Adam Opel AG Bochum I plant

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Aerial view of Plant I, 2014
Administration building Plant I, Bochum

The Adam Opel AG plant Bochum I , together with the Opel plants II / III, was part of the Adam Opel AG production site in Bochum .

Plant I was located on the former site of mine I of the Dannenbaum colliery in the immediate vicinity of the Bochumer Ring city ​​motorway on the Nordhausen-Ring section. Factory gate 4 had an almost direct connection to the A44 motorway at the Bochum / Witten motorway junction .

After the plant was closed, the space was bought by Bochum Perspektive 2022 GmbH in 2015 at a symbolic price in order to use it for urban and commercial development as part of the Mark 51 ° 7 project . Most of the empty production buildings at Opel were subsequently dismantled.

history

When it became clear that the coal crisis was not only economic but structural, negotiations began in February 1959 with General Motors , represented by Gaston de Wolff , about the conditions for Opel to settle; on May 20, 1960, the city of Bochum announced the construction of an Opel plant on the grounds of the Dannenbaum colliery; its shutdown was decided on December 10, 1958 by Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG (GBAG).

In the same year the city acquired the site from GBAG for around DM 2.2 million, along with additional areas for a further DM 3 million, and made it ready for construction at a cost of around DM 1 million. Bochum took over all demolition costs as well as the liability for possible mining damage . In May 1960, the city of Bochum sold the construction-ready land for around 1.2 million DM to the Adam Opel AG and assumed additional costs of connecting to the to be built Opel ring (now part of the Bochum ring ) and the acquisition of modern power plant Bochum the Zeche Prinz Regent for the provision of energy and steam. In the Laer district , the appearance of the town changed significantly.

The earthworks began on August 15, 1960, and the concrete work began in January 1961. During the construction of the plant, more than 2 million cubic meters of earth were moved and around 500,000 cubic meters of concrete were used. After the topping-out ceremony on April 12, 1962, the plant was completed on October 10, 1962; In July 1963, production of the Opel Kadett A started on 458,000 square meters of production space. Of the 11,600 workers who worked in the Bochum plants in 1964, only 2564 came from the mining industry. Opel AG acquired a ten-year purchase option for a fourth plant on the site of the impregnation plant on Shaft V of the Lothringen colliery , today's Gerthe-Süd industrial park. The closure of the Mansfeld colliery on March 31, 1963 and the Robert Müser colliery on March 31, 1968 were presumably accelerated by the establishment of a structural safety pillar and the associated reduction in the size of the fields that could be mined.

Development of the factory and the range of models

In Bochum, initially only the new edition of the Kadett was manufactured with around 60 vehicles per hour and the output was then increased to 105 vehicles per hour by 1969. In 1970, with the Opel Manta from September and the Opel Ascona A from November, production of two further series began and continued until October 1980 (Ascona) and 1988 (Manta). In 1984 the world's first paint shop for water-based paints went into operation. In the peak year of 1992, 361,994 vehicles rolled off the assembly line, after which output and workforce fell continuously, even if the production of the Opel Zafira from 1999 meant a second series produced in Bochum and an annual output above the 300,000 vehicle mark. From 2004, in addition to the Zafira, only the station wagon types of the Opel Astra H were manufactured in Bochum. In three-shift operation around 1200 vehicles were built per day.

At peak times, around 20,000 people worked in Plants I, II and III; in 2003, around 10,800 people were still working. One reason for the loss of jobs while productivity increases at the same time is the increasing degree of automation in automotive production (e.g. more welding robots ). In 2011, around 5,170 people were still employed in the Opel works in Bochum. The discontinuation of automobile production in Bochum in 2014 will cut around 3,500 jobs. This was decided by the General Motors subsidiary's supervisory board on April 17, 2013 in Rüsselsheim at the suggestion of the management board . The last car, a Zafira, rolled off the assembly line in Bochum on December 5, 2014 at 12:27 a.m., and production of the Zafira Tourer was relocated to the Rüsselsheim plant.

After the shutdown

The demolition of the plant began in early 2015 with the paint shop.

The dismantling of the paint shop built in the 1980s was commissioned by Opel, and by the end of June 2015 a remaining workforce had ended all activities. The remaining buildings will be gutted and handed over to Bochum Perspektive 2022 for subsequent use. The administration building at the Opel-Ring O-Werk and a smaller auxiliary building (Building D2) for acetylene production are expected to be preserved as a monument . In front of building D2 is the works train locomotive V28-103 ( Henschel DH 500 Ca ), which is also being preserved as a monument. The rest of the site will be cleared.

The dismantling of the first section was completed in August 2017 with the symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the new DHL parcel center. In the second step, the former press shop with 1.5 million m³ of enclosed space will be dismantled and the renovated properties will be handed over to subsequent users in two stages in 2018 and 2019. From the time of the Dannenbaum colliery, 13 km of seams , 25 daily openings , 5 air protection tunnels and two underground construction shafts had to be explored and secured in the subsoil of the site .

Since March 2014 the plant has been listed in the Route of Industrial Culture , themed route Bochum .

literature

  • Günter Gleising (Ed.): "Opel is coming ... 25 years of Opel AG in Bochum", self-published by DKP District Board Bochum, Bochum 1987
  • Building administration of the city of Bochum "Community development settlement of Adam Opel AG in Bochum - example of industrial settlement on the site of an abandoned mining company", Bochum, January 1969

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Press office of the city of Bochum: Mark 51 7 - Former Opel factory I. Retrieved on February 15, 2017 (German).
  2. ^ Anton Zischka: The Ruhr in Transition - Field of Ruins or Savior of Tomorrow? . Scharioth'sche Buchhandlung, Essen 1966, p. 30f.
  3. ^ Günter Gleising
  4. Gleising p. 13
  5. ^ Opel website, Bochum location ( memento from June 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on April 10, 2011
  6. pie / scb: Production will be suspended from 2016: Final end for the Opel plant in Bochum. In: Focus Online . December 10, 2012, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  7. ^ Off for Bochum. WDR, April 17, 2013 ( online )
  8. http://www.landmarken-ag.de/projekte/o-werk/
  9. Andreas Rorowski: "Opel's administration building - permanent preservation possible" in the WAZ from April 30, 2015
  10. oA Stadtspiegel Bochum "Adam becomes Mark", Wednesday, January 10, 2018, p. 20

Web links

Description of this sight on the route of industrial culturehttp: //vorlage.rik.test/~29~12960

Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 57 ″  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 50 ″  E