Very interesting information, Steve. Thanks.The following is a translated footnote from "Chapeau, Das Westalgäu behütet die Welt, Die Geschichte der Hutprodukrion in Lindenberg und Umgebung, 2015" (This is a great book that I purchased at the Deutsches Hut Museum Lindenberg). The footnote contains some info on Guben's pre WWII major hat companies C.W. Wilke and Berlin - Gubener Hutfabrik, post WWII VEB Vereinigte HutWerke Guben, and post unification Gubener Hüte GmbH.
"In Guben (city law since 1235, known as cloth-maker town) developed the hat maker Carl Gottlob Wilke 1822 waterproof wool felt hat. His sons - especially Friedrich Wilke - made from the hat maker's workshop the largest Gubener hat factory, the C G. Wilke hair and wool felt hat factory Guben. In addition came as another large business, in addition to several smaller hat factories, the Berlin-Gubener hat factory, founded by Apelius Cohn and Hermann Lewin (Berlin 1859, Guben 1876), which employed in 1922 alone 3000 workers and employees. In 1927, the year of crisis in Westallgäu's straw hat industry, Guben had a total of 7,460 people working in the felt hat industry. In the same year, around 10 million hats were produced, of which around 30 percent were for export. For comparison: In 1925, the city of Lindenberg had a total of 5,168 inhabitants, and in 1927 it was probably not much more. In March 1946, the Berlin-Gubener Hutfabrik was dismantled as reparations to the Soviet Union; 1952 developed from the C. G. Wilke hat factory in conjunction with the other Gubener hat factories, the national VEB Vereinigte Hut-Werke Guben with about 1,200 employees; In 1989, 1.2 million stumps and 800,000 felt hats were produced there.
After the turnaround, the state-owned enterprise was privatized in 1990 by the Treuhandanstalt and transformed into the Gubener Hüte GmbH. The number of employees sank to 600; In 1992 there were still 70, the end of 1999 with 10 employees, the operation was closed. In summer 2006, a hat and technology museum was opened in a building of the old hat factory C. G. Wilke."
"Chapeau, Das Westalgau behütet die Welt, Die Geschichte der Hutprodukrion in Lindenberg und Umgebung, 2015"