Until the 18th century, coopers (barrel makers) made the tires for their barrels themselves. Around 1800, individual coopers began to specialize in tire production and thus became band breakers. Due to their favorable landscape conditions, the Haseldorfer and Seestermüher Marsch became a center for band breakers in the 19th century. The willows primarily used grew largely in the outer dike area of the Elbe Marshes. The word “band tearer” goes back to the band that is created when sticks made of willow, hazel or oak are split. This splitting process is referred to as “tearing”.
In the heyday of the band breakers in the 1930s, around 15 million tires were manufactured annually in the Haseldorfer and Seestermüher Marsch, which were used for a wide variety of barrels for butter or cement. However, with the change in butter packaging from barrels to cardboard boxes at the end of the 1950s, the demise of the band breaking trade began. Of the around 100 band rippers in the Elbmarsch in 1959, only two companies remained in the 1980s, which mainly produced peeled willow sticks for wicker furniture production and tires for wreath making. The Bornholdtsche Bandreißerei was the last company in the Seestermüher Marsch to cease operations on the Seesterau dike in 1980 after more than 110 years of existence. (Source: Shield)