Anhalt coal works

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anhalt coal works
legal form Corporation
founding February 5, 1881
(predecessor 1867)
Seat Frose from 1867
Berlin from 1881
Halle (Saale) from 1908
Berlin from 1940
Berlin-West from 1950
Düsseldorf from 2007
Branch power supply

The Anhaltische Kohlenwerke (short: AKW ) were a listed mining company in the Central German lignite area . The remaining assets of the stock corporation are now managed by an asset company.

founding

The company dates back to 1867, when Froser Braunkohlen-Bergbau AG , which was founded specifically for this purpose, opened up the Ludwig lignite mine , which was later renamed the Anhalt mine, after the lending of pit fields in Frose . From their operating company, the union Zeche Anhalt , the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke AG , based in Berlin , emerged in 1881 . In the following years, the nuclear power plant expanded through the acquisition and opening of numerous other lignite mines in the region. In 1908 the company moved its headquarters from Berlin to the Prussian province of Saxony , to Halle .

Acquisitions

Decorative briquette from the Mariengrube briquette factory of the Anhalt coal works

In 1918 the Jewish industrialist Julius Petschek ( Prague ) acquired the majority of the shares in Anhaltische Kohlenwerke. After the coal industry law was passed (1919), the nuclear power stations became compulsory members of the Central German Brown Coal Syndicate .

From October 1, 1924, the company worked as part of an administrative partnership with Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG , whose majority of the shares were also owned by Julius Petschek. By the end of the 1920s, the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke, which in fact already belonged together, and the Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG developed into the largest lignite producers in Central Germany.

After the death of Julius Petschek (1932), his heirs decided to give up the business in Germany and transferred the shares of Anhaltischen Kohlenwerke and Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG to the United Continental Corporation (UCC) via a British intermediate holding company. In October 1934, the company acquired ten percent of the shares in Braunkohle-Petrol AG (BRABAG). On May 15, 1938, the industrialist Friedrich Flick bought their 67 percent stake in the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke and their 88 percent in Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG from the Julius Petschek community of heirs for a total of 6,325,000 US dollars.

At the beginning of the negotiations, the New York-based Petschek-Holding UCC demanded 18 million US dollars for both share packages, a sum that Flick could not raise and which the Reich Ministry of Economics would not have approved under any circumstances due to the foreign exchange restriction . In fact, the fixed assets of Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG in 1937 were the equivalent of around 10 million dollars and of the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke around 15 million dollars, which translates into around 8.8 million dollars in Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG, in accordance with their percentage of shares and $ 9.9 million at the Anhalt Coal Works. The Nazi press reported in detail about the " return of the majority of shares in both companies to German hands" and about "the measures that were necessary during the Aryanization ". The Reich Propaganda Ministry spoke of an "important step in the de-Jewification of the coal industry".

At the beginning of June 1938, Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG acquired the majority of shares in AKW. On April 16, 1940, Werschen-Weißenfelser AG was fully incorporated into the Anhalt coal works. At the same time, the company's headquarters were relocated from Halle back to Berlin. In 1940, after a bidding process , the AKW acquired shares in mines from the expropriated property of the Ignaz-Petschek Group in Geiseltal and Upper Silesia from Reichswerke Hermann Göring, as well as the majority of shares in Eintracht Braunkohlenwerke und Briquettfabriken AG in Welzow . In 1941, Harpener Bergbau AG took over 25 percent of the shares in the AKW. For its part, the AKW acquired 12 percent of the Lübeck AG blast furnace a year later .

During the Second World War, the Anhalt coal works were the largest and most important briquette producer in Germany. From January 1940 to December 1944, the management published the company magazine of the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke Der Braunkohlenbergmann in cooperation with the Society for Work Education and Technical Work Research . This periodical is an important contemporary document of the nuclear power plants, but also of technical research and development in general in the lignite industry.

post war period

Preference share for 1000 marks of the Anhalt coal works from April 26, 1909

After the occupation of Central Germany by the Red Army , from June 1945 Soviet commands began to dismantle plants and machines under the guise of reparations . Quite a few mines and factories of the Anhalt coal works lost up to 100 percent of their machinery. These transports of booty were not credited to the Soviet reparations account.

The subsequent expropriation was not formally carried out by the Soviet military administration in Germany (SMAD), but by communist German henchmen. First of all, on October 3, 1945 , the President of the newly founded Province of Saxony ordered the Anhalt coal works to be taken over under the control of the state “to safeguard the economy”. Shortly afterwards, the presidium of the state administration issued an ordinance on the nationalization of all mining companies on the basis of a “referendum” . On October 29, 1945, the decision was made to expropriate "to safeguard democracy and peace the companies belonging to the war criminal Flick and located in the province of Saxony with all their interests and rights, as well as all other assets in the possession of the war criminal Flicks" and into the possession of the land.

This decision formed the Soviet propaganda prelude to the Flick process . Up until the beginning of this, the Moscow government held back from expropriating companies in the Soviet Zone . For the Soviets, Flick was only pars pro toto . Because this “referendum” served from then on as legitimation for expropriations in the entire Soviet zone . The nationalized companies were converted into so-called state- owned companies or Soviet joint-stock companies (SAG). On November 16, 1946, the Anhalt Coal Works, along with the connected opencast mines and all factories, were incorporated into SAG Maslo, in German: Soviet stock corporation for oil / fat. For the next six years, the factories of SAG Maslo produced almost exclusively for the USSR . In April 1952, the SMAD allowed the GDR to “buy back” lignite plants in stages. However, only after the popular uprising of June 17, 1953, the reparations payments were completely stopped.

The former main shareholders as well as several directors and plant managers of the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke managed to escape to West Germany in time in 1945/46 . In fact, quite a few executives and mining engineers from various lignite plants were arrested by members of the Red Army and shot in special camp No. 2 in Buchenwald for alleged war crimes. The General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation declared almost all of these judgments to be injustice in 1994 and rehabilitated the managers concerned.

The Anhaltische Kohlenwerke continued to exist as a stock corporation, with its headquarters in West Berlin from 1950 . Likewise, the nuclear power plants continued to exist in the balance sheets of the shareholders without business operations. In the course of the currency reform in 1952 an official securities adjustment of the AKW shares took place. Those verifiably entitled received new papers that were converted 1: 1 from Reichsmarks to German marks . The nominal capital of the nuclear power plant in 1957 was DM 95 million.

In real terms, Anhaltische Kohlenwerke AG had total capital of 15.8 million DM in 1961 and generated proceeds of 600,000 DM.On the one hand, the company still held stakes in companies whose shares it had acquired before 1945, and on the other hand, AKW AG acquired from 1950 also new investments in various companies. The old stock holdings included, for example, shares in the Hochofenwerk Lübeck AG. The AKW were also still a major shareholder in BRABAG, which had also lost its plants in central Germany, but had holdings in mineral oil companies and petrol station networks in western Germany. The shares of many companies expropriated in the Soviet zone were anything but “hopeful values”. After 1945, the main shareholders of BRABAG included the Anhaltische Kohlenwerke, the Union Rheinische Braunkohlen fuel AG , the DEA , and first and foremost the federal government .

Legal claims

The main shareholder of Anhaltische Kohlenwerke AG remained constant, Friedrich Flick. In 1957 he sold AKW shares with a nominal value of 40 million DM for a real 49 million DM to the French Société Nouvelle Sidéchar SA, which transferred the block of shares to Harpener Bergbau AG, which belongs to it. This sold the shares to the government-owned Salzgitter AG belonging Märkische coal union KG , based in Heessen . Salzgitter AG, which at that time still officially traded under the name “Reichswerke”, passed on part of these nuclear power plants to the United Continental Corporation (UCC) in New York with the consent of the federal government.

The background to these transactions were restitution claims made by the New York-based Petschek-Holding UCC against Friedrich Flick and against the Federal Republic of Germany, as the legal successor of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring. The Julius Petschek heirs put 18 million dollars as the amount in dispute. They originally asked for this amount during the sales negotiations in 1937 and corresponded to their percentage share in the fixed assets of Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG and Anhaltische Kohlenwerke. The claimants stated after the war that they had not sold their shares in Anhaltische Kohlenwerke and Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG “under normal conditions” for a combined total of US $ 6,325,000. However, the Petscheks also interpreted the deal with Flick at that time as legally not immoral . Background: In the event of immorality, all contracts concluded at the time would have been declared null and void. The Julius Petschek heirs were not interested in this, as in this case there was only a real right to repayment of the purchase price plus interest. Accordingly, the additional demand plus interest amounted to 12 million dollars, which in fact was nothing more than a purchase price renegotiation.

After legal disputes over a period of ten years, whereby it must be taken into account that the Federal Republic was only founded in 1949 and Friedrich Flick was still imprisoned until 1950, the parties came to an amicable agreement in 1957. The heirs received financial compensation from Flick, which had not been published in the total amount, as well as shares with a nominal value of DM 2.5 million in Salzdetfurth AG , which were still in the possession of the remaining administration of the Anhalt coal works. In addition, through Salzgitter AG, the Federal Republic of Germany granted the Petschek heirs shares in Anhaltische Kohlenwerke valued at DM 46 million. After this transaction, Flick still owned around 55 percent of the investment capital of Anhaltischen Kohlenwerke in his portfolio and thus remained the majority owner. The majority of these shares, however, in fact only represented theoretical assets, since the mining operations were located in the GDR and the securities could therefore not be valued. However, and obviously all those involved at that time were firmly assuming a reunification of the two parts of Germany or at least a peace treaty with mutual recognition.

As a result of German reunification in 1990, the compensation and compensation law of 1994 declared all Reichsmark-denominated bearer papers to be invalid. As a result, owners could no longer derive any rights from the securities, but they acquired a right to surrender . Corresponding applications could be submitted to the Federal Office for the settlement of open property issues by May 31, 1995 . Of course, the difference between ordinary shares and preference shares had to be taken into account.

In 1992 the Petschek family, who now live mainly in the USA, filed claims for compensation amounting to 400 million DM with the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks , including for lost mining rights to coal mines. As part of a settlement, the Federal Republic of Germany reached an agreement with the Petschek heirs in 2001 on financial compensation that was not published in total.

present

In 1984 the AKW renamed AK-Vermögensverwaltungs-GmbH. Deutsche Bank has held a 20 percent stake in the company since 2003 . AK-Vermögensverwaltungs-GmbH is classified in the commercial register in the financial and asset management sector. In 2007 the headquarters were relocated from Berlin to Düsseldorf.

Works and products

The company was mainly active in the extraction and processing of lignite in Anhalt and Thuringia . Among other things, it operated:

literature

  • Rainer Karlsch, Raymond G. Stokes: Factor Oil. The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974 . Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 2003.
  • Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto, Kim Christian Priemel, Harald Wixforth: The Flick Group in the Third Reich . Walter de Gruyter, 2012.

Web links

Commons : Anhaltische Kohlenwerke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anhaltische Kohlenwerke AG Extract from the inventory overview of the Berlin State Archives, accessed on May 18, 2019
  2. ^ Ingolf Strassmann: Jewish labor and Jewish capital in the brown coal mining area in and around the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg. S. 9. juedische-geschichte.de, accessed on May 18, 2019
  3. ^ Anhaltische Kohlenwerke AG, Halle (Saale) German Digital Library, accessed on May 18, 2019
  4. ^ Günter Ogger: Flick Scherz Verlag, 1971, p. 481.
  5. ^ Günter Ogger: Friedrich Flick the Great. Droemer Knaur, 1973, 1971, p. 149.
  6. ^ Scientific journal of the Humboldt University in Berlin: Social and Linguistic Series. Volume 15. Humboldt University, 1966, p. 214.
  7. ^ Tim Schanetzky: Government entrepreneur . Wallstein Verlag, 2015, pp. 313-314.
  8. ^ Günter Ogger: Friedrich Flick the Great. Droemer Knaur, 1973, p. 163.
  9. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto, Kim Christian Priemel, Harald Wixforth: The Flick Group in the Third Reich. Walter de Gruyter, 2012, p. 336.
  10. ↑ Annual reports 1936 to 1938 Hamburg World Economic Archive, accessed on May 14, 2019
  11. ^ Foreign exchange rates 1937 Deutsche Bundesbank, accessed on May 14, 2019
  12. ↑ Annual reports 1936 to 1938 Hamburg World Economic Archive, accessed on May 14, 2019
  13. ↑ Andrea Löw: German Reich and Protectorate September 1939 - September 1941. Walter de Gruyter, 2012, p. 221 f.
  14. ^ Annual report 1939 of April 16, 1940 Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv, accessed on May 17, 2019
  15. ↑ Welzow Brown Coal Administration (1905 to 1956) Brandenburg State Main Archive, accessed on May 17, 2019
  16. ↑ Petschek, Ignaz Deutsche Biographie, accessed on May 17, 2019
  17. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto, Kim Christian Priemel, Harald Wixforth: The Flick Group in the Third Reich . Published by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin on behalf of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Munich 2008, p. 501.
  18. ↑ Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of March 24, 1941 (Doc 00095) Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv, accessed on May 19, 2019
  19. ↑ The lignite miner German National Library, accessed on May 20, 2019
  20. ↑ Klaus Neitmann, Jochen Laufer: Dismantling in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and in Berlin 1945 to 1948. BWV Verlag, January 23, 2014, p. 258 f.
  21. ^ Clemens Vollnhals, Jörg Osterloh: Nazi trials and the German public. Occupation, early Federal Republic and GDR. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 118.
  22. ^ Clemens Vollnhals, Jörg Osterloh: Nazi trials and the German public. Occupation, early Federal Republic and GDR. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 118.
  23. ↑ Wolfgang Blöß: Borders and reforms in a society in transition. BWV Verlag, 2014, p. 185 f.
  24. ↑ Central German brown coal district, changes and perspectives, issue 19, Profen, p. 6 f. LMBV, accessed on May 19, 2019
  25. ^ Christiane Künzel: Administration of Soviet [state] stock corporations in Germany (SAG). In: Horst Möller, Alexandr O. Tschubarjan (Ed.): SMAD-Handbuch. The Soviet military administration in Germany 1945–1949. Oldenbourg-Verlag, 2009, pp. 388-395.
  26. ^ Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Andreas Weigelt, Mike Schmeitzner: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015, p. 148.
  27. ^ Günter Ogger: Flick . Scherz Verlag, 1971, p. 279.
  28. ↑ Harpen acquires Zeche Victoria Die Zeit on May 23, 1957, accessed on May 19, 2019
  29. ^ Rudolf Berndsen: The German stock corporations. Balance sheet analysis since 1948. Verlag f. Literature and Zeitgeschehen, 1965, p. 279.
  30. ↑ Bund der Steuerpayers (Ed.): The Bund as a group entrepreneur. Hans Holzmann, 1954, p. 44 f.
  31. ↑ Harpen acquires Zeche Victoria Die Zeit on May 23, 1957, accessed on May 19, 2019
  32. ↑ Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Class Book 3. A reader on the class struggles in Germany 1920–1971. Luchterhand, 1977, p. 161.
  33. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto, Kim Christian Priemel, Harald Wixforth: The Flick Group in the Third Reich . Published by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin on behalf of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Munich 2008, pp. 692–709.
  34. ^ Günter Ogger: Flick . Scherz Verlag, 1971, pp. 276-278.
  35. ↑ EALG Federal Office of Justice, accessed on May 19, 2019
  36. ↑ Petschek's Kohlen FOCUS magazine of March 29, 1999, accessed on May 20, 2019
  37. ↑ Procedure Petschek Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, accessed on May 20, 2019
  38. ^ Federal Statistical Office: Companies and workplaces. Financial statements of public companies. Kohlhammer, 1982, p. 131.
  39. ↑ Anhaltische Kohlenwerke Collector Shares Online, accessed on May 19, 2019
  40. ↑ AK-Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH company addresses in Germany, accessed on May 19, 2019