Mahala Problem Cigarettes

Mahala Problem, officially Problem oHG, was a cigarette company from Berlin, popular and successful before and after the First World War. The company was founded on March 25, 1889 by Szlama Rochmann in Berlin, and later bought in 1932 by Reemtsma.

The Jewish cigarette manufacturer Szlama Rochmann (17 June 1857–17 December 1925) founded in 1889 Cigarettenmanufaktur Mahala-Problem (Cigarette manufacturer Mahala-Problem) at Alexanderstraße 13/22 (Alexanderhof) in Berlin. This was after his brother, Baruch Rochmann (1863–1926), had taken over the family cigarette manufacturing company "Namkori-Phänomen" from his father Israel Jacob Rochman (22 June 1837–31 July 1881) in 1881.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Szlama hired commercial artists such as Louis Oppenheim, Ernst Deutsch-Dryden, Lindenstaedt, Lucian Bernhard to create advertisements. The German commercial artist Hans Rudi Erdt created the famous Fez wearing Moslem as the brand image for the Problem-Cigarettes.

In 1914, after the 25th anniversary of the company, Szlama acquired the grounds of 212-213 Greifswalder Straße in Berlin from Gustav Magnus (not to be confused with Heinrich Gustav Magnus), to turn it in the headquarters for manufacturing of their cigarette brands. Between 1914 and 1929, the Jewish architect Moritz Ernst Lesser and Ernst Ludwig Freud (Son of Sigmund Freud) were commissioned to build the factory for production and storage. The Rochmann family with four children were also living at the building.

After the death of Szlama in 1925, his two sons Heinrich Rochmann and Carl Rochmann took over the father's business, still headquartered on the Greifswalder Straße. The tombstones of Szlama, his parents and his brother are located at the Jewish graveyard of Berlin-Weißensee.

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