In Search of Orange Gold: Part Three - Gustav Brunn

Buchenwald, 1938. The site of what would become one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. However, at that time, the camp was just a year old, and it housed only male prisoners. One of those prisoners was Gustav Brunn. The person who created Old Bay.

Brunn was born in the town of Bastheim, Germany in 1893. Very little is known about his early years.  Most accounts pick up at age 13, when Gustav Brunn left school and entered into a tannery apprenticeship. (It was an opportunity to learn how to make leather.) He eventually started his own business, buying skins from local farmers to sell to tanneries. 

German advertisement for seasoning

After World War I, Gustav Brunn decided to enter another line of business.  He recognized that spices were in short supply in post-war Germany.  Brunn developed connections with  spice importers in the city of Hamberg and the country of Holland. With those connections, Brunn opened a wholesale spice business. He sold spices and seasonings to local businesses in Bastheim. He continued to build his spice company throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s. 

However, the story of Gustav Brunn changed in 1933. The Nazi Party, led by Adolph Hitler, seized control of Germany. The Nazis stoked anti-Semitism throughout Germany; and, as a Jew, Gustav Brunn felt the brunt of the racism. Brunn's spice business began to lose customers, as people voluntarily and involuntarily ceased buying his spices because Brunn was Jewish. In addition, his bookkeeper quit  Brunn's spice company out of fear that the Nazis would punish the bookkeeper for working with a Jew. As the hatred and intolerance grew, Brunn decided that it was time to move the family and the business.  

Gustav Brunn decided to move to Frankfurt, a very large city in the Hesse State. Frankfurt is one of Germany's larger cities, and it had a large Jewish population. As of 1933, there were over 30,000 Jews who lived in Frankfurt. Brunn believed that it would be better for him, his family and his business to live and work within that community.  

Frankfurt was not going to be the last move for the Brunn family.  Around the time the family settled in a second floor apartment in Frankfurt, Gustav Brunn laid the groundwork to get a visa. His goal was to emigrate to the United States. He contacted an uncle who lived in Baltimore and completed the paperwork. Everything was in place.  All Brunn had to do is wait.

Then came November 9, 1938, also known as the "Night of Broken Glass," or Kristallnacht.

The Nazis stoked anti-Semitic violence across Germany, including Frankfurt. The violence was even directed at the Brunn family; however, the Nazis ended up burning down the wrong house. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, the Nazis issued an edit for all Jews to turn in their firearms.  Gustav Brunn loved to hunt and he owned eight rifles. Brunn complied with the edit and reported to the nearest police station with his son. Gustav went into the station and when he came out, he told his son, "I am not allowed to leave." The Nazis detained Brunn and sent him to Buchenwald.

Jewish men arrested in the days after Kristallnacht standing for roll call
(photo from the Buchenwald concentration camp records
office and available at the U.S. Holocaust Museum)

At that time, it was still possible to "buy" someone's release from Buchenwald. There was a Jewish attorney in Frankfurt who could make the arrangements: 5,000 marks at the beginning and 5,000 marks when the prisoner was released.  The Brunn family paid that price, and, Gustav Brunn was able to leave Buchenwald.  Within one week of his release, Brunn moved his family, and his spice grinder, to Baltimore, Maryland where they settled in a small apartment located on the 2300 block of Eutaw Place.

After settling in the new world, Gustav Brunn tried to get a job. He first sought employment with a sausage maker and then with a spice company called McCormick. Brunn got a job with McCormick, but he lasted only a few days because he could not speak English. That is when Gustav Brunn decided to start his own spice company. He rented the second floor of a building located at 26 Market Place. The location was across the street from a wholesale seafood market. Brunn named his business the Baltimore Spice Company.  He began to sell spices to local Baltimore businesses, such as Attman's Delicatessen, as well as local meatpackers. 

Brunn also sought to sell spices to the local seafood wholesalers.  However, he ran into some resistance, as many of those businesses had developed their own private spice mixes.  They were neither willing to share their recipes nor try anything that Brunn had to offer.  Nevertheless, Brunn thought that he could make a better seafood seasoning than what these wholesalers used. He came up with his own spice mix and he eventually found a small crab steamer around the corner on Water Street. Brunn sold that steamer a five pound box of his new spice mix. The steamer used it and saw his business increase. Emboldened by this small success, Brunn returned to those seafood wholesalers.  He began to sell his spice mix to those wholesalers, who also saw their business increase.  

While Brunn's business began to take off, he still needed a name for his spice mix. He originally named his spice mix, "Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning." One of Brunn's friends, who worked in the advertising industry, suggested that Brunn come up with a different name. The friend suggested Old Bay. It was the nickname for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. Packet ships were used to transport people where railroads could not take them.  Given the wide bay and its numerous inlets, it was difficult for railroads to establish direct lines. The Baltimore Steam Packet Company operated steamships that took passengers from Baltimore, Maryland to Norfolk, Virginia. It had operated this service since 1860.

Thus, by the time Gustav Brunn was naming his spice mix, which was most likely in the late 1930s or early 1940s, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company -- or the Old Bay Line -- was one of the oldest operating steamship companies in the United States. It operated overnight runs, with one ship sailing south to Norfolk while another ship sailed north to Baltimore.  Guests would go to the the restaurant or saloon on the ship to enjoy a dinner of traditional Chesapeake Bay dishes. After the dinner, the guests would retire to their state rooms until the morning when they could get breakfast and arrive at their destination.  These trips continued for years, until the voyage in 1962.  The Old Bay Line ceased operations, but Gustav Brunn's Old Bay spice mix would carry on the name for years and decades to come. 

With a spice mix in hand, now known as Old Bay, Gustav Brunn had to face other issues and challenges in the coming years. Some of those challenges related to the very composition of Old Bay itself. The history of that mix is the subject of the next post. Stay tuned and until then ... 

ENJOY!