Debris removal from Düren

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The deputation of Düren was a necessary measure after the destruction of the Second World War in the district town of Düren in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Düren was badly damaged after several air raids . After the air raid on November 16, 1944, only four houses in the city center were still habitable.

In January 1946, the city administration took the L. Schneiders company from Birkesdorf under contract for the debris removal work. She laid a narrow-gauge rail network in the city center. Small steam trains then drove there. Since the company's own workers were not enough, all male citizens between 17 and 60 years of age were called to honorary service by Mayor Richard Bollig on December 13, 1946 for the purpose of debiting, but this did not bring the desired success. About 1.6 million tons of rubble had to be removed. Since this could not be done with the small company and the few volunteer helpers, the city administration signed a contract with the road construction company Hermann Milke KG from Soest on April 16, 1947 , which provided for the rubble removal within ten years. After starting operations in Düren on June 26, 1947, she set up a sorting facility at the Jesuitenhof on Nideggener Strasse . There, usable building materials such as stones etc. were processed for reuse and new building blocks were formed from ground material. 1000 hollow blocks and 12,000 solid blocks were produced daily, which were used to rebuild the houses.

Non-reusable rubble was brought to the rubble mountain in the Burgau Forest with their trolleys via the narrow-gauge railway network, which has now been extended to 11 km in length (max. Speed ​​13 km / h) . The rubble was still stored there in 2016.

The offices, workshops and accommodation for the workers of the Milke company were in barracks on Nideggener Strasse in the so-called Swiss settlement . This settlement was donated on August 6, 1946 by the Swiss Red Cross between Nideggener Strasse, what was then Mühlenweg and Piusstrasse for returning residents .

In August 1947, the Werner Horst company from Hoven was committed to the removal of debris in the green belt .

Again and again all work was interrupted because the necessary funds from the state did not come to Düren or simply because there was a lack of workers. At times, prisoners and refugees from the east also had to be deployed. The Milke company used a large steam excavator on tracks that needed 20 quintals of coal a day , which always led to bottlenecks .

In 1954 the last heaps of rubble were removed. In 1958, the Milke company closed the branch in Düren.

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  • Traces - magazine of the Dürener Geschichtswerkstatt e. V. , No. 29 of August 2016