Read Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis for Free Online Page B

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:
    Buy our popular select brand, Fromms Act, exclusively at these specialty stores: apothecaries, drugstores, rubber goods stores, first-aid shops, perfumeries, and barbershops. There you will be assured of purchasing
fresh merchandise
that has been properly stored and carefully handled. [There] you will obtain our select brand, Fromms Act, in our
original packaging
with
our inspection numbers
. These inspection numbers enable us to ensure that only
fresh merchandise
is sold. The proprietors at the specialty stores are aware of their responsibility to the public and understand the significance of our inspection numbers. If you should happen to be offered our select brand in packaging where the inspection numbers have been
scratched off
or
erased
, do not accept these items. This is for your own good! … Always make a point of demanding the genuine select brand, Fromms Act, so that you will not be disappointed. 18

    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 Germancitizen 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: “Ican 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