Obituary of Adam Holzner, senior director of the Aubenham brickworks
Adam Holzner, senior manager of Ziegelwerk Aubenham, passed away on 14 March 2025 at the age of 94. The third generation of his family to manage the brickworks, he ran it for almost 60 years.
Adam Holzner was born on 25 August 1930 in Aubenham, where he lived for the rest of his life. Shortly after production, suspended due to the Second World War, was resumed in autumn 1948, Holzner’s father died unexpectedly. His mother Maria and 18-year-old Adam Holzner had to take over the management of the company. He broke off his initial apprenticeship as a church painter and gilder to pursue training in his own company and at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Under Adam Holzner’s management, the brickworks was expanded several times and production was mechanised and automated. A key step was the installation of the tunnel kiln with oil firing in 1962. In 1972, his brother and brickworks engineer Adolf Holzner took over the technical management, while Adam Holzner concentrated on the commercial management.
The preservation of the Aubenham brickworks as the only one remaining in south-east Upper Bavaria in economically difficult times is one of Adam Holzner’s lifetime achievements. He pursued a co-operative approach. In 1977, the Aubenham brickworks joined the Thermopor Group. From 1981, the plant held a licence and produced Thermopor-approved bricks.
A short time later, he founded the ‘South-East Bavarian Thermopor Group’ with eight other plants in the region, cooperating in advertising and at regional trade fairs. After some members left, Holzner took the lead in founding the successor organisation ‘Brick house by master’s hand’, including construction companies, too.
When the brickworks started to decline in the mid-1990s, Adam Holzner attempted to continue operating the plants still active in Eastern Bavaria in a joint company and to organise intensive cooperation.
In 1990, his son Adam Christian Holzner took over the management. Adam Holzner remained a general partner in the company until 2004.
In 2017, with the help of former and active brickmaking colleagues, he published a brochure on the ‘History of the South-East Bavarian brickworks’, which included a chronology of the individual plants.
In addition to managing the brickworks, Adam Holzner was passionate about his family and voluntary work.
Family, friends, neighbours and companions will remember him as enterprising, energetic and warm-hearted.
