AG Weser

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A model from the shipyard around 1980 with the two distinctive portal cranes

The stock corporation "Weser" (colloquially just called AG Weser ) was a shipyard in Bremen - Gröpelingen . The company, which was founded in 1872, was closed in 1983 as a result of worldwide overcapacity in shipbuilding and an overly one-sided focus on building large tankers .

In the course of its 140-year existence, AG "Weser" built around 1,400 ships; In addition to the civilian shipyard, the shipyard was heavily involved in military shipbuilding, both for the Imperial Navy (1872–1918) and later for the Imperial and Navy (1921–1945). She played a major role in the construction of submarines in both world wars .

From 1926 to 1945 the company was part of the Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG (Deschimag).

history

Emergence

The AG "Weser" was founded in 1872 as the successor to the iron foundry and mechanical engineering institute Waltjen & Leonhard, founded in 1843 by Johann Carsten Hinrich Waltjen and Heinrich Leonhardt, which was located on the outskirts of Bremen on Stephanikirchenweide (today part of Überseestadt ). This iron foundry and machine factory had a wide-ranging program “ for everything that can be made of iron ”, such as bridges and cranes, iron lock gates, steam boilers and steam engines up to entire factory equipment. In 1847 a new ship was built for the first time, with construction number 1 the iron side-wheel steamer Roland , used as a towing vehicle and for passenger transport. For around 50 years, the Roland served first on the Oberweser, then on the Unterweser and in the seaside resort service to Norderney and Wangerooge . Other ships were built, including three torpedo boats for the Imperial Navy in 1871 .

After Heinrich Leonhardt, who did not want to do shipbuilding, left the company, the company was converted into the corporation C. Waltjen & Co. in 1848 .

With the realization that shipbuilding would take a steady rise and that Bremen would have to be involved in it, the Actien-Gesellschaft “Weser” was founded in 1872 by eighteen Bremen merchants and entrepreneurs. Due to its favorable location on the banks of the Weser, the Waltjen company appeared to be a very suitable basis and was consequently bought up - obviously after the owner Carsten Waltjen's initial reluctance. Carsten Waltjen later became a member of the board of the new stock corporation.

The new company - according to an advertisement in the Weser newspaper of March 28, 1872, a "Society for the construction of iron ships, steam ships, steam engines, machine parts, etc." - started shipbuilding with a few smaller units. The first major order, which is important for the shipyard's survival, came from the Imperial Navy. A total of 29 gunboats were built between 1875 and 1884. This was the entry into military shipbuilding for the "Weser" group. However, the main orders were initially in the non-military sector. It soon became clear, however, that the increasing number of incoming orders and the increasing size of ships - especially in the military sector - would necessitate an expansion of the shipyard. The current one only had a single transverse slipway .

In 1901 the company then leased a 47 hectare plot of land from the Bremen state in the suburb of Gröpelingen, around 5 km from Bremen's old town near the Bremen ports, for a period of 60 years. Production and staff were gradually moved to the new plant, and the relocation was completed in mid-1905. The old shipyard had meanwhile been sold to North German Lloyd .

Development into a large shipyard

View over Gröpelingen to the shipyard's Helgen scaffolding, around 1914

From the founding of the shipyard in 1872 until the First World War , around 125 civilian “self-propelled ships” - freight and passenger steamers, tugs, fish steamers, floating cranes and others - were delivered according to the AG “Weser” new build lists , including the three largest so far in 1915 Freight steamer with 8,319 GRT each for the Bremen DDG Hansa. These were also the last civil buildings delivered during the war. In addition, there were numerous " ships without self-propulsion" - barges, pontoons and a total of four sailing ships - as well as a number of "floating dredgers" .

Amazingly, the Bremen-based shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) did not award many orders to the shipyard, although Waltjen & Leonhard had delivered the Falke (II), 663 GRT, the first and, for a long time, only seagoing ship of this shipping company built in Germany in 1866 . The NDL's passenger ships were initially built in English shipyards; It was not until the mid- 1880s that Lloyd ordered again from German companies, but mostly from AG Vulcan Stettin , Schichau in Danzig and Blohm & Voss in Hamburg . In 1900, AG Weser supplied the steamer Deli for the East Asian coastal voyage, then in 1903 the Reichspoststampfer Prinz Sigismund , two Reichspostdampfer of the Feldherren class (Goeben, Lützow ) and finally in 1909 the 17,000 GRT Berlin for the Mediterranean-New York service. In 1913 the shipyard manufactured the pontoon of the floating crane “Langer Heinrich” for DEMAG . During the First World War, 81 were but a few civilian ships a total of submarines of the types UB , UC and U 57 completed.

Labor disputes in the First World War

Even before the First World War, there were two large shipyard workers 'strikes in the AG Weser in 1910 and 1913, during which trade unionists on the left wing of the Social Democrats and the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV) gained influence among the workers. Labor shortages during the war were partially compensated for by the use of prisoners of war, but armaments production led to an intensification of work, restrictions of labor rights and new conflicts. Between 1916 and 1918, parallel to many other armaments factories, there were also political strike movements at the AG Weser, beginning with a sympathy strike against the conviction of Karl Liebknecht in June 1916. Despite the initial thinning at the beginning of the war, the social democratic war opponents of the group “ Bremer Left Radicals “Greater influence among the shipyard workers, and political trade union networks based on the model of the“ revolutionary stewards ”were formed. The politicization of the workers culminated in November 1918 with the formation of a workers' council and active participation in the November Revolution .

In the Weimar Republic

After the war, the Bremen banker JF Schröder , owner of the Schröder Bank , took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board on August 27, 1919 . Schröder later initiated a concentration of shipyards that led to the establishment of Deschimag. On April 1, 1921, Franz Stapelfeldt was made chairman of the board.

In order to circumvent the Versailles Treaty , the cover organization Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw was founded in 1922 with the support of the German Reichsmarine together with the shipyards Vulcan-Werke Hamburg and Stettin Actiengesellschaft and the F. Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel in The Hague with the aim of building submarines to continue and to maintain and further develop knowledge of submarine construction.

The Spanish submarine E-1, designed by the Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw
The turbines - fast steamer " TS Bremen " before the launch , in 1928

When the situation in shipbuilding became critical in the mid-1920s, AG Weser merged with seven other shipyards to form the Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft (Deschimag). According to the presentation of the Deschimag founders, mainly Bremen merchants, bankers and industrialists, the shipyard, now trading as Deschimag AG “Weser” , should take over the management position there. In the following years most of Deschimag's other shipyards went bankrupt, were sold or, like the Tecklenborg shipyard in Wesermünde, closed. Despite this concentration process and the associated reduction in shipbuilding capacity, the times of the Great Depression around 1930 were economically difficult. After the bankruptcy of Rostocker Werft AG Neptun in the summer of 1934 and the cessation of shipbuilding at Frerichswerft Einswarden the following year, the Deschimag group consisted only of the parent shipyard (AG Weser, Bremen works) and the Seebeck shipyard in Wesermünde, which was known as "AG Weser, Seebeck plant ”.

The construction of the turbine - express steamer TS Bremen , which began in 1927 - one of the most famous passenger ships in German seafaring history - ensured sufficient employment for several years. After its delivery to Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1929, there were still a few new construction orders, but at the end of 1929 more than 5,000 of the approximately 12,000-strong workforce had to be laid off. After the Uhenfels, the last new building for the time being, was delivered to DDG Hansa in 1931 , the Helgen remained empty for several years. The construction of the new ship came to a complete standstill and in the summer of 1932 the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was not until May 1934 that a new building was launched again with the Cairo .

At the time, further business fields in addition to shipbuilding were the construction of ship propulsion systems such as steam engines, diesel engines and steam turbines, ship gears and clutches and steam boilers - both in-house developments and licensed production - as well as Bauer-Wach steam turbines , a development taken over by the Tecklenborg shipyard after its closure . AG Weser was also successful in issuing licenses for many of these units. For a long time the shipyard was also a pioneer in the construction of ships based on the Maier shape , a special hull shape to increase seaworthiness and economy.

The first half of the 1930s were economically difficult; only a few ships were built. The subsidiary Weser-Flugzeugbau-GmbH was founded in 1934 in order to be able to participate in the arming of the Reichswehr (from 1935 Wehrmacht / Luftwaffe ).

Military shipbuilding

With the construction of gunboats for the Imperial Navy, AG Weser was involved in military shipbuilding right from the start. With a total of 146 units for the Imperial Navy and 196 units for the Kriegsmarine, the shipyard became one of the most important suppliers of warships. Thus the AG "Weser" stood in contrast to the second major Bremen shipyard Bremer Vulkan , which, with the exception of the war years, concentrated exclusively on civil shipbuilding and did not enter into warship construction until the 1980s.

The share of naval structures in the delivered new buildings was already around 50% for AG Weser in the years 1909/10 and almost 100% in 1917/18, in 1936 already 66% with an increasing share to 82% in 1938.

As early as 1912 there was a design office for submarines at the shipyard. In order to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Treaty , the cover company Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw was founded in The Hague , Holland , in 1922 with the support of the German Reichsmarine and together with the shipyards Vulcan-Werke Hamburg and Stettin AG ( Vulcan Stettin / Vulcan Hamburg ) and the Kiel Krupp Germania shipyard Purpose to continue the submarine construction and to maintain and further develop knowledge in submarine construction.

Lützow , which was sold to the Soviet Union in 1940 , is towed half-finished towards Leningrad
Construction drawing submarine type XXI

In 1936 the first new building for the navy took place with the construction of the artillery training ship Brummer . In the years that followed, the Deschimag Group placed major orders primarily for the construction of destroyers and submarines: in 1935 alone, four destroyers and eight submarines. By the end of 1939, Deschimag-Stammwerft AG Weser had delivered 17 submarines of the types I A , VII A , IX A and B , ten destroyers of the 1934 A and 1936 series and one artillery training ship . Six torpedo boats of the 1935 series were in the final equipment. The two heavy cruisers of the Admiral Hipper class that had been launched were not completed: by order of Hitler, work on converting the Seydlitz to an aircraft carrier was stopped in early 1943 ; in 1940 the unfinished Lützow was sold to the Soviet Union .

Up to the end of the Second World War almost only warships were built, in addition to 15 destroyers of the 1936 A, 1936 A (Mob), 1936 B series , a considerable number of the 1,174 German submarines that were launched from 1935 to 1945 ( of which 1153 put into service). The 162 submarines built by AG Weser belonged to the larger classes IX (overseas boats ) and XXI (electric boats; from May 1944). With 224 boats only Blohm & Voss in Hamburg delivered more.

In October 1944, the shipyard was hit so badly in the air raids on Bremen that operations had to be temporarily suspended.

Almost a fifth of the 20,000 shipyard workers were forced laborers and prisoners of war , and in 1944 there were 1,500 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp . In 1944, under harsh and inhuman conditions, the construction of the submarine bunker Hornet began on the site of the AG Weser . To protect against bombing raids, submarine sections were to be built here, which were then to be assembled into submarines in the Valentin submarine bunker under the direction of the Bremer Vulkan. Both bunkers were never completed.

After the Second World War, the shipyard was no longer active in warship construction with one exception: On behalf of Bremer Vulkan as general contractor , the Lower Saxony frigate was launched at AG Weser in 1980 and, after completion at the Vulkan , was put into service by the German Navy in October 1982 .

After the Second World War

After the war, the shipyard was dismantled and most of the machinery was confiscated and delivered to the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1948 as a reparation payment . Helgen and cranes were blown up. In some cases, the shipyard site and the shipyard harbor were blocked by damaged or sunken ships, mainly submarines and damaged floating docks. Estimates assume that the buildings on the shipyard were destroyed by 25 to 40 percent and that the shipyard was about 80 percent incapable of working after the machinery was dismantled. The Deschimag was dissolved at the end of 1945, the shipyards operated again under their original name Aktien-Gesellschaft “Weser” or AG “Weser” Seebeckwerft .

Since shipbuilding was forbidden by the military government, a solution was sought to keep as large a part of the shipyard's workforce as possible and thus to preserve the acquired know-how as well as to initiate the necessary clean-up work and to prepare a possible later shipbuilding. In the summer of 1946, Bremer Maschinenbau und Dockbetrieb GmbH, or Bremer Dock for short , was founded, which settled on the shipyard site and took over a large part of the "Weser" workforce. In the following years, Bremer Dock mainly dealt with repair work on ships and other means of transport, repair work on destroyed businesses and general mechanical engineering tasks.

According to the Potsdam Agreement , the “Weser” AG should be one of the five German shipyards that were forever extinguished. Thanks in particular to the efforts of the then Mayor of Bremen, Wilhelm Kaisen , the Allied shipbuilding restrictions were lifted, and in 1951 the Weser received approval for new ships to be built. The Seebeck shipyard , which was less destroyed and spared from dismantling , received it in 1949. The Bremer Dock was now superfluous and was dissolved. The shipyard's first new ship was built in 1952 with the 2,650 GRT freighter Werratal .

An extensive modernization program was carried out from 1963 to 1970. The shipyard then presented itself with cranes for 500 and 780 t lifting power, which spanned two helges for ships up to 500,000 tdw . In addition, buildings were erected in which the most modern technology was used to rationally pre-assemble ship and machine parts. At that time, AG Weser and its affiliated Seebeck shipyard employed around 8,000 people. This made it the largest shipyard in the Weser-Ems area again.

The AG “Weser” then concentrated on ship sizes up to 400,000 dwt, the Bremerhaven Seebeck shipyard on those up to 20,000 dwt. In addition to the construction of new ships, the program also included ship repairs and conversions as well as engine and aggregate construction.

The frigate Lower Saxony (F208)

From 1963, with the expansion of the shipyard, it was possible to build ships up to a size of 150,000 dwt. Soon AG Weser was again the largest shipyard in the Weser-Ems area.

In the years that followed, the shipyard continued to expand without fundamentally changing the manufacturing processes. As a result, many orders for large tankers were accepted. The last expansion in the early 1970s enlarged the shipyard so much that it could have built ships of up to 650,000 tdw.

After the first oil crisis in 1973 , however, there were no further tanker orders. Large tankers could no longer be produced in Germany at competitive prices, large tank construction shifted to Japan and on to Korea, where a national shipbuilding policy enabled strategic investments in the construction of large sections in series. In addition, the last major shareholder, with 86 percent, was Fried. Krupp GmbH, a subsidiary of Friedrich Krupp AG , always rich in strategic concepts for diversification, but scarce with investment capital.

To the shift , sculpture by Waldemar Otto
Working hands , sculpture by Bernd Altenstein

At the beginning of the 1980s, Bremen was finally hit by the shipyard crisis , there were no orders for the two large shipyards AG Weser and Bremer Vulkan . The desired closer cooperation between the shipyards failed mainly because of competition.

After long, ultimately unsuccessful negotiations and the occupation of the shipyard by the workers under the leadership of the works council chairman Hans Ziegenfuß , who fought to maintain the shipyard, AG Weser was closed on December 31, 1983. For the Krupp Group it was just one of many subsequent portfolio adjustments, for the Bremen location the second shutdown in the shipyard industry with numerous suppliers and service providers after the shutdown of the Atlas-Werke shipyard as part of the breakdown of Hugo Stinnes AG .

Commemoration

  • The sculpture Zurschicht from 1983 in Gröpelingen , at the corner of Lindenhofstrasse / Dockstrasse, by Waldemar Otto recalls the working life as well as the political struggles and the occupation of the former shipyard workers in 1983.
  • The sculpture Working Hands from 1987 in Gröpelingen on the Bürgermeister-Ehlers-Platz on Pastorenweg by the sculptor Bernd Altenstein takes up the theme of the shipyard worker in the form of two working hands.
  • The bunker mural with shipyard motifs at Pastorenweg 70 in Bremen Gröpelingen was created in 1978 by Jürgen Waller and students from the University of the Arts.
  • With the Werftstrasse in Gröpelingen-Lindenhof, the AG Weser is thought of.
  • The memorial stone for Carsten Waltjen , founder of a shipyard that became AG Weser, is on the Waller Friedhof .
  • The Stapelfeldt street in Gröpelingen was to shipyard Director General Franz Stapelfeldt named.
  • A commemorative plaque shipbuilding in Bremen The Werft AG "Weser" and a crane running element of the gantry crane is located on the former shipyard at Helgen V behind the waterfront building in Gröpelingen.
  • In front of the old administration building of AG Weser, the stop of tram line 3 was named Use Akschen .

Günther Hörmann , Thomas Mitscherlich , Detlef Saurin made a documentary in 1983/1984 with the title: "The Downfall of the AG Weser".

building

Administration building from 1905
Administration building from 1930

Administration building from 1905

The administration building of AG "Weser", Schiffbauerweg 2/4 in the Bremen-Häfen district on the border with Gröpelingen was built from 1903 to 1905 according to plans by the architect Diedrich Tölken and expanded in 1930. A renovation took place in 1949/50 according to plans by Th. Rottgeri. The massive three-storey, red-stone-faced building with its hipped roofs in the neo-renaissance style corresponds in design to the era of historicism . It is grouped around two atriums.

It was one of the most representative buildings in Bremen, comparable to the office buildings of Johann Poppe ( Sparkasse Bremen , Reisbörse, Bremen Cotton Exchange , Lloyd building ) and the Bremer Bank am Domshof designed by Tölcken and Albert Dunkel . After the war damage and the renovations, all of the gable and roof structures such as the clock tower - as roof turrets and the domed lantern of the tower attendant have disappeared. Today the building is characterized by the massive arched portal of the main entrance with the sculptural decoration. The calm, time-typical structure made of light sandstone gives the building an objective note.

Administration building from 1930

The four-storey extension building, Schiffbauerweg 4, built in 1930, adapts to the old building from 1905 in terms of cornice height and facade material. It is in the tradition of the North German-Dutch baroque "brick classicism " of the 17th century. The extension supplements the main building and forms an inseparable assembly with it. A relief of a “heroic” shipbuilder is located above the entrance to the eastern connecting passage between the two structures.

Monument protection

In 2006 the administration buildings were placed under monument protection (see: List of cultural monuments in Bremen-Häfen for the construction of 1905 and the construction of 1930 ).

Current condition

Existing administration building ensemble

Machine park and inventory of AG "Weser" were sold, most of the buildings gradually demolished. The administration building erected in 1905 now houses the Hanse Wasser Bremen, the building from 1930 is used by other companies. The two portal cranes - a landmark of the shipyard that can be seen from afar - stood for a long time until they found a buyer and were dismantled.

The people of Bremen called and still call the AG “Weser” colloquially “Use Akschen” , ie “Our shares (company)”, which shows the bond between the (Gröpelinger) citizens and “their” shipyard. The Waterfront Bremen shopping arcade , the Pier 2 event hall and a few other smaller companies are located on the former shipyard site , after the Space Park Bremen , which was originally located there, was closed again in September 2004 after almost seven months of operation due to insufficient visitor interest .

Use Akschen street now runs through the former shipyard site.

Ships

Selection of built self-propelled ships; Years based on commissioning

At AG Weser, the coastal armored ships Beowulf (launched in 1890) and Frithjof (1891), the large-line ships Westfalen (1908), Thuringia (1909) and Markgraf (1913), the armored cruiser Gneisenau (1906) and the great cruiser Victoria were built for the Imperial Navy Luise (1897) and fourteen small cruisers starting with Hela (1895), then Niobe (1899), Ariadne and Medusa (1900), Frauenlob and Arcona (1902), Bremen (1903), Munich (1904) and Leipzig (1905), Magdeburg (1911) and Stralsund (1911), then Regensburg (1914), Königsberg (1915) and Emden (1916); the small cruiser Leipzig was no longer completed. The mine cruisers Nautilus (1906) and Albatross (1908) and the survey ship Planet (1905) were also built at AG Weser .

  • 1847, building no. 1, side wheel steamer Roland , 346 BRT (after Thiel, after Kludas 187 BRT, which seems more plausible) for the company for the operation of a steamship on the Oberweser, sold in 1857 to the North German Lloyd (NDL)
  • 1866, building no. 6, steamer North Sea for the NDL, u. a. Used in Heligoland service, broken up in 1933
  • 1870, building no. 12, paddle steamer Lloyd, 332 GRT, first ship for the North German Lloyd , used in the seaside resort service. Until the start of the war in 1914, AG Weser delivered only eleven ships to the Bremen shipping company.
  • 1876, Panzerkanonenboot Wespe , first ship for the Imperial Navy , type ship of ten other boats built by AG Weser that were rarely in service.
  • 1877, Bark Prince Bismarck
  • 1883, building no. 62, Freight steamer Soneck for the German steam shipping company "Hansa" (DDG Hansa), first of 56 ships for this shipping company until 1967, 15 of them until 1915.
  • 1900, small cruiser Niobe of the Gazelle class , by 1916 a further eleven small cruisers were completed for the Imperial Navy, plus three Aviso and two mine cruisers .
  • 1900, construction no. 126, freight steamer Deli, 1394 GRT, for the coastal service of North German Lloyd between Singapore and Bangkok.
  • 1903, building no. 136, Reichspostdampfer Prinz Sigismund , 3302 BRT, for North German Lloyd for use on the Singapore – New Guinea – Sydney branch line, later Australia – New Guinea – Yap – Japan.
  • 1906, construction no. 148/9, freighter Thuringia and Lorraine, 5000 GRT, for the Australian service of North German Lloyd.
  • 1906, building no. 155, Lightship Reserve Sonderburg as the first of four sister ships, today converted into the sailing training ship Alexander von Humboldt .
  • 1907, construction no. 151, Reichspostdampfer Goeben , 8792 BRT, for North German Lloyd for use on the main line to East Asia.
  • 1907, ship of the line Westfalen of the Nassau class for the Imperial Navy, took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak in 1916 , extradited to Great Britain in 1920, broken up in 1924.
  • 1908, building no. 160, Reichspostdampfer Lützow , 8818 BRT, for North German Lloyd for use on the main line to East Asia.
  • 1909, building no. 164, passenger steamer Berlin , 17324 GRT, for the North German Lloyd for use between Genoa and New York.
  • 1911/1913, ships of the line Thuringia ( Helgoland class ) and Margrave ( König class ) for the Imperial Navy, both ships took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak; Thuringia extradited to France in 1920, scrapped 1923–33; Margrave interned in Scapa Flow in 1918 , sunk himself there in 1919, lifted and scrapped in 1936.
  • 1914–1918, 81 submarines for the Imperial Navy, 36 of them from the UB III series .
  • 1926, building no. 398, rotor motor ship Barbara , test ship with additional propulsion by three Flettner rotors on the deck (utilization of the Magnus effect , see also rotor ships ).
  • 1929, construction no. 872, high-speed turbine steamer Bremen for North German Lloyd. The Bremen won the Blue Ribbon on her maiden voyage with an average speed of 27.83 knots. On her 187th Atlantic crossing at the end of August 1939, the outbreak of war caught the Bremen by surprise; under their captain Commodore Ahrens , the breakthrough from New York via Murmansk to Germany succeeded. The ship burned down on the Bremerhaven quay in March 1941, presumably as a result of a crew member being arson.
  • 1935, construction no. 891, Schnelldampfer Scharnhorst for the East Asian service of North German Lloyd with turbo-electric drive. When the war began in Japan, Scharnhorst was converted into an aircraft carrier there in 1942/43 . When Shin'yō was sunk by a US submarine off Shanghai on November 17, 1944.
    • the sister ship, hull no. 893, Gneisenau , also for the East Asian service, but with geared turbines, was at home when the war began. A conversion to an aircraft carrier, which was also planned here, was omitted. Served as a troop transport and houseboat. Sank on May 2, 1943 off Gedser after being hit by a mine.
  • 1936, the artillery training ship Brummer was the first ship that AG Weser completed for the Navy .
  • 1936, 7 submarines also delivered, hull numbers. 903/4, U 25 and U 26 , the first deep sea boats of the Kriegsmarine and only boats of the IA series , as well as hull numbers. 908–912, U 27 to U 31 , so-called Atlantic boats of the VIIA series . By the end of the war, AG Weser had completed U 32 of the type VIIA, 113 offshore boats of the various series of the type IX and 41 of the type XXI .
  • 1937, construction no. 899, destroyer Z 5 Paul Jacobi ; Wrecked in France in 1958. AG Weser built 25 of a total of 40 destroyers in the Kriegsmarine .
  • 1937, construction no. 906/907, 917/918, 950, five motor cargo ships of the Ehrenfels type for DDG Hansa, four sister ships at Bremer Vulkan ,
    • including 1937, hull no. 917, Kandelfels, used in the war as an auxiliary cruiser Pinguin , captured and shot at by the British cruiser HMS Cornwall in 1941 , exploded and sunk after being hit in the mine hold, over 300 dead.
  • 1937, construction no. 933, Unitas whaling mother ship for the Margarine Union , the associated fishing boats were built in 1937 near the Bremer Vulkan ( Unitas I, building no. 751, and Unitas II-VIII, building no. 740-746).
  • 1937, construction no. 925–930, six motorized freighters of the Eider type for Norddeutscher Lloyd, the hulls of the last two ships were subcontracted to Seebeck-Werft ,
    • including 1938, construction no. 926, Ems, used in the war as an auxiliary cruiser Komet ; Sunk in the English Channel at the end of 1942 by British planes and motor torpedo boats. 251 dead, only one survivor
  • 1939, cruisers Seydlitz and Lützow of the Admiral Hipper class , both ships were not completed.
  • 1953–1954, turbine tanker Olympic Cloud, -Wind, -Storm, -Breeze, -Rainbow, -Sky for Olympic Transportation Co., New York (owner: Aristoteles Onassis )
  • 1979, Lower Saxony frigate for the German Navy (in cooperation with the Bremer Vulkan as general contractor)
  • 1983, construction no. 1417, the motor ship Ubena for the DAL ( Deutsche Afrika-Linien ), Hamburg was the last ship built by AG Weser.

literature

  • Antonio Farina: The “restless workforce”. Arms production and labor movement in a submarine shipyard. The “Weser” working group during World War I, in: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2014, pp. 85–107.
  • Peter Kuckuk , Hartmut Roder , Günter Scharf, University of Bremen: Frames and sections: Shipyards and shipbuilding in Bremen and the Lower Weser region in the 20th century . 1st edition. Steintor Verlag, Bremen 1986, ISBN 3-926028-03-3 .
  • Peter Kuckuk (Ed.): The AG "Weser" in the post-war period 1945–1953. Contributions to the social history of Bremen, Issue 14. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-86108-546-1 .
  • Peter Kuckuk (Ed.): Unterweserwerften in the post-war period, from the "zero hour" to the "economic miracle" . Contributions to the social history of Bremen, Issue 20, Edition Temmen, Bremen 1998, ISBN 3-86108-612-3 .
  • Heiner Heseler, Hans Jürgen Kröger (eds.): Imagine that the shipyards belong to us ... VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1983, ISBN 3-87975-251-6 .
  • Reinhold Thiel: The history of the Actien-Gesellschaft "Weser" 1843–1983. Volume I: 1843-1919. Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-89757-271-0 .
  • Reinhold Thiel: The history of the Actien-Gesellschaft "Weser" 1843–1983. Volume II: 1919-1945. Verlag HM Hauschild GmbH, Bremen 2006, ISBN 3-89757-338-5 .
  • Reinhold Thiel: The history of the Actien-Gesellschaft "Weser" 1843–1983. Volume III: 1945-1983. Verlag HM Hauschild GmbH, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89757-342-0 .
  • Arnold Kludas : The ships of North German Lloyd 1857 to 1970 . Licensed edition Weltbildverlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-86047-262-3 .
  • Jörg Wollenberg : The working group "Weser" between social partnership and class struggle. Labor disputes and political strikes by Bremen shipyard workers. Bremen 1984, ISBN 3-88107-042-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ uboat.net (English)
  2. ↑ According to a newspaper report from 1953, the shipyard workers' strike, which ended after six and a half weeks, was the fifth and shortest since 1910. The strikes of 1910, 1913, 1923/24 and 1928 lasted thirteen weeks or longer. Source: “Tomorrow the work in the shipyards begins”, Weser-Kurier of June 9, 1953, p. 3 online only for subscribers
  3. ↑ Antonio Farina: The "restless workforce". Arms production and labor movement in a submarine shipyard. The “Weser” working group during World War I, in: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2014, pp. 85–107.
  4. ^ Peter Müller: The working group "Weser" in Bremen. ( Memento from July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ The U-boat Shipyards on uboat.net (English)
  6. ↑ Eike Hemmer, Robert Milbradt: Bunker "Hornisse". Concentration camp prisoners in Bremen and the “AG Weser” submarine shipyard in 1944/45. Donat, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-938275-02-2 , especially p. 65 ff and p. 100 ff.
  7. ^ Atlas works
  8. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  9. ↑ Friedrich Ludwig Middendorf: masting and rigging of ships. Springer, Berlin 1903, reprint 1971 and Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-302-9654-2 , p. 137 f.

Web links

Commons : Aktien-Gesellschaft “Weser”  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 6 ′ 45 "  N , 8 ° 44 ′ 55"  E