What’s In A Label

Exploring the origins of the VEB Leuchtenbau Tube Light

This is a beautifully manufactured communist-era glass and cast-aluminium industrial tube light, originally manufactured to be explosion, dust and gas proof. These light fittings were used in petrochemical plants, mines and power stations, predominantly in East Germany. Designed in 1950, engineered by Paul Mrosek and produced in the ’60s and ’70s by VEB Leuchtenbau in Wittenberg, these lights usually come with their original ID label… but what does it mean?

VEB is an abbreviation of “Volkseigener Betrieb”. The literal translation is something like this: Volks = “Folk” or “Peoples”, Eigener = “Own” and Betrieb = “Operation”. People’s own operation is otherwise known as a Publicly Owned Enterprise.

Leuchtenbau – the literal translation goes something like this: Leucht = “Lights up” and Enbau = “Construction”, in other words Lighting Construction. And when added to the earlier prefix, it essentially reads Publicly Owned Enterprise of Lighting Construction.

As for Wittenberg, well this is a city of now circa 45,000 people located on the banks of the River Elbe between Liebzig and Berlin in eastern Germany. All together, the label reads: Publicly Owned Enterprise of Lighting Construction of Wittenberg. Many VEBs (publicly owned enterprises) were formed after mass nationalisation in Germany between 1945 and the early 1960s. And by 1989 VEBs employed 80% of the East German workforce.

Often when researching DDR lights of this era, we see references to “VVB”. VEBs (Publibly Owned Enterprises) generally belonged in larger groups to Associations or “VVBs” who would represent their industry, with the aim of consolidating manufacture of processes and products. These associations were effectively Unions. VVB is an abbreviation of Vereinigung Volkseignener Betrieb which essentially translates to Union of Publicly Owned Enterprises.

In the case of the VEB Leuchtenbau Tube Light, manufacture was carried out by AKA Electric, hence why you see this on the label alongside the serial number and other production identifiers.