A. Grafe successor
A. Grafe successor was a glassworks in today Magdeburg belonging place Westerhüsen .
history
1864 founded Salbker bricklayer and carpenter Sigismund Schrader north of the sugar factory Brothers Schmidt and Coqui glassworks. Initially, sheet glass was later made from white hollow glass , mainly fish glasses, beer glasses and carafes. In 1872 Karl Höfer, Adolph Kramer and Conrad Voges took over the business. In 1873 the company Glasfabrik Westerhüsen AG was entered in the land register. Belgians were initially employed as glassmakers .
A tenement was built for them at Alt Westerhüsen 11. In 1902, the Alt Westerhüsen 12 building, which lies behind it and has six entrances, was added for the workers. This facility is still called the Glasmacherhof today. Contrary to a building plan from August 25, 1873, only the southern part of the glassmaker's yard was built on. The northern building was not built until 1949/50 by the Fahlberg-List chemical plant . The actual glassworks was located northeast of the Glasmacherhof, east of today's Alt Westerhüsen street and stretched as a narrow piece of land to the Elbe. In the north, the Fahlberg-List chemical plant was built from 1886.
The glassmakers, who often came from other regions, had relatively little contact with the long-established Westerhüser population and, for example, only rarely visited the church . The workforce at the plant comprised 210 people. In terms of residential buildings, the glassworks also acquired the buildings known as shipbuilders ' houses at Holsteiner Strasse 40 and 41 from the merchant Wilhelm Gerloff .
In 1878 the merchant Adolf Grafe junior from Magdeburg-Neustadt acquired the factory. He switched production to green and semi-white glass. The aggregates came from the Magdeburg region, but also from the Harz and Helmstedt . Uniform bottles and acid balloons were produced. The authorized signatory was Wilhelm Laue , plant manager August Dörries , who later took over the Salbker glassworks further north .
Initially, a port furnace fired with coal was used for production. The furnace had ten large, thick-walled clay vessels called harbors. From 2 p.m. one day, the aggregates sand, marl, soda and, if necessary for coloring, sodium sulphate or manganese dioxide were available. The mass was melted at a heat of 1300 to 1600 degrees Celsius. A beet attached to a rod was held in the mass in order to stir the mass more intensely. The glass was then processed from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The glassmakers then took portions of glass using a long iron pipe known as a pipe and puffed them up. The resulting glassware was cooled in a cooling oven for three (balloons) to five days (bottles).
In 1886 a Siemens gas furnace was used, which ran on lignite more cheaply. The daily coal requirement of both furnaces was 350 quintals of lignite and 20 quintals of hard coal. After the death of the unmarried and sick Count on May 5, 1890 in Sanremo , his sister Olga Krümmel and her husband Otto Krümmel continued to run the company as A. Grafe's successor .
From 1901 their son Willi Krümmel ran the business. By setting up a large tank from which liquid material continuously flowed, production could be increased considerably in 1902. In day and night shifts, 20,000 bottles, 10,000 screw-top jars and 300 acid balloons could be produced every day. The company employed 210 people. After 1901 there was a sharp drop in prices for bottles. An association of bottle factories founded in 1904 strictly regulated the production quantities, so that prices rose again significantly. In order to obtain the production quotas, the glassworks acquired the Oranienbaum bottle works in 1909 , which, however, continued to manufacture table glass until 1923.
At the beginning of the First World War , production was significantly reduced due to a lack of demand. In particular, the furnace was shut down and later not put back into operation. The acquisition of modern machines for bottle production did not take place even after the war. In 1926 the Aktiengesellschaft für Glasindustrie vorm finally acquired. Siemens Dresden the bottle contingent of seven million bottles. The neighboring chemical plant Fahlberg-List acquired the property. The company was shut down on August 1, 1926, and the employees were dismissed on August 11, 1926. Many were then employed at Fahlberg-List, including the harbor master Karl Zeitz . Willi Krümmel moved to Magdeburg. The former dispatcher of the glassworks, Karl Heine , kept records of the company's work.
literature
- Friedrich Großhennig, Ortschronik von Westerhüsen in the Magdeburg-SO district , manuscript in the Magdeburg city archive, signature 80 / 1035n, Part II, page 70 ff.
- The Westerhüser factories , Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt Magdeburg-Westerhüsen, 1924–1942
Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 11.4 " N , 11 ° 40 ′ 25.1" E