During the war

The company was doing well. And then World War I broke out in 1914, severely impacting the economy. It took all of our strength to make it through these hard times. The company shed its legal status as a limited partnership, becoming a general partnership instead. Friedrich Hermann Carl Bünemann and Georg Julius Schütte were the partners.
Towards the end of the 1920s, Georg Schütte jun. moved to Colombia to work at the coffee plantations as a company representative. However, these plantations were lost during the Great Depression (1929 to 1933). In 1931, Carl Christian Bünemann, Friedrich Hermann Carl Bünemann’s son, went to Colombia. Partners Georg Julius Schütte and Friedrich Hermann Carl Bünemann began renewing their efforts to strengthen their oversea connections in 1933. They also established ties with other countries, renaming the company as Schütte, Bünemann Exportgesellschaft in the same year.
On 16 June 1936, Friedrich Hermann Carl Bünemann, lovingly called “Don Carlos” by friends and clients, passed away at 70 years of age. His passing made it necessary to set up a new partnership agreement, which was signed on 31 January 1938, making Georg Schütte the sole, personally liable partner. At the time, Carl Christian Bünemann had been working at various agencies in Colombia and returned to Bremen just a few days before the war against Russia broke out – and it took an adventurous trip via Japan and Russia.