Beckmann shipyard

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Beckmann shipyard
legal form
founding January 1, 1920
resolution 1st February 1981
Reason for dissolution 1971 sold
closed in 1981 due to unprofitable
Seat Cuxhaven
management Hermann Sanftleben (1920–1930)
Otto-Georg Beckmann (1920–1967)
Number of employees 80-350
Branch shipbuilding

The Beckmann shipyard was a repair and conversion shipyard in Cuxhaven , which was initially founded in 1920 as Sanftleben & Co. , renamed Beckmann shipyard in 1942 and sold to the Unterweser shipbuilding company in 1971 , which merged with F. Schichau AG in 1972 . In 1981 the company in Cuxhaven was closed.

history

prehistory

Former location of the Beckmann shipyard - today the seat of the Cuxhaven Waterways and Shipping Office

The forerunner of the shipyard was the craft business of ship anchors and chain smiths Sanftleben , founded in 1818 , which primarily manufactured ship anchors , chains , fairway barrels and other steel parts such as blocks and fittings . When the old fishing port was expanded in Cuxhaven after the First World War , the operation had to give way and in 1919 it relocated to the southern end of the Ewerhafen - today the location of the Cuxhaven Waterways and Shipping Office .

Sanftleben & Co. (1920–1942)

After Otto-Georg Beckmann joined Hermann Sanftleben's business as a partner and co-owner in 1919 , the two founded the company Sanftleben & Co. on January 1, 1920 and expanded the previous forge into a shipyard. In 1930 Otto-Georg Beckmann became the sole owner of the shipyard, which initially kept its name with the addition of "Owner O. Beckmann".

In 1920 the company employed around 80 people, the number of which rose to around 200 in the 1920s. The two owners consistently expanded the shipyard: as early as 1920 they set up a new machine hall, as well as a workshop, office and residential building as well as a metal foundry. In 1927 and 1929 two slipways of 41 and 55 meters for ships of 400 and 1500 tons followed. In 1936 a third slipway for ships up to 76 meters or 2000 tons was added, as was a rail-mounted crane. In addition to the forging work that was still carried out , the main fields of activity of the shipyard were now also ship repairs, conversions and extensions of fishing vessels , coastal vessels , pilot steamers and official vehicles, and from 1938 also of ships of the Kriegsmarine , which had been stationed again in Cuxhaven.

The company was also involved in the labor disputes of that time: When the employers intended to reintroduce the 9-hour day after the First World War, this led to a six-week lockout for shipyard workers at the Beckmann and Mützelfeldtwerfts in 1924. In the end, it stayed with the 8-hour day and the 9th hour worked was paid as overtime.

Tanker Harriet E.

Beckmann shipyard (1942–1971)

During the Second World War , the navy was the shipyard's main client. At the company renamed Beckmannwerft in 1942 , minesweepers and outpost boats in particular were overhauled, repaired and converted. The number of employees rose to around 350 during this time. The 245 German employees at the Beckmann shipyard in 1942 include another 50 foreign civilian workers .

Seaside service ship Atlantis in 2008

After the Second World War, the shipyard was able to continue working without restrictions from war damage or dismantling . At first she also took on non-shipyard orders, such as the repair of trams from Dortmund. More important was the repair of ships that were sunk during the war and lifted again, as well as conversions, modernizations and extensions. For multiple orders, the Beckmann shipyard worked with the neighboring Mützelfeldtwerft together - as in the 1944/2 ready-built water tankers monkey of the Navy, to the two yards for fishery protection vessel tags, or the lightship Aussenjade were from 1903. Renewals among others the Coaster Hermann Hans made , which is now a museum ship in Stade . The motor tanker Harriet E. , also started as a water tanker and bought by the Beckmann shipyard after the war, was extended for its own account, as was the seaside resort ship Atlantis (I) . From 1957 ships of the German Navy - especially minesweepers and speedboats  - were overhauled and repaired at the shipyard. The only new buildings placed the shipyard mid-1950s, two barges ( WC 101 and WC 102 ) for the construction company Philipp Holzmann ago.

The shipyard's crisis began at the end of the 1960s when the German Navy relocated its ships from Cuxhaven to Wilhelmshaven , the fishing fleets were converted from side trawlers to larger stern catchers and at the same time the conversion of general cargo carriers to larger container ships began. With that the shipyard broke away the customers. Neither the space in the Ewerhafen nor the shipyard's slipways were sufficient for larger ships. At the same time, the owners Otto-Georg Beckmann were no longer able to devote themselves fully to managing the company due to reasons of age and to their son Rolf Beckmann, who was appointed junior boss in 1946, for health reasons. Therefore, after Otto-Georg Beckmann's death in 1967, the family decided to sell the shipyard.

Schiffbau-Gesellschaft Unterweser AG and Schichau Unterweser (1971–1981)

On January 1, 1971, the shipbuilding company Unterweser AG (SGU) in Bremerhaven became the new owner of the shipyard . The SGU continued the shipyard operations in Cuxhaven as a branch. The company continued to suffer from insufficient and not cost-covering utilization. At that time, the Cuxhaven location employed around 165 people. At the same time, the shipyard crisis of the 1970s, with increased international competition, led to mergers in Germany as well. The SGU merged with F. Schichau AG, also based in Bremerhaven, to form Schichau Unterweser AG (SUAG) in 1972 . After the merger, SUAG had four companies with around 1500 employees. Even the new group of companies failed to improve the economic situation in the long term. SUAG therefore closed the branch in Cuxhaven on February 1, 1981.

A year later, the Mützelfeldtwerft in Cuxhaven acquired the company in order to prevent the establishment of a new shipyard. From 1991, the new waterways and shipping authority in Cuxhaven was built on the site.

Conversions and extensions of the Beckmann shipyard (selection)

literature

  • Werner Jakobeit, Günter Kramp, Willi Schäfer: The Beckmann shipyard. Chronology of a Cuxhaven shipyard (series of publications by the “Förderverein Schifffahrtsgeschichte Cuxhaven eV”, issue 10b (V1L / May 2016)), self-print, Cuxhaven 2016.
  • Peter Bussler: Historisches Stadtlexikon für Cuxhaven , special publication of the Heimatbund der Männer vom Morgenstern Volume 36, Cuxhaven 2002, ISBN 3931771-36-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 20 f.
  2. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 23
  3. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 24 f.
  4. ↑ a b c d Bussler, p. 44
  5. ^ History of the workers' movement in Cuxhaven at IG-Metall Weser-Elbe
  6. ↑ Martin Weinmann (Ed.): The National Socialist Camp System . Verlag Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-86150-261-5 , heimatkunde-schwelm.de (PDF)
  7. ^ Hans-Jürgen Kahle: Deported to Cuxhaven. Forced laborers and prisoners of war in Cuxhaven, Land Hadeln and the Wesermünde district during the Nazi era , Wilhelm-Heidsiek-Verlag, Cuxhaven 1995, ISBN 3-927911-11-9 , p. 20
  8. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 33 f.
  9. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 36, p. 55
  10. ↑ Jakobeit, p. 39f.
  11. ^ Greundiek , ex Hermann Hans in the old port of Stade
  12. ↑ Ship plan for the renovation at the Deutsches Museum in Munich
  13. ↑ Odissos , ex Erik Seyd at the historical port of Flensburg
  14. ↑ Lightship Outer Jade II . Leuchtturm-Atlas.de