Doggererz AG

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Pillar of the former conveyor bridge of Doggererz AG at the Blumberg-Zollhaus station (status 2010)

The Doggererz AG , initially Doggererz-Bergbau GmbH , operating from 1937 to 1942 in Blumberg , a community in today's Schwarzwald-Baar in Baden-Württemberg , an ore mine . The mine, which emerged in the wake of the autarky policy of the National Socialist German Reich , was the most important economic project that was developed in Baden between 1933 and 1945 with state participation. Despite extensive subsidies , the mine never worked economically. When, after the initial German successes in World War II, there was access to higher-quality ore deposits in 1942 , the mine in Blumberg was closed. The construction of the mine resulted in a profound restructuring of the previously agricultural community of Blumberg.

prehistory

Blumberg is located on the Baar in the Urdonautal , through which the Aitrach flows today. On both slopes of the valley, an iron ore seam about four meters thick in the Brown Jura - also known as Dogger - comes to light. According to investigations carried out from 1934 onwards, the ore reserves in the Blumberg area amount to 384 million tons; a total of 1.5 billion tons of iron ore are to be stored in the area between the Danube and the Swiss border.

Prospects for iron ore near Blumberg can be traced back to 1544; after 1661 a steelworks was built , consisting of a smelter and hammer mill . The operation was gradually abandoned in 1725, as the poor quality led to sales problems and there were difficulties with the water supply. Between 1897 and 1921, based in Donaueschingen acquired house Fürstenberg by presumption , the areas with the highest iron content. The legal basis was the Baden Mining Act of 1890, according to which property owners had no power of disposal over mineral resources . The Princes of Fürstenberg had in the area of Blumberg as Standesherren here even after the media coverage of 1806 a porch right.

As a result of the Peace Treaty of Versailles , the German Reich lost three quarters of its domestic iron ore reserves in 1919; especially the minette deposits in Lorraine . During the Weimar Republic , the Baden state endeavored to promote the mining of iron ore on the Baar. In 1931 the Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) in Gutmadingen , ten kilometers northeast of Blumberg, started operating an ore mine, but ceased operations in 1932 as a result of the global economic crisis . After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, Baden's Prime Minister Walter Köhler and Adolf Hitler's economic representative Wilhelm Keppler visited the mine together with GHH CEO Paul Reusch . At the urging of politicians, the GHH resumed operations in May 1934.

The National Socialist regime encouraged the exploitation of local ore deposits. German heavy industry obtained around two thirds of its ore requirements from abroad, which contributed to the German trade deficit and was seen as a risk in the event of war. As a result of the economic upturn and the need for steel when the armed forces were rearming, German ore stocks shrank considerably in the summer of 1936. In August 1936, Hitler announced a radical tightening of the autarky course and ordered “German iron production to be increased to the greatest possible extent.” In September 1936, Hitler announced the establishment of a four-year plan that would put the economy and the army in readiness for war within four years . Paul Pleiger , Head of Department for Metals in the four-year planning authority under Hermann Göring , set the funding targets in January 1937: By 1941, the mining of domestic iron ore was to be increased from 2 million to 3.7 million tons. 1.05 million tons of this should be mined in the Baar.

The iron content of the ore from the Baar is around 20 percent and thus below that of the deposits in Lorraine (35 percent) or Sweden (60 percent). The problem was the high silica content of the ores of 23 percent, which required extensive pretreatment of the ores during smelting . The sole smelting of “sour” ores was only possible with new technologies in the mid-1930s.

Dogger Ore Mine

“I will proceed ruthlessly and issue legal provisions that iron should be extracted from the German soil to the greatest possible extent. How the iron deposits are discovered, whether with the dowsing rod or otherwise, is indifferent to me. It is also not decisive what the costs of iron extraction are. "

- Hermann Goering

construction

At the end of 1933, Hermann Röchling , owner of the Völklinger ironworks in the Saar area , had already expressed interest in the Baar iron ores to the Baden state government. Röchling feared that he would be cut off from the supply of iron ore from Lorraine if the voters decided to return to the German Reich in the pending referendum on the future of the Saar area in 1935 and the previous economic connection between the Saar area and France would be lost. The historian Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann characterizes Röchling as "an experienced knight of subsidies who knew how to use political moods for his own benefit". A speech by Röchling in August 1933 could “only be seen as a settlement with democracy and as a personal commitment to National Socialism”. 1934 founded company Röchling together with the Neunkirchen iron and steelworks , the Working Group Neunkirchen-Völklingen for Doggererze ; both companies each contributed half of the capital of RM 2 million . Formally equal owners of the Neunkirchen ironworks were the brothers Stumm and Otto Wolff ; Wolff exercised a controlling influence over the company through an indirect participation.

On 28 May 1936 the consortium in which was Doggererz-Bergbau GmbH converted to the awarding of mining property required legal form to have. Under state pressure, the United Hüttenwerke Burbach-Eich-Dudelange , Dillinger Hütte and Halbergerhütte also took part in the GmbH in December 1936 . All three companies from the Saar area were majority owned by Luxembourg or French shareholders and had no self-interest in Dogger ores , as they had their own mines in Lorraine with higher-quality ore deposits.

The negotiations between the mining company and the House of Fürstenberg about a concession contract dragged on for years. An agreement reached in May 1934 only concerned the trial mining of a small amount of iron ore. In 1938, Doggererz Mining refused to sign subsidiary contracts with which the Fürstenberg house, which owned quarries itself , wanted to prevent the mining company from penetrating the regional gravel market . In addition, the serving of Fürstenberg beer in the works canteens should be regulated. A final settlement took place in April 1940; Doggererz AG acquired two forest plots with a total size of 187 hectares from Haus Fürstenberg.

Doggererz AG mining areas and plants
Oral hole of the lower Stoberg tunnel (status 2010)
Administration building with laundrette in the north plant (status 2010)

From the beginning of 1934, Röchling employee Wilhelm Lillig explored the iron ore deposits in the Blumberg area. 300 boreholes with 17,000 running meters were drilled and numerous trenches were dug; the drilling cost over RM 500,000. Since the vast majority of the iron ore had to be mined underground , tunnels were excavated at several points in 1934 and 1935 to expand and fix the deposit : In Eichberg (north of Blumberg), in Stoberg (northeast of Blumberg) and in Ristelberg (southeast of the Zollhaus station of the Wutachtalbahn ).

By October 1935, the workforce in Blumberg had grown to over 290 underground workers. Unskilled workers mostly came from the Baar, where high unemployment had persisted. From December 1934 Lillig recruited experienced miners from the Saar, and later also from the Ruhr. The daily wage of the tunners was RM 5.50 in the mining operation and RM 4.25 in the tunneling . In the Ruhr and Saar the wages were between 6.95 and 7.80 RM; the placement offices had also promised significantly higher wages. Some of the miners from the Saar had been dismissed on the initiative of Hermann Röchling and the local Gauleiter Josef Bürckel as part of a comprehensive "cleansing operation" because they had voted against a return to the German Reich in the Saar referendum. In the "Blumberg conceived as a penal colony", these Saar miners formed the "humus of dissatisfaction", according to the historian Klaus-Michael Mallmann .

Laundry chews and catering facilities were missing until the end of 1935; the miners found lodging as sub-tenants with farmers who charged about half of the miners' monthly wages for board and lodging. Of 65 tusks hired between December 1934 and August 1935, 52 had left Blumberg by October 1935. The Secret State Police in Karlsruhe attributed this to the activity of “communist decomposition cells”: “In particular, the miners from the Saar area try to incite their work colleagues to dissatisfaction using purely communist methods, referring to the low wages and primitive housing conditions”. Engineer Lillig saw "many anti-social elements unwilling to work " at work and demanded that "clean things up here and ensure that such elements are rendered harmless". Lillig criticized the accommodation and meals of the miners with the farmers with the words: “In general it can be said that the farmer von der Baar is not exactly overly clean”. The Villingen employment office came to a different assessment, according to which there was no doubt about the workers' willingness to work and "it must be surprising that the work is still being carried out and that no open revolt has broken out yet." The employment office saw the cause of the grievances with Lillig, who reacts completely “blankly” to social questions. A Gestapo report considered it “understandable and humanly understandable that the workers openly express their indignation about the poor working conditions”.

In December 1935 about 100 of the 300 workers in the mine were laid off, and by March 1936 the number of employees had sunk to 118. Lillig also left Blumberg and moved to the raw materials office under Paul Pleiger for a compensation of 11,000 RM . The background to the layoffs was that the mine was being built too quickly, which meant that Lillig had exceeded his budget considerably. Presumably, the Saarhütten also wanted to exert pressure by slowing down the construction of the mine in order to obtain higher state subsidies.

An administration building with laundromats and workshops was opened in December 1935 in the so-called Nordwerk between Eichelberg and Stoberg. In autumn 1935, construction began on a 1.6-kilometer-long chain railway that was supposed to cross the Aitrach Valley on a 1,040-meter-long steel bridge, the so-called conveyor bridge. The conveyor bridge should serve to transport ore from the north plant to the south plant; the latter was built east of the Zollhaus station and included the processing plants for the ore and the loading station.

Controversies among the mine shareholders determined the planning of the processing plants . The Völklinger Hütte favored the construction of ovens in which water and carbonic acid was removed from the iron ore by roasting and roasted goods that were easier to transport and store were produced. The Neunkircher Hütte preferred further processing of the ore in a system developed by the Frankfurt company Lurgi , since the transport of over 70 percent of dead rock to the Saar area is uneconomical and the use of the roasted material would reduce the furnace output. In September 1936, the shareholders decided to build four roasting ovens, while an agreement on the Lurgi plant was probably made under pressure from the German government in February 1937. The Lurgi plant went into operation in January 1938, three months later than the roasting ovens. The Lurgi project manager attributed the delayed completion to the fact that the construction work had been deliberately hindered by Doggererz managing directors in order to give the roasting ovens a time advantage. The operation of the processing plants resulted in a considerable amount of dust , which resulted in constant protests from the tenant of the nearby Steppacher Hof . That is why Doggererz AG bought the farm in 1940.

year Workforce Conveyance
( tons )
1934 55  
1935 126 13,634
1936 189 20,659
1937 760 158,949
1938 1,491 438,526
1939 1,586 919.736
1940 1,648 953.778
1941 1,124 918.260
1942 67 78,519
1943 20th  

business

With the commissioning of the conveyor bridge and the loading station in the southern plant on April 15, 1937, continuous ore extraction could begin. An increase in the daily output of 200 to 300 tons failed due to a lack of staff; Of the 170 miners hired in the first half of 1937, 130 resigned. In a letter to Gauleiter Wagner, Doggererz-Bergbau stated in May 1938 that it was currently only able to mine 1200 tons of the required daily target of 4300 tons. The actual workforce is 526 instead of the target of 873. Between February and April 1938 there were 208 redundancies out of 316 new hires. In the autumn of 1938, the employment office gave permission to recruit 500 Italian workers, which eased the personnel situation.

In order to be able to increase the output quickly, ore mining was started in the open-cast mine on the southern edge of the Stoberg in October 1938 . As a subcontractor, the construction company Baresel mined the exposed iron ore seam up to an overburden of 15 meters. Ore was mined at the Stoberg until 1940; other opencast mines were on the southern slope of the Eichberg (June 1940 to the end of 1941), on the Ristelberg not far from the southern works (January 1939 to October 1940) and on the Lindenbühl between Blumberg and Zollhaus (1940 to the end of 1941).

With the beginning of the Second World War, the iron and steel works in the Saar area, with the exception of Neunkirchen, ceased production because they were located directly on the border with France. In order to reduce production, open-cast mining was temporarily stopped in October 1939. Ore from Blumberg was increasingly supplied to the Ruhr area , but was only reluctantly accepted by the local smelters that were not equipped for Doggererz.

In underground mining , the most modern extraction methods and machines of the time from coal mining were taken over and used, for example chain cutting machines, aided by the extensive deposits . For cost reasons, only the quarry was used, in which the excavated mining areas were not filled. Between 1938 and 1941 four tests were carried out on different mining methods; the conveying capacity per man shift could be doubled. The underground mining was hampered by numerous faults through which water penetrated into the pit, especially after rainfall and during the melting of the snow. Ornate clay stood above the seam , which dammed up water and was prone to water ingress. In the case of drought, there were sudden breaks in the roof . The underground mining was limited to the Stoberg; no ore was mined in the Eichberg and Ristelberg mines. Until the closure, 6.1 kilometers to the pit Stoberg and 730 meters in the pit Eichberg distance ascended.

The number of accidents per shift in the entire operation was up to 1940 about twice as high as the average in German ore mining. The worst accident occurred on March 22, 1940, when six workers were killed by rock that had come loose from the hanging wall; another nine workers were injured. The company files show hardly any sustainable activities by the mine management to reduce the high accident rate until mid-1940. In the spring of 1941, due to the high number of accidents, longwall mining was switched to pillar construction , which was considered safer .

During the Second World War, foreigners were increasingly used in the mine, including prisoners of war and forced labor . In 1940, 815 Germans , 391 Italians and 100 prisoners of war were among the 1,480 workers . Aided by the close border with Switzerland , many forced laborers fled: At the beginning of 1940, a “not inconsiderable number” of Czech workers were arrested at the Swiss border. They wanted to flee to France to join a Czech Legion that was being established there. At least one of the Czechs has been tried in the People's Court . Of the 200 Polish forced laborers who were brought to Blumberg in early 1941, 170 had fled within a few months. After a series of thefts of explosives , in order to “act as a deterrent and educative to the workforce”, a criminal chamber meeting was held in the mine’s administration building , during which a worker was sentenced to three years in prison as a “ pest ” .

The relationship between the mine and the farmers in the surrounding communities was characterized by numerous conflicts: Between 1925 and 1942, the arable land in Blumberg fell by 15 percent. The mining company used third-party land to build barracks, drill holes or fill earth, mostly without informing the owners or negotiating compensation. At the beginning of 1937, the mayor of Blumberg and local NSDAP group leader , Theodor Schmid, warned the mining company that “joint violent action by the property owners [...] could be expected” if the property owners were not compensated. Negotiations about land acquisition often remained unsuccessful because of the different asking prices. In September 1940 the district farmers described the mine as a "land plague".

Purchase and production costs for Saarhütten in 1938
Ore type Purchase costs
RM / t		 Prime cost
RM / t pig iron
roasted Great Dane ore 14.33 109.86
Dogger ore as a Lurgi concentrate 43.55 121.45
Minette from Lorraine 7.92 52.42

Despite substantial state subsidies, the mine never managed to operate economically. From January 1939 to December 1941, the German Reich paid a subsidy of four RM per tonne of raw ore. The labor office had already subsidized the exploration work with three RM per day's work ; in addition, up to the end of 1938 the Reich paid a flat rate of 3 million RM.

In April 1941 the Reich Ministry of Economics ordered that only ores with economical coke consumption and a high mine output should be extracted. The background was a serious shortage of coal in the winter of 1940/1941, which was exacerbated by the conscription of miners to the Wehrmacht in the run-up to the German attack on the Soviet Union . From October 1941 the monthly production in Blumberg was reduced from 75,000 to 50,000 tons. The defense Ministry under Albert Speer decided on 23 March 1942, the immediate cessation of Doggererzbaus in Blumberg. The reason given was that during war it was irresponsible that poor ores were extracted while miners were absent from good ores. On April 7, 1942, ore mining was stopped.

Metallurgical plant

Planning from 1939/1940 for a works railway from Blumberg to the premelting plant in Neudingen

On February 9, 1939, the agent for iron and steel management in the Reich Ministry of Economics, Hermann von Hanneken , ordered Doggererz-Bergbau GmbH to build a premelting plant in Baar in which a concentrate with an iron content of at least 90 percent was produced should be. The background to the requirement was that the processing plants built in Blumberg were not sufficient to process the entire production of the mine and the Dogger ore required more blast furnace space than the ores previously used in the Saar smelters. Premelting iron had a lower transport volume; In addition, the freight trains, which were previously empty from the Saar to the Baar, could be used to transport coal from the Saar . Hermann Röchling had already advertised a smelting works on the Baar in the summer of 1935 with arguments relating to foreign exchange and armaments, although his goals were of a commercial nature: State authorities refused to expand the blast furnace capacity on the Saar, since in the event of war there would be one through the close border with France There was a threat of closure or destruction of the plants. Saarhütten received fewer orders for supplies for arming the Wehrmacht than, for example, companies in the Ruhr area. In addition, Röchling's main sales area was in southern Germany.

The German Reich was ready to help finance the hut. To this end, it was decided to convert the GmbH into Doggererz AG ; the share capital was from 2 to 40 million RM increases . On December 4, 1940, the Reich decided to take a 50 percent stake in the stock corporation ; the previous shareholders of the GmbH were able to bring in the assets of the mine valued at 17 million RM .

At the end of April 1939, a commission headed by Hermann Röchling decided to build the premelting plant near Neudingen , nine kilometers north of the mine. Neudingen offered large, flat areas on good building ground and was located on a powerful railway line, the Black Forest Railway . The nearby Danube ensured the plant's water supply. A works railway was to connect the mine to the premelting plant via Hondingen and thus shorten the detour via Immendingen by 22 kilometers. The Fürstenberg should be crossed in a 1.5 kilometer long tunnel. Objections to the Neudingen location were expressed by the Baden state farmer leader Fritz Engler-Füßlin and Gauleiter Wagner; both favored a settlement in the Aitrach valley below Blumberg. Wagner feared that the industrial settlement would lead to the "destruction of the structure of a healthy peasantry" and the "destruction of the peculiar charm of a landscape that was previously completely untouched", but did not want to file a formal objection because of the "extraordinary importance of ore mining".

The groundbreaking ceremony in Neudingen took place on April 29, 1940. 50 construction workers first built factory roads, leveled the building site and set up barracks for several hundred workers. The plan was to build four blast furnaces with a daily output of 300 tons, three of which should be completed by mid-1943. In addition, a large power plant and a coking plant were to be built. The gas produced during coking was to be marketed externally in the Württemberg industrial centers around Stuttgart , Heilbronn and Ulm , for which purpose the construction of a long-distance gas network was planned. A total of over 75 million RM should be invested and almost 1,700 jobs created.

With the conquest of Lorraine in the course of the German attack in the west from May 1940, the plans for Neudingen were called into question. In August 1940, the representative of the Reich Ministry of Economics on the board of Doggererz AG wrote a memorandum in which he pointed out the advantages of a hut in Kehl : Kehl had a Rhine port , was across the Rhine-Marne Canal with the industrial areas in Lorraine and on the Saar and was on the rail link between Blumberg and the Saar area. This made it possible to smelt imported ores, Dogger ores, minettes from Lorraine and ores from two pits in the Upper Rhine Graben. Resistance to a smelter in Kehl came in particular from the Saarland's coal and steel industry, which saw the plant as possible competition. Gauleiter Wagner feared that the hut would affect the cityscape of Strasbourg as the planned Gau capital. For this reason, the location was relocated downstream to Auenheim . In March 1941, Hermann pointed by Hanneken as representative for the iron and steel management the Doggererz AG to set the construction in Neudingen and take the plans for Auenheim.

From April 1, 1941, French prisoners of war and Polish workers dismantled the barracks built in Neudingen and relocated them to Kehl. A larger warehouse and some barracks were preserved in Neudingen and were taken over by Schwarzwald Flugzeugbau Donaueschingen , a company owned by the Fürstenberg family, which manufactured parts of gliders during World War II . The warehouse has been used by the Südbadische Gummiwerke since 1954 . Up to the termination of the construction work, 1.3 million RM had been invested in Neudingen; the relocation of the construction site equipment to Kehl cost a further 1.1 million RM. The headquarters of Doggererz AG moved to Strasbourg on May 30th. At the end of August 1941, a previously existing construction freeze for the hut in Auenheim was lifted; In the months that followed, around 23 hectares of forest were cut down, a port basin was partially excavated, a barracks camp for 400 men and a storage area were built, and a rail connection to the Kork station on the Appenweier – Strasbourg line was built. The Doggererz AG ordered the plant facilities, including a coke plant and a power station and led with the community Auenheim negotiations on the acquisition of land. According to the received land purchase plans, the hut should occupy an area of ​​over 200 hectares along the Rhine and Kinzig in the districts of Auenheim and Leutesheim .

The construction of the iron and steel works in Kehl was also affected by the decommissioning order issued by the Armaments Ministry on March 23, 1942. At that time, RM 15 million had been invested on site. The plans for the plant were sold to the mining and steelworks company Karwin-Trzynietz in Teschen in Upper Silesia , which in February 1943 also took over orders such as steam boilers and power generation systems that were already in the execution phase. The order volume was over 40 million RM.

completion

With the founding of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring in Salzgitter in 1937 and access to the Styrian Erzberg after the “Anschluss” of Austria in 1938, the southern German Doggererz had lost its key position in the National Socialist autarky policy. The loss of importance continued when the ore deposits in Lorraine were under German occupation after the attack in the west from mid-1940. The Saarhütten had to continue smelting Dogger ore due to a purchase obligation, although this resulted in higher coke consumption. One of the two reports that led to the closure of the mining in Blumberg in March 1942 came from Hermann Röchling.

After the ore mining had ceased, the board of directors of Doggererz AG decided on April 22, 1942 to wind up the mining operations, as it was not assumed that operations would be resumed later. In the months that followed, systems and equipment were removed from the mine and, by order of the Ministry of Armaments, handed over to war-important companies. In September 1942, the dismantling of the processing plants in the south plant was completed. By the end of the war, the company had achieved sales proceeds of RM 18.7 million, which were transferred to the shareholders as interest-bearing loans. 450 men of the workforce switched to mining in the Siegerland , others to other mining areas, others were drafted into the Wehrmacht. The miners who were transferred to Siegerland received lower wages with additional costs due to double housekeeping, since their families stayed in Blumberg. According to an eyewitness account, starving families of miners begged farmers for food.

100 craftsmen found work at the company W. Kopperschmidt and Sons ; a company that made plexiglass canopies for airplanes and small submarines. The company was relocated from Hamburg to Blumberg following an order from the Ministry of Armaments in August 1942 and produced with up to 1,250 employees in the Doggererz AG facilities . From the summer of 1944, the production of the Kopperschmidtwerke was relocated to the Eichberg tunnel in the course of the underground relocation of war-important operations. After the German withdrawal from Lorraine, the Organization Todt organized a resumption of ore mining in the open pit from November 1944. In January 1945, the work was stopped because after the occupation of the Saar area, further processing of the Dogger ore was impossible. After his escape from the Saar region, Hermann Röchling had plans drawn up to build a small iron and steel works in Blumberg from the end of 1944. The plans were rejected by the Reich Ministry of Economics as uneconomical.

After the liberation from National Socialism , Doggererz AG was subordinated to the main economic department of the 1st French Army on May 29, 1945 . The French occupation authorities had parts of the tunnels blown up from April 1947, as they had last been used for armament purposes. At the end of the war, German troops had blown up the entrances to the Eichbergstollen to prevent access to the Kopperschmidt machine park.

In the Rastatt war crimes trial against Hermann Röchling and several of his employees, the Doggererz project was one of the reasons for the charge of “crimes against peace”, as it served to prepare for and lead the Nazi wars of aggression. Röchling was acquitted on this charge in both instances; the charges against his management had already been withdrawn in the main proceedings. The historian Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann classifies Röchling's partial acquittal as “quite questionable” and refers to his intensive advertising for a hut building on the Baar with government agencies, which was underpinned with military arguments. This only allows the conclusion that Röchling “not only accepted a war against France, but even approved it”.

With the currency reform of 1948 , the registered capital of Doggererz AG was reduced to 400,000 DM . The state shares were administered in trust by the state of Baden ; the other shares were held by four Saarhütten. An exploitation of the ore deposit not found more place since the ore supply the Saar cabins was otherwise secured, for example by the 1951 founded Coal and Steel Community . However, in 1967 the company had its mining license extended by 30 years to December 1997. The premises and the numerous factory buildings of Doggererz AG were hardly destroyed in the war, which was a rarity in post-war Germany . The use of real estate and property was initially made more difficult by the chaotic situation of the post-war period with a lack of administrative structures and unclear legal relationships. In addition, Doggererz AG was affected by the dismantling of the occupying power, which applied to the armaments company Kopperschmidt. By the mid-1950s at the latest, the company had become a real estate company, which in 1959 owned 50 apartment buildings and 300 hectares of land, including 180 hectares of forest. The company was reluctant to fulfill its duty to recultivate the opencast mines. Areas on the Lindenbühl were leveled in 1953; the opencast mine at Eichberg was bought by the city of Blumberg in 1960 and never recultivated.

According to the Reich Property Law (RVermG) of 1961, the state share in Doggererz AG was transferred to the state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1973 the company was converted into a GmbH in order to avoid the extended disclosure requirements under the 1965 Stock Corporation Act . At the same time, the share capital was reduced to 100,000 DM. In the 1970s, the GmbH gradually sold its entire property. The associated dissolution of hidden reserves led to millions in profits that were distributed to the owners. In October 1979, the company filed for liquidation at the Villingen District Court . At this point in time, land registry regulations still had to be made. In November 1983 the company was deleted from the commercial register. The files of Doggererz AG are in the Freiburg State Archives .

Miners' settlement Blumberg

Housing development

"Sunny, airy apartments, functional houses, wide streets, wide squares, etc. give the new city face and character and by 1942 the order of the Reich Governor will be carried out: up there in the Randen area is a completely new one, about the song of work and industrial city with perhaps 20,000 inhabitants filled with the song of hammer drills. "

- Freiburger Zeitung and Wirtschaftsblatt from January 8, 1939

In 1936 Blumberg had between 700 and 800 inhabitants in 166 households; the agricultural community had an annual budget of almost RM 22,000. According to the specifications of the four-year plan, the mine should work in 1940 with 1,600 employees. In April 1937 the decision was made to build the necessary apartments concentrated in Blumberg near the mine. In the first phase of construction, 32 houses were to be built by July of that year. The resulting development costs of around 22,500 RM were initially to be financed from the municipal treasury. In June 1937, the mayor of Blumberg declared that the city was no longer able to meet its current obligations; by then, 3,000 RM had been received for the development costs.

In May 1937, the decision was made to build a second construction phase in a second construction phase in Blumberg by the end of the year. The financing was controversial for a long time, as Doggererz-Bergbau GmbH was reluctant to take on its higher share of the financing. The shortage of manpower and material, essentially caused by the armament of the Wehrmacht, delayed the completion of the residential buildings by several months. All houses of the first two construction phases consisted of a two- and a three-room apartment, with the smaller apartment intended for childless married couples. These apartments could hardly be rented because there were only a few childless married couples in Blumberg. Two further construction phases with 407 houses and 605 apartments were realized between June 1938 and 1940. Larger apartments were built, which increased rents to 32.40 RM with an average monthly net income of a miner of 120 RM (1939). Single miners continued to live in barracks camps; a warehouse built in November 1937 at the Zollhaus station offered space for 386 men. Forced laborers and prisoners of war were later housed in the camp. The head of the camp and at the same time the host of the camp canteen was an SS-Hauptsturmführer who, according to a testimony, terrorized the inmates.

Starting in June 1938, planning for 1940 was based on 3,000 workers in the mine and 10,000 residents in Blumberg. The 1,100 additional apartments required for this were no longer built; in fact, in 1940 Blumberg had about 5,000 inhabitants.

The house owner and landlord for the miners' settlement, Badische Heimstätten GmbH , informed the Baden Ministry of the Interior in December 1937 that 20 percent of those living in the barracks had a criminal record ; initially their share was 70 percent. Those who moved from abroad had not been checked for their political reliability. The tenants for the houses in the first construction phase were selected by the plant management together with the district chairman of the German Labor Front (DAF) and the mayor Schmid. Schmid had an appraisal of the forensic biological collection point in Munich drawn up about a tenant , in which he was portrayed as “lying” and “criminally and morally neglected as a 14-year-old boy” and rumors about the applicant's relatives were spread.

According to a report by an architect from November 1940, many of the newly built houses had significant deficiencies: Among other things, too thin and poorly insulated outer walls, water pipes at risk of frost, leaking toilet pits from which faecal water penetrated into the houses, chronically clogged sanitary facilities due to undersized pipes, Water ingress in basements during rainfall and cracks in chimneys. In April 1941, the district administrator ordered the evacuation of two houses because they were in a condition that was hazardous to health.

Infrastructure

The development of the infrastructure necessary for a small town was slower than the construction of housing: in 1938 there were three grocery stores , two bakeries and a butcher's shop in the town to supply 4,000 citizens. As a result of the difficult supply situation, there were physical disputes. In August 1938, the Freiburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry approved 19 new retail stores in Blumberg. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce demanded that the choice of shopkeepers be given “the greatest possible attention. When it comes to the composition of the workforce in the mine, Blumberg's middle class must be politically and morally absolutely reliable. The same applies financially. ”According to the mayor of Blumberg, the construction of commercial buildings could not begin until February 1939, as the lines of the commercial street were still in place was not set. The construction of a new school for 300,000 RM was delayed due to a shortage of materials and labor until autumn 1939; In the autumn of 1938, 600 pupils were taught in the old schoolhouse designed for 150 children and in barracks. The public sector invested a total of 7.7 million RM in Blumberg, of which 4.3 million RM went to the Reich and 880,000 RM to the state of Baden. Since all the houses in the miners' settlement were not equipped with baths, there was a need for a bathing establishment , which was not implemented, as was the expansion of the sewage treatment plant and the construction of a slaughterhouse.

In October 1937, Gauleiter Robert Wagner had demanded a city center for Blumberg that was "an expression of National Socialist design will". He also suggested the erection of representative party buildings. Wagner commissioned the Freiburg architect Alfred Wolf to draw up an overall settlement plan for Blumberg. Numerous requests for changes meant that Wolf was only able to hand over a model of its future settlement structure to the community in spring 1943. According to the model, Blumberg should extend to today's Bundesstraße 27. Several large buildings were planned in the city center, including a town hall and an NSDAP party building, each with a facade length of over 120 meters. A generously dimensioned parade and sports field followed east of the city center. The residential development was planned on the slopes north and south of the city center. A realization of Wolf's plans did not take place.

Aftermath

Blumberg 1960.
In the foreground part of the miners' settlement, in the background on the right the former opencast mine on Eichberg

After the mine was closed and miners were transferred to other areas, more than 200 apartments in the miners' settlement were vacant in July 1942. This changed with the relocation of the Kopperschmidt works, which were the main employer in Blumberg until the end of the war. In the spring of 1943 all apartments were occupied; After the air raids on Hamburg in July 1943, 700 people fled to their relatives in Blumberg. In September 1943, the Otavi Mining and Railway Company from Berlin acquired the processing plants of Doggererz AG . The plan was to produce ferrovanadium , an alloying element for stainless steel that was to be extracted from the slag of the Lurgi plant. There was no production until the end of the war. 150 people were employed when the company was set up. In February 1945 a factory of the entrepreneur Alfred Teves was relocated to Blumberg. The Teveswerke remained in the city after the end of the war and developed into the largest employer. The valve manufacturer is currently part of the automotive supplier TRW Automotive .

The relationship between locals and new citizens was marked by considerable tension even after the end of mining. Blumberg's Catholic pastor noted in 1938 that the locals “absolutely don't get along [...] with the settlers. They are still viewed and treated as intruders today. ”In 1947, the director of the mine characterized the locals as“ withdrawn and closed ”. The mine was met with strict rejection, the locals had openly let the "foreign" miners feel that they refused to allow industry to penetrate the remote area. Among Kopperschmidt's workforce, Blumberg was considered a “terrible nest” and supposedly “the most criminal community in all of Baden”.

After the end of the war, applications by the city of Blumberg to be recognized as a development or emergency area failed several times. In 1949 the city called the condition of the partly provisional residential streets “chaotic”; In the 1950s the sewer system , which was not deep enough, was costly rebuilt. In 1958 the city spoke of untenable conditions and asked for financial help. The continued existence of Doggererz AG was a nuisance for the city administration , as the company had a monopoly on commercial space, was very reluctant to sell the space, demanded high rents and did not disclose its long-term goals, which meant that the city was hardly able to draw up a usable zoning plan .

Plans to sell the houses of the miners' settlement to the residents in the late 1950s ran into difficulties: Former miners claimed that they had been assured when they were recruited that the houses would become their property after a certain period of time, but were unable to do so Submit documents. Problems were caused by the owners' lack of financial resources, the persistent overcrowding of the houses with several households and the lack of government subsidies for home purchases. However, sales of the houses got under way in the early 1960s.

In October 1952, the Knappschaft- und Invalidenverein Blumberg was founded, which set itself the goal of looking after its members in pension and career issues, supporting the bereaved and continuing the tradition of the miner's profession. At times almost 350 members, in 2002 the association had around 90 members. Traditionally, the association lays a wreath in December in honor of Saint Barbara , the patron saint of miners, at the Blumberg miners' memorial "Black Man". The monument donated by Hermann Röchling was inaugurated in 1940; in December 1970 a memorial plaque was added. In 1999 the Saarstüble restaurant , which had been set up in a miners' house in the early 1950s, was used as a meeting place for former miners for a long time and referred to Blumberg's connections to Saarland in its name.

At the beginning of the 1990s, five mouth holes in the tunnels at Eichberg and Stoberg were still partially damaged and small parts of the tunnels were accessible. Concepts for the rehabilitation and use of the tunnels in a mining museum were not implemented.

literature

Web links

Commons : Doggererz AG  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roland Peter: Armaments policy in Baden. War economy and labor in a border region during World War II. (= Contributions to military history , volume 44) Oldenbourg, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-486-56057-3 , p. 87 f.
  2. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , pp. 170 ff.
  3. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 172 f.
  4. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: The iron ores of the Baar in the field of interest of the coal and steel industry, Baden state and House of Fürstenberg (1918–1935) In: Writings of the Association for History and Natural History of the Baar. 1996 (39), ISSN  0340-4765 , pp. 190-211, here p. 191 ff.
  5. ↑ Seidelmann, interests field , p. 201 f.
  6. ^ Seidelmann, field of interests , p. 203.
  7. ^ Hitler in a memorandum from August 1936, quoted in Wilhelm Treue : Hitler's memorandum on the four-year plan . (PDF, 5.0 MB) In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 2/1955 (Volume 3), pp. 184–210, here p. 209.
  8. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , pp. 44 f, 49.
  9. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 63f.
  10. ↑ Göring on June 16, 1937 in front of representatives of the iron and steel industry, quoted in Treue, memorandum (PDF file; 5.00 MB) , p. 202.
  11. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 61.
  12. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 44 f.
  13. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 42.
  14. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 75 ff.
  15. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , pp. 63-69; Seidelmann, Plans , p. 54.
  16. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 171.
  17. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 71.
  18. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 121.
  19. ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann: reward for the effort. History of the miners on the Saar. CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-33988-3 , p. 222.
  20. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 66.
  21. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 72.
  22. ↑ Situation report of the Secret State Police Office Karlsruhe for the period from 1 to 30 March November 1935. Printed in: Jörg Schadt (edit.): Persecution and resistance under National Socialism in Baden. The situation reports of the Gestapo and the Attorney General Karlsruhe 1933-1940. (= Publications of the Mannheim City Archives. Volume 3.) Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-17-001842-6 , p. 201.
  23. ↑ a b Minutes of a meeting on September 14, 1935 in Zollhaus-Blumberg , quoted in Seidelmann, Frühstadium , p. 71.
  24. ↑ Lillig's note of October 2, 1935 on the labor market situation in the Doggererz mining area Zollhaus-Blumberg , quoted in Seidelmann, Frühstadium , p. 71.
  25. ^ Letter from the Villingen employment office to the Baden Minister of Finance and Economics, quoted in Seidelmann, Frühstadium , p. 71.
  26. ↑ A retrospective report from December 1938, quoted in Seidelmann, "Eisenreate" , p. 69.
  27. ↑ This assessment in Seidelmann, early stage , pp. 73f.
  28. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 70 f. Location of Südwerks: 47 ° 50 '14 "  N , 8 ° 33' 56"  O
  29. ↑ Seidelmann, early stage , p. 78 ff.
  30. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 46.
  31. ↑ a b Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 54.
  32. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 135, 157, 309.
  33. ↑ raw ore mining; Workforce including prisoners of war: Statistics at Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 196 f.
  34. ↑ Doggererz-Bergbau GmbH to Gauleiter Wagner on May 19, 1938. Quoted in Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 72.
  35. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 328.
  36. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 183 ff.
  37. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 336 ff.
  38. ↑ Huber, Eisenerz im Schwarzwald , p. 14 ff.
  39. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , pp. 177-183; see also Huber, im Schwarzwald ( Memento from April 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on September 1, 2012)
  40. ^ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , pp. 191, 199.
  41. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 250.
  42. ↑ Seidelmann, Messers Schneide , p. 46.
  43. ^ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 197.
  44. ↑ Peter, Armaments Policy , p. 362, referring to the situation report for the months April / May 1940 of the Secret State Police Office in Karlsruhe, printed in Schadt, Persecution , p. 296.
  45. ↑ Peter, Armaments Policy , p. 359.
  46. ↑ Situation report for the months April / May 1940 of the Secret State Police Office in Karlsruhe, printed in Schadt, Tracking , p. 296.
  47. ^ Letter to the Doggererz-Bergbau from January 18, 1937, quoted by Annelore Walz: From the agricultural settlement to the industrial city. In: Joachim Sturm (Ed.): The history of the city of Blumberg. Dold, Vöhrenbach 1995, ISBN 3-927677-06-X , pp. 319-380, here p. 368.
  48. ↑ Letter from the Donaueschingen district farming community to the rural farming community , quoted in Walz, Agrarsiedlung , p. 368.
  49. ↑ Purchase costs and raw iron production costs of Saarhütten 1938; Statistics from Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 83.
  50. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 192 f.
  51. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 327.
  52. ↑ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 187 f.
  53. ^ Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , pp. 193f.
  54. ↑ a b Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , pp. 329 ff, 344 f; Huber, Eisenerz im Schwarzwald , p. 25.
  55. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 52 f, 182, 190.
  56. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 333; Albiez, Eisenerz-Bergbau , p. 188. Location of the Neudingen premelting plant: 47 ° 54 ′ 53 ″  N , 8 ° 33 ′ 51 ″  E
  57. ↑ Landesplanungsgemeinschaft Baden to the Reich Office for Spatial Planning on June 13, 1939 , quoted in Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 334. See also Roland Peter: How the Nazis wanted to turn the Baar into a Ruhr area. In: Badische Zeitung , March 12, 1994.
  58. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 337 f; Seidelmann, Plans , p. 53; Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 214, 311, 326.
  59. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 339.
  60. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 340 ff. Location of the Kehl-Auenheim ironworks: 48 ° 36 ′ 35 ″  N , 7 ° 49 ′ 48 ″  E
  61. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 309; Joachim Sturm: Glider construction and air armament on the Baar 1935–1945. The Schwarzwald Flugzeugbau Donaueschingen GmbH. (PDF file, 9.5 MB) In: Writings of the Association for History and Natural History of the Baar. 2013 (56), ISSN  0340-4765 , pp. 109-132, here pp. 116, 119.
  62. ↑ Seidelmann, Die Baar loses its mining operations , p. 50.
  63. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 349 f.
  64. ^ A b Karl Britz: Auenheim. From the history of a village on the Upper Rhine. Heimatbund Auenheim eV, Kehl 1988, p. 302 ff.
  65. ↑ a b Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 351 f.
  66. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , pp. 60, 62.
  67. ↑ Seidelmann, Messers Schneide , pp. 43, 47, 49.
  68. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 335.
  69. ↑ Walcz, Doggererz , p. 43; Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 353.
  70. ↑ Seidelmann, Messers Schneide , p. 57.
  71. ↑ Seidelmann, Messers Schneide , pp. 62–64.
  72. ↑ Seidelmann, Messers Schneide , pp. 63, 65.
  73. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 355.
  74. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 353.
  75. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 11 f, 383 (quotations).
  76. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 371, 376.
  77. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 355 f; Walcz, Doggererz , p. 42; Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 361, 363, 371.
  78. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 372, 374.
  79. ↑ Annex to Section 12 (1) RVermG from Juris (accessed on May 7, 2010).
  80. ↑ Seidelmann, Badische Eisenerzpolitik , p. 356; Walcz, Doggererz , p. 94.
  81. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 376.
  82. ^ Overview of the holdings in the Freiburg State Archives (accessed on May 7, 2010).
  83. ↑ Freiburger Zeitung and Wirtschaftsblatt of January 8, 1939, quoted by Thorsten Mietzner: Between Democracy and Dictatorship. In: Joachim Sturm (Ed.): The history of the city of Blumberg. Dold, Vöhrenbach 1995, ISBN 3-927677-06-X , pp. 201–220, here p. 206. Digitized copy of the newspaper at the Freiburg University Library .
  84. ↑ a b Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 53.
  85. ↑ Seidelmann, Die Baar loses its mining operations , p. 37.
  86. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 51.
  87. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 73.
  88. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 143, 248, 411.
  89. ^ Letter from the Badische Heimstätte to the Baden Ministry of the Interior of December 17, 1937, quoted in Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 51 f.
  90. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 77.
  91. ↑ Walcz, Doggererz , p. 39.
  92. ^ IHK Freiburg to the district office of Donaueschingen in August 1938, quoted in Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 74.
  93. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , pp. 54, 74.
  94. ↑ Seidelmann, Eisenerz-Politik , p. 328.
  95. ↑ Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 74.
  96. ^ Wagner at a meeting on October 5, 1937, quoted in Seidelmann, Rahmen , p. 54.
  97. ↑ Seidelmann, Die Baar loses its mining operations , pp. 38, 41.
  98. ↑ Seidelmann, Eisenerz-Politik , p. 352.
  99. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , p. 345.
  100. ↑ Walz, Agrarsiedlung , p. 372.
  101. ↑ Walz, Agrarsiedlung , p. 374; City of Blumberg: Companies from A to Z. TRW Automotive GmbH. ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on May 7, 2010)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadt-blumberg.de
  102. ↑ Report to the Archbishop's Ordinariate Freiburg of September 28, 1938, quoted in: Seidelmann, "Eisenreate" , p. 156.
  103. ↑ Activity report of June 19, 1947, quoted in: Seidelmann, "Eisenhaben" , p. 155.
  104. ^ Information from the former manager von Kopperschmidt from March 15, 1990, quoted in: Seidelmann, "Eisenreate" , p. 344.
  105. ↑ Andrea Haussmann: Fight against hopelessness and poverty. In: Joachim Sturm (Ed.): The history of the city of Blumberg. Dold, Vöhrenbach 1995, ISBN 3-927677-06-X , pp. 235-274, here pp. 236-240.
  106. ↑ Seidelmann, "Create iron" , pp. 369, 374.
  107. ↑ Haußmann, Kampf , p. 262 f.
  108. ↑ Old traditions continued. In: Südkurier (accessed on May 7, 2010).
  109. ↑ Huber, Eisenerz im Schwarzwald , p. 13; Reiner Baltzer: The “black man” stands for integration . In: Südkurier (accessed on May 7, 2010).
  110. ↑ Reiner Baltzer: Saarstüble will be auctioned . In: Südkurier (accessed on May 7, 2010).
  111. ↑ Bernhard Häck: mining culture and their representation in public. Examples from Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. (Part 2) In: Der Anschnitt 3/2006 (58) ISSN  0003-5238 , pp. 120–135, here pp. 120–131.

Coordinates: 47 ° 50 ′ 56.8 ″  N , 8 ° 33 ′ 15.7 ″  E