August Förster

On April 1, 1859, August Förster opened a small piano workshop in Löbau, Germany, expanding to a factory on Löbau's Jahn Street in 1862. Still in use today, this facility has been enlarged and modernized by the Förster family and remains the exclusive site for the manufacture of the original August Förster piano.

In 1897, Caesar Förster succeeded his father August as manager of the company and opened a second factory in Jiříkov, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic) in 1900.

The owner Franz Cäsar Förster was awarded an imperial and royal warrant of appointment to the court of Austria-Hungary.

In 1937 the company manufactured one of the first electric pianos, the “Vierling-Förster” piano, developed by Oskar Vierling at the Heinrich Institute for Oscillation Research at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin) using electromagnetic pickups.

In 1948 the factory in Jiříkov was nationalized. Under new state-sanctioned management many pianos of good quality were produced, but since 1948 the Czechoslovak-made pianos have had no connection or relationship to the German August Förster piano. This "other" August Förster is currently produced in the Czech Republic by the Petrof Piano Company and sold in Canada and certain European countries.

In 1972, the final phase of East German nationalization transformed the company into the state-owned "VEB Flügel-und-Pianobau Löbau." Although still under the management of Wolfgang Förster, the company was annexed as part of the German Piano-Union, Leipzig. The family name was added back into the official company name in 1976, resulting in instruments branded "VEB Förster Pianos Löbau." Also in 1976, the company began its first exports to the United States.