The history of Bäckerei & Konditorei Gnauck
Baking tradition since 1919 | 1893-1919
Foreword | 1893 | 1919 | 1932 | 1956 | 1990 | 2008-today
Baker Moritz Schwerdtner received a piece of real estate from his parents, the shoe maker Friedrich Moritz Schwerdtner and Johanna Christine, born Goldberg. He considered the property as sufficient and expandable. Starting in 1893 he went to get the necessary permits to open his business from the royal Dresden-Neustadt zoning office. The heart of every bakery is its brick oven. Even back then special permits were needed for a brick oven along with its chimney. The zoning offices regulations went as follows, the brick oven has to dome one half stone with brick or stone plates 7 to 8 centimeters thick and with at least 1 meter 15 centimeters clearance from the ceiling. Schwerdtner and his oven builder did a great job back in 1893. The old German style oven served five following master baker generations. Even the flood of the century in 1958 could not bring it down. Finally in 1965 a new steam baking technology finally replaced the old brick oven.
From 1905 on the Pfefferkuechler Moritz Otto Damme was the owner of the bakery, until he sold it to Master baker Martin Harnapp in 1912 who ran the bakery and pfefferkuechlerei until 1919. Nothing is known about his reason for early retirement. Baking forms and baking sheets were later discovered in the attic stemming from this time.
