself a German, and legal confirmation of his naturalization soon followed.

Julius Fromm had applied for Prussian citizenship back in September 1914. His stated reasons for wishing to become a German
citizen are provided on his application form: “I came to Berlin as a very young child. The German language was not unfamiliar to me because my parents always spoke German, and in no time at all I had forgotten my previous place of residence. I am ardently devoted to my second homeland, and for me, a return to Russia would be worse than death.” The applicant indicated that his annual income fell between 3,000 and 3,500 marks, and that his assets came to 8,000 marks. Fromm explained that he did not want to be considered a Russian on account of the war; “enemy aliens” had to report to the police precinct on a regular basis: “I
can no longer bear to carry around this stigma, and I would like to spare my children the disgrace of finding themselves in the same situation.”

Left to right: Julius Fromm’s three sons, Max, Edgar, and Herbert
,
with an unknown business associate of their father’s, in the
garden of the family’s villa in Berlin-Schlachtensee, ca. 1922

He was not overly eager to join the war effort, however: “Unfortunately I cannot carry out my wish to fight in the war against Russia as a volunteer, because my health has been problematic for some time. It would be my greatest source of pride, though, if I should someday have the privilege of seeing my two sons as strapping Prussian soldiers.” Of course at this point they were still children, ages seven and three, and their physical appearance did not mark them as outsiders. Max, the older of the two, had blond hair. Indeed, Julius’s own identity card, issued in 1918, listed his hair as blond, and his eyes as grayish blue.

Even so, the Royal Police President of Berlin rejected the application. His official statement read: “Politically, Fromm is beyond reproach. Our misgivings about his naturalization are based on the fact that he has neither a secure livelihood nor assets to his name.” In a handwritten note in the margin, an administrator in the aliens’ division put the group’s objections more bluntly: “Russian Jew without a secure livelihood, who cannot or will not serve in the military.” In any event, he was exempted from the tiresome duty of reporting regularly to the police as a “Russian.”

In 1919, Fromm again applied for citizenship, this time with a lawyer at his side. He now had “a well-established business,” had proved to be “a good taxpayer,” and underscored his sincere German loyalty during the war. He had become a “member of several charitable organizations for soldiers and veterans … donating money to the Red Cross on many occasions, and collecting gold coins for the patriotic cause.” In the accompanying application, Fromm moved back the date of his family’s immigration by three years, most likely to make it appear that he had spent more time attending school in Berlin. As a precaution, he added: “I
am unable to provide the exact date.” Apart from that, he filled out the form truthfully, stating: “I have not been supported by public welfare, I am a homeowner, and I support myself and my family as a self-sufficient businessman. My family’s annual income is about 25,000 marks.” In today’s terms, that would be about 250,000 euros.

Fromm’s business associates provided written character references. The Berlin branch manager of the Metzeler Rubber Factory stated, “I have come to know Mr. Fromm as a competent, prudent, and honest businessman, and I value his good patriotic attitude in particular, even though I know that he is a foreigner.” The business partners at Hatu Rubber Works in Erfurt supported him in similar language in 1920 and attested “that he promises to become a good German citizen.” The police voted in favor of naturalization and composed this statement: “The applicant has a rubber goods business at Lippehnerstrasse 23 and employs 12 people there. Moreover, he is the joint owner of an optician’s shop at Alexanderstrasse 71, with a staff of 6. On October 1 [1919], he moved his place of residence to Schlachtensee,
Rolandstrasse 4, where he lives in a single-family dwelling with 10 rooms. His economic situation is thoroughly in order.”

Son Herbert in Julius Fromm’s automobile, ca. 1930

In July 1920, the chief administrative officer in Potsdam issued Fromm a certificate of naturalization. He was the first of his siblings to acquire German citizenship. This certificate read: “With the issuance of this document, the merchant Israel Fromm in Zehlendorf-West, born on March 4/February 20, 1893 in Konin (Russia), and his wife and children have acquired Prussian citizenship and have hence become German nationals.” Three years later, the district court of Berlin-Lichterfelde authorized him “to go by the first name ‘Julius’ instead of his original first name Israel.”
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