Annener cast steelworks

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Company logo of the cast steelworks Witten-Annen around 1937
Hall A7, in which concentration camp inmates had to do forced labor in 1944/45

The Annener Gußstahlwerk Aktiengesellschaft was a 1873 founded company of the mining industry in Witten - Annen . It was liquidated in 1931, the production facilities were transferred to Ruhrstahl AG , later belonged to the Rheinstahl group and then to Thyssen AG . The production program included railway axles as well as forged and molded castings for the mechanical engineering industry. The Witten Industry and Technology Park has existed on the factory premises in Annen since 1999, and some components have been listed as historical monuments since 2011 .

history

Annener Gussstahlwerk (halls in the background on the right)
Listed former annealing furnace hall

The company's predecessor was the König & Reunert steelworks, founded in Annen in 1865 by the technician Wilhelm Reunert and the König family from Ruhrort , which initially produced rifle barrels.

In January 1873 this resulted in a joint stock company with the company Annener Gußstahlwerk . The share capital was 1,875,000 marks when it was founded, but in the following years , which were marked by the recession of the founding crisis , it was reduced in two steps to 625,000 marks and could only be gradually increased again from 1889: 1889 to 1,075,000 marks, 1898 to 1.5 million marks and in 1906 to 2.2 million marks. In 1920 the Stumm Group took over a majority stake . During the period of high inflation , the share capital rose to 16 million marks, before it was converted to 1,560,000 gold marks or Reichsmarks in 1924 . In 1925 40% of the share capital was owned by Gelsenkirchener Gußstahl- und Eisenwerke AG , which in turn belonged to the Stumm group. The Gelsenkirchener Gußstahl- und Eisenwerke AG , which also included several locations outside Gelsenkirchen, renamed the Rheinisch-Westfälische Stahl- und Walzwerke AG in 1926 , the majority of which was taken over in 1930 by the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG . A restructuring took place within this large group: The Annener Gußstahlwerk AG was liquidated and expired at the end of 1931; their production facilities in Annen were initially sold to Rheinisch-Westfälische Stahl- und Walzwerke AG , which they incorporated into the newly founded Ruhrstahl AG shortly afterwards .

During the Second World War, in addition to forced laborers , concentration camp prisoners from the Annener Gußstahlwerk subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp were used. In 1944, of the 4,694 workforce, only 2,476 were Germans, almost half of them civil workers and prisoners of war . 139 workers did not survive the mission in Annen.

The entire technical equipment of the plant - including seven electric and two high-frequency ovens - was dismantled after the Second World War . After the unbundling , the Annen plant remained in the possession of Ruhrstahl AG, which was incorporated into the Rheinstahl group in 1957 and specialized in mechanical engineering. Repairs were initially carried out at the Annen plant, but then gradually started to be produced again. In addition to pumps and pit weather cooling systems, the Ruhrstahl equipment carrier was also manufactured in the Annen plant. A casting plant for gray cast iron was also installed by 1955 , so that the workforce grew again to around 1,000 people. In 1955 the Ruhrpumpen operation was taken over by Ruhrstahl and thus became part of the Annen plant. In 1973 the Rheinstahl group was taken over by Thyssen AG (since 1999 Thyssenkrupp AG ).

Witten Industry and Technology Park

The existing halls of the Annen cast steelworks are now the industrial park Witten Industry and Technology Park , among other things, the former Ruhrstahl subsidiary Ruhrpumpen still produces here . The administration building is mainly used by the University of Witten / Herdecke .

literature

Web links

Commons : Annener Gussstahlwerk  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Schoppmeyer : Witten. History of the village, town and suburbs. Witten 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-040266-1 , p. 293.
  2. ↑ Handbook of German Stock Companies , 30th edition 1925, Volume 1, p. 492 (Gelsenkirchener Gussstahl- und Eisenwerke).
  3. ^ Handbook of German Stock Companies , 37th edition 1932, Volume 4, p. 5379 (Annener Gussstahlwerk in Liquidation).
  4. ↑ Handbook of German Stock Companies , 37th edition 1932, Volume 1, pp. 255 f. (Rheinisch-Westfälische Stahl- und Walzwerke).

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 59.7 "  N , 7 ° 22 ′ 43.7"  E