Adolf Wirtz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The grave of Adolf Wirtz in the family grave at the main cemetery in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Adolf Wirtz (born March 3, 1872 in Neuwied ; † May 1, 1953 in Bad Pyrmont ) was a German engineer and industrial manager who was head of the Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte in Mülheim an der Ruhr from 1907 .

In the beginning of the 20th century he played a decisive role in the efficient use of energy in steel production . In the context of advancing industrial development, the qualified engineer with innovative ideas was not only a driving force in the technical field, but also in the efficient and humane work organization. His career as a smelter was marked by technical and business successes.

Vita

Adolf Wirtz was born the son of the businessman Heinrich Wirtz. He studied iron and steel engineering at the Clausthal mining academy . He gained his first professional experience at Düsseldorfer Röhren- und Eisenwalzwerke AG (formerly Poensgen), Gelsenkirchener Gußstahl- und Eisenwerke AG, formerly Munscheid & Co., and at Haniel & Lueg GmbH in Düsseldorf. His further path led him to Mannheim in 1902, where he took over the technical management of the Stahlwerke Mannheim AG there for five years .

In 1907 Wirtz came to the Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte (FWH) in Mülheim an der Ruhr and was commissioned by Hugo Stinnes to manage it. The traditional company in the Ruhr area has belonged to the German-Luxemburgish Mining and Hütten-AG (Deutsch-Lux) since 1905 . Despite unfavorable conditions, Wirtz developed the FWH into a flourishing business as the director of the hut. In 1926 he was appointed to the management board of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt). After Deutsche Eisenwerke AG was founded as VSt's own operating company in 1933, he became its chairman. Adolf Wirtz died at the age of 81 and was an honorary citizen of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr until 1995 .

Heat management of the FWH

Under relatively unfavorable conditions, Adolf Wirtz was given responsibility for the FWH in 1907. But thanks to the available investment capital and his innovative strength, the steady rise was successful. Hugo Stinnes, as head of the company, commented on the work of his smelter's director in 1924 with the words: "But you have turned a heap of rubble, at best a heap of scrap into a flourishing work". Two factors in particular had bothered the mixing company, which was designed from the manufacture of pig iron to mechanical engineering: Firstly, due to the lack of its own hard coal base, the FWH was severely affected by coal deliveries and their increased prices or poor quality - a cost factor and competitive disadvantage due to the resulting higher pig iron prices. Second, the FWH in Mülheim had a disadvantage in terms of location compared to the plants located on the Rhine, because the Ruhr was not adequately navigable at the time. Adolf Wirtz also played a decisive role in improving the “freight situation”, i.e. the Ruhr canalisation. According to a resolution by the Mülheim city ​​council in 1910, however, this was only carried out after the First World War in the 1920s.

Eisenhüttenmann Wirtz ensured a milestone in the development of the steel industry with the expansion of the heating and power industry at FWH. To do this, he broke new ground. The focus was on the efficient use of the gases produced in the manufacture of pig iron. At the instigation of Wirtz, the blast furnace and coke gases were used decisively as early as 1908 in a gas center of the FWH. "He deserves the credit for having pioneered this path, and he is the first smelter who wants to free the higher quality and more sought-after coke oven gas and luminous gas by utilizing the excess amounts of blast furnace gas." The successful collaboration with Heinrich Koppers , who Patent for the compound furnace based on the double regenerative system, crowned the commissioning of the first Siemens-Martin plant in the world, which was operated solely with excess gases from the coking plant and top gases from the blast furnaces . This resulted in a significant cost reduction for the FWH in the following years. The increased furnace temperature due to the efficient heating also improved the quality of the steel. The invention of Koppers and its implementation by the FWH smelting director Wirtz created standards that long afterwards set benchmarks for the profitability of a smelting works. “Today we are so far that a steel works does not need any coal other than the energy contained in the coking coal during normal operation. On the contrary, it is even conceivable that a plant with a particularly well-trained energy management system is in a position to deliver energy in some form to the outside world ”. With the use of the compound furnaces, Wirtz also made a significant contribution to a later long-distance gas supply for the city of Mülheim.

A mixer heated with blast furnace gas was also set up for the first time in 1908 at the FWH between the blast furnace and the foundries . And with the later takeover of the Portland cement plant W. Seifer & Co. in Mülheim , the opportunity arose to utilize the slag from the blast furnace operations.

Coordination of the foundries

Another area of ​​activity of Adolf Wirtz was the coordination of the foundries in the Ruhr area . With the formation of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG in 1926, which he was involved in founding, he was transferred as a member of the board to manage other companies in addition to the FWH. From this point on, he also headed the Schalke Club in Gelsenkirchen and the Concordia Hut in Engers. Because of the occupation of the Ruhr by the French and Belgian military as a result of the First World War, considerable production difficulties had existed in the factories since 1924. Wirtz recognized the vertical consolidation of the foundries as a decisive advantage for efficiency in the value chain. In 1932 the foundries within the VSt were combined in a special group, which he took over as head. In 1934, the newly founded Deutsche Eisenwerke AG , whose CEO Wirtz was until his retirement in 1942, also added the foundry of the Hüttenwerke in Duisburg-Meiderich, the Hilden plant, the Eisenwerk Wanheim GmbH , the Concordiahütte GmbH and the Vereinigte Economiserwerke GmbH .

Society and Research

After the elections for the city council on March 2, 1919, Adolf Wirtz, as a member of the Center Party, was a member of this municipal body of the city of Mülheim. In addition, he was active on the trade and industry advisory board of the Rhenish Center Party. After joining the NSDAP , which was suggested in 1933 , the following year, at the suggestion of the Gauleitung, he was appointed councilor of the city of Mülheim. There he also took on the functions of an advisory board member for finance and budgetary affairs as well as an advisory board member for matters relating to the port and shipping lanes. On March 3, 1942, he was made an honorary citizen of the city of Mülheim. At the same time, the workforce supported the establishment of the Dr. Adolf Wirtz Foundation . After the war he returned to his conservative Catholic political background and was a member of the CDU in Bad Pyrmont until his death . On March 23, 1995, the city council decided to revoke his honorary citizenship because it had been granted illegally.

In recognition of his services to the use of blast furnace and coke oven gas in the foundry and Martin furnace operation, the Clausthal Mining Academy awarded Adolf Wirtz an honorary doctorate in 1922 (as Dr.-Ing.Eh ). In 1932, the Technical University of Aachen made him an honorary citizen because of his work for the development of the Aachen Foundry Institute. The Foundry Industry Association and the Association of German Portland and Hüttenzementwerke honored him for his commitment in 1952.

The award of numerous patents, such as 1934 for the process for producing high-quality gray cast iron , is also associated with his name .

literature

  • Christian Kleinschmidt: "Human economy" on the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte around 1925. In: Grafe, Hombach, Müller (ed.): Mülheim an der Ruhr. An idiosyncratic city. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1990, pp. 176-189.
  • Christian Kleinschmidt: Made a flourishing work from a heap of scrap. The reorganization of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte before the First World War under Adolf Wirtz. In: Zeitschrift des Mülheimer Geschichtsverein , issue 63 (1991), pp. 65–82.
  • Fritz Pudor : Life pictures from the Rheinisch-Westphalian industrial area. (= Publications of the economic and business management association in the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area , issue 17.) August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1957, p. 83.
  • Kurt Unbehau: The honorary citizens of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr. Mülheim an der Ruhr 1974, pp. 70-73.
  • Andreas Zilt: The history of the Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte as reflected in the company name. In: Manfred Rasch (Hrsg.): Finding aid for the inventory of Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte (1811–1969). Thyssen AG archive, Duisburg 1997.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quote from a personal conversation between Adolf Wirtz and Hugo Stinnes, in the Thyssen AG archive, FWH 200, Adolf Wirtz, various personal documents , transcript from January 25, 1951
  2. ↑ Stahl und Eisen , Volume 31, 1911, No. 23
  3. ↑ Energy industry in smelting works. Your development at the Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte. In: Werkzeitung No. 8/1929 - quoted from FWH 400 04-5b
personal data
SURNAME Wirtz, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German metallurgical engineer and industrial manager, head of the Friedrich Wilhelms-Hütte in Mülheim an der Ruhr
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuwied
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1953
Place of death Bad Pyrmont