Mining in Germany

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On Rammelsberg in Saxony almost constantly was almost over 1000 years mining operation and the site since 1992 as a visitor mine Rammelsberg in UNESCO - World Heritage added.

Mining in Germany describes historical and current mining on the territory of today's Federal Republic. Germany is one of the classic European mining regions with a long tradition in the extraction and processing of raw materials. Lead , copper , silver and iron were mainly extracted until the 19th century . Subsequently, the focus was on coal and iron as part of the industrial revolution and in the association of the coal and steel industry. In the 20th century, there was also intensive mining of uranium ores, which among other things became the basis of the Soviet nuclear power.

Mining in Germany has been documented since the 8th century BC and was practiced with greatly varying intensity until the Middle Ages. The Celtic extraction of iron and copper ores was followed by an intensive phase of Roman mining. Since 12./13. Century it included the mining activities that were subject to the Bergregal ; in addition, in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, there were branches (land owner mining) of mining hard coal and stones and earth that did not fall under the mountain shelf . The subject matter of mining is the extraction of salts , ores , hard and lignite, as well as stones and earth , of which lignite is currently still of major economic importance in Germany as the central energy source, as well as salts and stones and earth. The once very important hard coal production ended completely in 2018 because it had become uneconomical in view of international competition. Oil production in Germany started comparatively early and covered a third of domestic demand until the 1960s, but currently only a few percent. The internationally active supplier industry associated with mining and university education in mining are still of current importance. In the Ore Mountains , efforts are currently being made to resume the mining of the tungsten , tin and indium deposits there under economically justifiable conditions.

overview

Germany was one of the classic European mining countries. Mining is an industry that has left deep marks in German history. A special mining-specific culture developed in the German mining regions, which contributed to or even initiated the development of regional identities. A mining science that devoted a great deal of technical attention to mining was established in Germany earlier than anywhere else. The characteristic closeness to the state tied the mining activities into a corporate-dirigistic constitution, the cornerstones of which were mountain shelving and mining freedom. Ore and salt mining dominated from the late Middle Ages to the turn of the modern era.

In an industrial expansion phase in the transition from the 19th thriving 20th century coal mining was on the one hand one of the foundations of the rise of Germany into a major world economic power in Europe and on the other through the formed after the Second World War and the division of Germany Montanunion an important aspect of European unification.

requirements

Simplified map of the surface geology of Germany. Yellow tones, violet and orange tones characterize the overburden and transitional storeys, brown and red the upheavals in the basement.

Geological background

The geology of Germany , the relatively small territory between the North and Baltic Sea coasts and the Alps , with the North German Plain , the low mountain range of the German low mountain range , the southern German layer level country and the Alpine foreland and the Upper Rhine Rift , is comparatively complex. Each of the large natural regions has typical raw material deposits with at least historical economic significance due to their geological conditions.

Deposits of the overburden and transition storeys

The overburden and transition storeys make up the majority of the rocks lying on the surface and the relatively near-surface subsoil. It consists of unfolded post-subcarbonaceous sedimentary rocks and the deposits in these rocks are predominantly formed or created sedimentary.

At the southern edge of the Ruhr area, coal-bearing upper carbon strikes also on the earth's surface, here a seam of the Witten Formation ( Westfal A ), quarry on Herbederstraße, Witten-Heven

Coal is one of the few raw materials that Germany has at its disposal in relatively large quantities. Significant deposits of coal are found almost exclusively on the northern edge (Variscan foreland sink) and within (innervariszische pool) of the Central Upland Range in layers Upper Carboniferous and Permian age. These include the Ruhr coal , the Aachen district (both foreland) and the Saar coal (innervariszisch). The lignite deposits are geologically younger ( tertiary ) and are located in correspondingly young subsidence areas, predominantly immediately north of the low mountain range threshold. Some of these subsidence areas go back directly to the Alpine intraplate tectonics , such as the Niederrheingraben with the Rhenish lignite mining area , and others are the result of subrosion and salt tectonics (marginal depressions) of the Zechsteinsalinars (see below), as in the case of the Lusatian lignite mining area , the Central German lignite mining area and the Desunkohlerevier Districts . The lignite deposits in the Alpine foothills are a younger counterpart of the Ruhr coal and the Aachen coal in terms of their educational area (see →  pitch coal ).

Also very important are the rock salt and potash salt deposits of the Zechstein , which arose from the multiple evaporation of the water of an inland sea in the western half of the late Permian "primeval Europe". They are mainly found in the subsurface of the North German lowlands and the North Sea and are also mined in North and Central Germany, especially where the salt is collected in the post-sedimentary form in the form of so-called salt structures ( salt domes, etc.) and more or less deeply in Has risen towards the surface of the earth (including Zielitz , Staßfurt , Werra-Kalirevier ). The salt deposits in the German Alps (see →  Berchtesgaden Salt Mine ) cannot be assigned to the overburden layer. Although they are as old as the Zechstein salt, they were deposited in a different sedimentary basin and were transported from the south to their current position within a blanket complex , the Eastern Alps , during the formation of the Alps . As a result of the mechanical stress, these deposits consist of a tectonic mélange of rock salt, gypsum , dolomite and claystone , the so-called Hasel Mountains .

Ground handpiece made of mineralized copper slate, Mansfelder Land
Sediments stained red by iron and weathering debris in the hanging walls of the Lower Jurassic oolithic iron ore deposit in Rottorf am Klei , Lower Saxony

At the base of the Zechstein there is a locally postsedimentary ( epigenetic / diagenetic ) black clay horizon enriched with copper ore minerals, the copper shale . It was a supplier of copper and other metals well into the 20th century and was mined in the Mansfeld district and in the Richelsdorf mountains , among others . Another example of an epi- or diagenetic deposit in the overburden is the Königstein uranium deposit, in which sandstones from the Upper Cretaceous (“Elbe sandstone”) were impregnated with uranium ores.

The economically most important oil and gas deposits are also located in the subsurface of the North German lowlands and the North Sea. The conventional deposits there formed in the vicinity of salt domes that rose from the Permsalinar (including the northern German Rotliegend). The most important bedrocks (and potential target rocks for unconventional extraction, see →  shale gas ) are coal-bearing Upper Carboniferous, black clay stones from the Lias and clay stones from the Lower Cretaceous (“Wealden”). Important storage rocks are sandstones of the Rotliegend and Buntsandsteins, permeable carbonate rocks of the Zechstein and "Wealden" sandstones. Historically significant conventional deposits are located in the Pechelbronn layers of the Upper Rhine Rift. A historically significant unconventional deposit is the oil shale of the Messel Formation , which was extracted for the production of synthetic crude oil by means of smoldering in open-cast mining until the 1970s .

The Jura and the Lower Cretaceous of Northern Germany also contain sedimentary iron ore deposits. They emerged partly as chemical sediment from the precipitation of dissolved iron (then oolithic ), partly as clastic sediment from the re-sedimentation of clay iron stone concretions (so-called rubble iron ores ) formed diagenetically elsewhere and subsequently weathered and mechanically destroyed to limonite . The latter includes the deposit in Salzgitter , the largest German iron ore deposit with an estimated 1.6 billion tons of ore (see also →  Reichswerke Hermann Göring and →  Salzgitter AG ), which is no longer being mined for economic reasons, but with the shaft Konrad houses a potential repository for radioactive waste.

Significant stones and soils of the overburden and transition storeys in northern Germany mainly include building sand , which is mined in hundreds of gravel pits . In addition there are limestones from the chalk (Münsterland, southern Lower Saxony, Rügen ) and the Jura (Franconian and Swabian Alb), which are processed into cement , among other things . Important natural stones include the Elbe sandstone (Upper Cretaceous), Treuchtlinger marble (Upper Jura), limestones of the shell limestone (e.g. the Elmkalkstein ), sandstones of the red sandstone (e.g. the Weser sandstone ) and permocarbone rhyolites (e.g. the Löbejüner Porphyry ).

Basement deposits

The basement in Germany consists of paleozoic folded, partly metamorphic and granitoids interspersed pre-Upper Carboniferous sedimentary rocks. It is especially important within the low mountain range near the surface and is of particular historical importance for ore mining. Classic mining regions are the Harz and the Ore Mountains .

In contrast to the overburden layer, igneous and metamorphic processes also have a large share in the formation of deposits in the basement. Here, igneous and sedimentary deposits, whose formation preceded the Variscan folding and possibly metamorphosis ( Lower Carboniferous and older), can be distinguished from deposits that arose in connection with Variscan metamorphosis and late Variscan plutonism (Lower Carboniferous and Upper Carboniferous) and from hydrothermal deposits, their formation is related to Permomesozoic and Alpidic fracture tectonics.

Grinding of so-called mottled ore, the massive sulfide ore of the Rammelsberg: wavy alternating layers of gold- to copper-colored layers of pyrite (pebbles) and chalcopyrite (copper pebbles) and dark layers of galena ( galena ) and / or sphalerite (zinc blende).

The famous Rammelsberg near Goslar is one of the pre-Variscan deposits, in which sulphidic lead , copper and zinc ore minerals , which came from black smokers on the seabed, are embedded in the “normal” Devonian sea sediments (clay slate) as massive sulphide lenses . Such a special form of sedimentary deposits is called a sedimentary-exhalative deposit ( SEDEX deposit for short ). A similar previous education is assumed for the iron ore deposit "Black Crux" of the Vesser complex in the Thuringian Forest, which is considered Cambrian . The originally sulphidic mineral association with pyrrhotite is said to have been converted into an oxidic mineral association with magnetite in the course of the Variscan orogeny . The deposits associated with submarine volcanism also include the so-called iron ores of the Lahn-Dill type , which emerged from exhalations in an oxygen-rich environment on volcanic swellings and which contain hematite as the main ore mineral . They occur not only in the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous of their type region in the southeast of the Rhenish Slate Mountains, but also in the Harz and in the Thuringian-Franconian-Vogtland Slate Mountains.

Also created prävariszisch, but became significant only by the Variscan metamorphism as a resource, which are graphite lagerstätten in the Bavarian Forest (z. B. Kropfmühl ). They emerged from the inclusion of carbon-rich layers ( digested sludge ) in a proterozoic sequence of volcanic material and mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sediments ("Colorful Series"), which was captured by amphibolite facial metamorphosis.

Two generations of primeval hydrothermal tunnels in the Pöhla-Hämmerlein deposit in the Western Ore Mountains. Left a Permian quartz - calcite (- fluorite ) vein, right a Jurassic dolomite (- goethite ) vault.

In the wake of Late Variscan Plutonism, numerous deposits emerged that either emerged from the highly mobile residual melts and fluids of the granite bodies or for which these intrusions at least supplied the heat to heat the reaction solutions. The result of such pegmatitic - pneumatolytic formations are tin , tungsten , molybdenum , lithium and rare earth element-rich metasomatically transformed rocks, so-called greisen and hermaphrodite , as well as dike deposits that are located in the roof area and in the vicinity of the plutons. Examples of these types of deposits are Hagendorf in the Upper Palatinate Forest (a so-called phosphate pegmatite, including triphyline ; however, the only goal of mining was the feldspars, which were used in the ceramic industry) and the important tin ore deposits of Altenberg and Zinnwald in the Eastern Ore Mountains.

The hydrothermal vein deposits of the basement are probably not related to the late Variscan magmatism . These mineralizations are the result of precipitation from hot solutions that circulated in crevices in the rock. They can be assigned to various fractional tectonic episodes from the Permian to the Cenozoic. Typical are so-called polymetallic veins with sulphidic lead-zinc-copper / silver / gold mineralizations, as well as so-called 5-mineral veins with associations of cobalt , bismuth , nickel , silver and uranium ore minerals (in the Erzgebirge also "biconi formation " called). The metals were (re) mobilized either in correspondingly enriched sediments or in existing deposits. Countless hydrothermal vein deposits were historic in Germany, some of them were still being mined well into the second half of the 20th century. Examples of more important deposits are the Eisenberg near Korbach on the northwestern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains, which is characterized by a relatively high gold content, the copper deposit near Sommerkahl in the Spessart (see →  Grube Wilhelmine ) and the uranium deposit near Johanngeorgenstadt in the Western Ore Mountains , the "type locality" of the element Uranium (see →  Georg-Wagsfort-Fundgrube ).

Significant stones and earth of the base mountain floor include in addition to various plutonic rocks (rarity value has for example, the blue Kösseine granite ), inter alia, slate (as roof and facade slate ), Devonian Massenkalk (z. B. " Lahnmarmor ") and graywackes and diabase ( both primarily as raw materials for aggregates ).

Influence of mountain law and mountain freedom

The right of disposal over valuable resources such as silver and salt was withdrawn from landowners in the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages in favor of the Roman-German king or emperor . The decoupling of mineral resources from real estate is called mountain freedom , the royal-imperial special right of use is called Bergregal .

The legal basis for the Bergregal is the recordings of the regalia initiated by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa at the Reichstag in Roncaglia in 1158 by lawyers trained in Roman law. The king was able to transfer the mountain shelf to the margraves . Since mountain regalia could hardly be used exclusively personally, they were "lent, pledged, leased, given away, bequeathed and sold". Until it was recognized in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 (Article VIII), the princes exercised the Bergregal habitually. Some sovereigns and cities acquired the power of disposal through factual arrogance and appropriate interpretation of mountain freedom and, since the beginning of the 15th century, clothed it in the form of ordinances ( mountain ordinances ). By Bergfreiheit also individuals was possible one towards others and towards the state on their land ownership  Mountain property  to purchase.

Miners who were called to newly developed areas enjoyed certain privileges, such as the release from public burdens and from military service, the granting of gun rights and building land. Likewise, the type of German mountain town developed to which cities like Goslar and Freiberg and settlements like Freihung or Berg Freiheit belong, which often already have special rights in their names. The mining towns were privileged by mining as they were shaped by the rulers, often right down to urban planning details. They were considered to be comparatively rich and had more seasonal and mining-dependent social conditions. The differences in prosperity in silver mining were particularly stark.

In 1865 a general mining law was promulgated in Prussia; it replaced the numerous regional mountain orders. While most of the German states resorted to it, Saxony announced its own general mining law in 1868 .

Mining was originally under strict state or feudal control. It was not until the beginning of industrialization that, from the middle of the 19th century, the direction principle was abandoned in favor of the inspection principle .

At the management level, the mountain assessors remained committed to a civil service model. For a long time, the assessors were guided by the patriarchal master-in-house understanding of the factory owners, but were just as careful with extensive company social facilities (health insurances and dormitories and the like) to create loyalty to the workers as well as to prevent collective representation of interests or trade union organization.


Historical overview up to industrialization

The beginnings of mining in Germany are difficult to define in terms of time; ore mining has been documented since the Hallstatt and Latène times , i.e. from the 8th century BC. Chr.

middle Ages

Panels on the back of the Annaberg mountain altar

A focus of early medieval European mining was metal ore mining with the Harz being one of the earliest mining areas. At the time of the Ottonians and Salians, the Harz and its surroundings developed in the 10th and 11th centuries into the first center of silver mining and a political center of gravity in the Holy Roman Empire. The peak of the medieval economy and mining is in the 12th and 13th centuries. Century. From the 12th to the 14th century, the demand for metal, as well as ore extraction and metal production, increased in the European mining areas. In addition to the central German centers for silver and copper mining (western Harz since the 10th century, Mansfeld district since around 1200, Erzgebirge since around 1150), other important mining districts are being created in Slovakia ( Neusohl ), Tyrol ( Schwaz ) and Falun (Sweden ) that competed with each other in the centuries that followed. Notwithstanding this, sporadic mining has been documented in individual regions of today's Germany even before the Middle Ages.

Up until the use of fossil fuels in the 19th century, wood was the only source of energy and the central building material. Forest and environmental history have been closely linked to mining history since the 10th century at the latest . In the late High Middle Ages (12th / 13th centuries) and the gradual transition to civil engineering, significant changes occurred in terms of technology and environmental history. The innovations introduced at that time (expanded water art structures , black powder ) did not prevent significant restrictions in the late Middle Ages , where with the medieval plague epidemics in the middle of the 14th century, a desert phase and climate deterioration (see Medieval Warm Period ) also the depletion of ore near the surface (see Iron Hat ) began.

The forest vegetation recovered in the western Harz up to 15/16. Century. After that, there was another general upswing in European mining, such as renewed mountain cries in the Ore Mountains. Technological innovations in the field of hydropower allowed a network-like, cross-landscape expansion of the mining-specific infrastructures.

Then at the end of the 16th century there was a European mining crisis. The increasing competition from the South American silver production as well as the consequences of the Thirty Years' War caused a deep cut in ore mining until the middle of the 17th century. The Bergakademie Freiberg , founded at that time, is the world's oldest mining science educational institution that still exists today .

It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that there was a renewed blooming phase, which was concluded with the wood crisis and the switch to fossil raw materials as part of industrialization . According to Günter Bayerl , as early as the 18th and 19th centuries, the landscape was transformed into industrial areas and metropolitan areas like rehabilitated and regulated 'quasi' nature . The special experiences of the new federal states are relevant for the consideration of the classic mining areas in the west.

Mining and industrialization in Germany

Economic historians date the beginning of industrialization in Germany , the so-called “take-off”, to the middle of the 19th century. In Germany, a radical combination of deforestation and depopulation of rural areas, which was radicalized by the English clearances (there since the 16th century), did not take place or took place very late. The switch to coal as an energy resource was initially less urgent and radical than in England. Furthermore, Germany suffered massively from the effects of the Napoleonic wars, but benefited from the transfer of technology from Great Britain after its end in the summer campaign of 1815 . A first shaft of mechanization and increase efficiency in agriculture and forestry, such as a catch-up process in commercial and industrial led Vormarz first to Pauperismus , a mass unemployment of the particular rural sublayers. Initially, industrial development was too weak for the labor market and initially exacerbated the crisis in the handicrafts and traditional branches of industry. Germany did not enter the industrial age until the middle of the 19th century. Not the textile industry, as in England, but the coal and steel industry and railway construction became key industries in the phase of high industrialization in Germany after 1871.

Regional focus

Mining Directorate Saarbrücken ( Martin Gropius , 1880)

The German industrialization was shaped regionally, the leading (coal) mining regions were the Ruhr , the Upper Silesian Revier and the Saarrevier . The regional fragmentation and diverse territorial structure in Germany had both inhibiting and (with the appropriate technical requirements) increasing prosperity. Some of the traditional ore mining areas interacted with various regional centers of commercial densification. This included, for example, the  Bergisch - Mark region and the  Siegerland . Between the Eifel, Aachen ,  Stolberg  and Düren, the production and processing of brass, zinc and lead was concentrated in the Aachen area and in the Rhenish lignite area even before the advent of coal mining . The traditional industrial landscapes had trading capital available, which - with varying degrees of success - was used for new factories and railroad companies; there were few banks that specialize in industrial finance or are capable of doing so. In the Rhenish area in particular, foreign investors played a role in financing projects in the coal and steel industry from an early age, and they were even more willing to take risks than local investors.

With the construction of the railways since the end of the 1830s, there was an opportunity to concentrate industrialization in export-oriented sectors that were almost independent of the comparatively weak domestic mass purchasing power. In the case of the Upper Silesian mining district, the mining of silver and lead ores had already started in the 12th century, but there was no efficient transport infrastructure in the form of a waterway. Therefore,  a contiguous industrial area was only possible from 1842 with the connection to the railway network through the  Upper Silesian Railway . Upper Silesia developed into the second largest heavy industrial center of the German Empire after the Ruhr area and is still the most important industrial area in Poland today . Likewise, it was only with advancing technological development that it became possible to link the regionally different raw material bases despite territorial fragmentation and the difficult development of the German low mountain range. After all, the different regions and their competition and exchange acted as growth engines that made the industrial latecomer Germany rise to become the leading European industrial nation.

Mining regions

coal

Model of a colliery in the Bochum mining museum

There are deposits of hard coal and lignite in Germany . While the hard coal is often stored at greater depths and mined underground, the lignite is only stored at a shallow depth and can be extracted in open-cast mining. A geologically relatively young coal deposit in Germany is the so-called Wealden coal ( Lower Cretaceous ) of the Schaumburger Mulde, which in some cases reaches the degree of coalification of anthracite. The even younger pitch coal ( tertiary ) mined in Upper Bavaria also has a relatively high degree of coalification, but is still a lignite. In both deposits, mining has ceased in the middle of the 20th century.

Hard coal

On a European scale, Germany has large reserves of explored and minable deposits. Politically, the dismantling will be stopped in 2018. The most important and important areas are the Ruhr area and the Saar area. The Aachen, Erkelenzer Horst and Ibbenbüren districts also have minable supplies. The important Zwickau-Oelsnitz deposit is considered to have been mined. In addition to these deposits, there were other smaller but regionally very important deposits, which, however, have either been mined ( Döhlener Becken , Plötz-Wettin, Stockheim) or are not worth building (Ilfeld, Meisdorf Basin, Schaumburger Mulde). The Doberlug-Kirchhain deposit did not get beyond the exploration stage.

Ruhr area
Aachen district
One of numerous EBV hunts in the Eschweiler city area, near Nothberg

The area to the north and east of Aachen is divided into two sub-areas: the worm and the Indian area . Mining probably began in Roman times. At least that is what finds of hard coal on iron smelting sites from the Roman Empire say . An existing mining from 1353 is documented for the worm area. In the Inderevier there is the first record from the year 1394. The last mining pit here was the Reserve pit with a depth of 600 m. Operations ceased in 1944. In the worm area, coal production was massively expanded after 1945. The Emil Mayrisch mine, sunk in 1938, was the last mining mine in the area. Operations ceased on December 18, 1992.

Erkelenz-Horster area

The Erkelenzer Horst deposit is usually placed next to the Aachen deposit . It forms the link between the Aachen deposit and the Lower Rhine coal field. The coal-bearing layers were lifted out here by 1000 m and are at a depth of 200 m. The deposit was discovered in 1884 by F. Honigmann with a borehole. The first shaft was sunk in 1909 and mining began in 1914. The last mine in the mining area was the Sophia-Jacoba colliery . Operations ceased on March 27, 1997.

Ibbenbüren district

The Ibbenbüren deposit is located in an eyrie clod. The coal-bearing layers were excavated here about 2000 m. The deposit near Osnabrück also belongs to the deposit . The first documentary mention was made here in 1492. The first mention of the Ibbenbüren district was not made until 1562. However, it can be assumed that the outgoing seams were also built here earlier. In the meantime, the north shaft has reached a depth of 1417 m. Politically, the funding will be discontinued in 2018.

Zwickau-Oelsnitz district

The Zwickau-Oelsnitz deposit is located in an elongated hollow. The Zwickau area is spatially separated from the Lugau-Oelsnitzer area by a bulge. The historical development was completely different in both areas. While mining in the Zwickau district was first mentioned in 1348, mining in the Lugau-Oelsnitz district did not begin until 1844 with the extraction of the first coal from a depth of 9 m. Mining ceased in 1971 after supplies were exhausted. In the Zwickau mining district, production was stopped on the last shaft Martin Hoop IVa , with a depth of 1098 m, the deepest shaft in the mining district.

Döhlen district

The deposit is located in the Döhlen Basin , a hollow of the Rotliegend . The first documentary mention dates from April 29, 1542. On January 1, 1806, the Royal Coal Works was founded, which took over all the pit fields to the left of the Weißeritz . On April 1, it was taken over by ASW as the Freital hard coal works . From 1952 it was renamed VEB Steinkohlenwerk Freital . On June 22, 1959, mining in this part of the field was stopped due to exhaustion of supplies. The pit fields to the right of the Weißeritz were mined by the Freiherrlich Burgker coal works . The last shaft to be shut down was the Marienschacht on April 11, 1930. In 1950, two new shafts were sunk here to extract residual coal. Mining on hard coal was stopped on December 31, 1967 and the mine was given the name Bergbaubetrieb Willy Agatz to SDAG Wismut for mining hard coal containing uranium ore. The dismantling finally ended on November 30, 1989.

Brown coal

With 178 million tons of lignite mined in 2012, Germany was number 1 in the world. It supplied around 25% of the electricity generated in Germany. Funding is limited to three large areas. Lausitz, Central Germany and the Rhineland. The Helmstedt deposit is of minor importance. Other smaller charred deposits are the districts of North Hesse, Borken Wetterau, and Upper Palatinate. The deposits with pitch coal in southern Bavaria, Penzberg, Peiting and Hausham were also of regional importance. The phase-out of lignite-based electricity generation in the wake of the climate catastrophe and the energy transition made slow progress in the 2010s. In 2017, the share of lignite in the German electricity mix was still 23%. According to the planning status in 2019, the final end for lignite is not planned for the year 2038.

and display information about the image
Schleenhain open-cast lignite mine in Saxony
Central German lignite mining area

The Central Germany district extends over an area of ​​approx. 4000 km². Five groups of seams with a different areal extent are formed here. The average total thickness of the coal is approximately 35 m. In Geiseltal a maximum thickness of 120 m is reached. The coal originated from the Eocene to the Miocene and is between 16 and 47 million years old. The first attempts at dismantling date back to 1671 near Meuselwitz . However, more than 100 years passed before continuous coal production began. From 1990, 36 of the 39 opencast mines were closed by the year 2000. Production in the area fell from 106 million t in 1989 to 21 million t in 2014.

Lusatian lignite mining area
Lower Rhine lignite mining area

Ores

Copper slate mining in the Mansfeld district in the 1950s

Ore mining was existential for Germany at certain times. There have been several thousand mines over the centuries. However, only the most important areas can be discussed here. At times mining for silver, tin, bismuth, cobalt and uranium played a prominent role. All other ores were of more regional importance. The stocks of tin (800,000 t.), Tungsten (230,000 t), bismuth (18,000 t) and uranium (132,000 t) are of global importance today. The stated quantities only include the stocks in Saxony and Thuringia. The supplies of the other federal states can be neglected here.

The only deposit of nickel ore in Germany in Callenberg was developed in 1951. In 1990 the extraction was stopped. The known remaining reserves amount to 46,000 tons of nickel. There was only significant mining on tungsten in Zschorlau , Pechtelsgrün and Tirpersdorf . When processing tin ores, tungsten was partly a by-product. So far untapped deposits are located in Bernsbach , Delitzsch , Antonsthal , Pöhla (Schwarzenberg) and Globenstein with a content of 203,000 t tungsten.

mineral oil and natural gas

Mittelplate (oil field) in the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park

The oil production in Germany , which was economically and politically important in the German Empire up to the 1960s, began in Wietze , Lower Saxony, in 1858 , before the USA. A boom in the mineral oil industry comparable to that of the USA did not materialize, however; domestic production was limited to comparatively special types of oil ( suitable as lubricants, among other things ). Likewise, a dominant state oil company was never established in Germany or internationally active, and oil and gas production was overshadowed by the coal and mining industry. The competition between various international oil companies led to the lowest oil prices in Europe as early as the German Empire. In the 1960s, more than 30% of the FRG's requirements were met from domestic sources; at present, 2.5 to 3% of German requirements come from domestic sources. More than half of German natural gas production comes from Lower Saxony, especially the Weser-Ems region. It currently covers 10–12% of domestic natural gas requirements.

present

Post-mining landscape

Economical meaning

The K + S plant in Hattorf in Philippsthal with waste dump

In addition to the still flourishing (open-day) lignite mining with almost 20,000 employees, there are around 40,000 jobs in underground mining that are under mining supervision , according to the industrial association for raw materials and mining in Germany . The breakdown of salts has the largest share. RAG Aktiengesellschaft is solely responsible for the hard coal sector. To cover the follow-up costs (" perpetual costs ") of mining, the RAG Foundation was set up in the summer of 2007 , and in addition to RAG it also owned Evonik .

The entire raw materials sector in Germany, including the coal and steel industry, has a goods volume of more than 264 billion euros, about 6.4% of the goods volume in the economy as a whole, and employs around 1.2 million people. The extraction of hard coal (12.1 million t in 2012, corresponding to a total requirement of 57 million TCE), brown coal (the largest domestic energy resource in 2012 with 159 TWh), potash and salt and other industrial minerals such as kaolin, feldspar, barite was and is important in Europe and worldwide. In terms of quantity, stones and earth (gravel, sand, natural stone, limestone and cement, clays, gypsum and anhydrite, pumice stone) are the most important with over 600 million t of these raw materials, which are mostly obtained from smaller quarries and companies with fewer than 20 employees. but are important for construction and infrastructure measures and as industrial raw materials.

The formerly important ore mining has now been completely stopped, but Saxony and the Ore Mountains in particular also have significant deposits of tin, lithium and tungsten on a global scale. With the extraction of uranium in the Saxon-Bohemian Ore Mountains, among other things, the raw material base of the early research and discovery of uranium and other radioactive elements such as radioactivity itself is connected, after 1945 the Soviet nuclear industry and nuclear weapons production built on this. New mines are being planned and projected in the new federal states in particular; the newest underground mine in Germany is the river and barite mine in precipitation near Oberwiesenthal in the Ore Mountains , which opened in 2013 . Germany is also one of the 8 countries that have applied for exploration licenses for deep-sea mining from the International Seabed Authority .

A legacy of earlier mining in Germany are the extensive underground natural gas storage facilities ( pore storage and cavern storage ), which are particularly important in Lower Saxony. With currently 50 (of more than 600 worldwide) storage facilities and a significant maximum working gas volume, Germany ranks fourth in the world after the USA, Russia and Ukraine and has the largest storage volume in the European Union.

Associations and Associations

100 years of IG Bergbau und Energie: 1989 postage stamps issued by the Deutsche Bundespost

The Association of Raw Materials and Mining e. V. (VRB) is a trade association of the German raw material extraction industry affiliated to the Federation of German Industries (BDI) . Its members are professional or regional associations, companies and institutions from the fields of hard coal and lignite, metallic ore and iron ore, slate, refractory clays, gypsum, graphite, kaolin, quartz and others as well as from the areas of activity of the special mining companies , mining-related companies and mining environmental protection.

There are also numerous individual associations. Until 2007 the Gesamtverband Steinkohle e. V. (GVSt) as an employers' association and collective bargaining party, the social and collective bargaining interests, the Unternehmensverband Steinkohlenbergbau e. V. (UVSt) as a trade association the economic interests of companies in the German hard coal industry. After the dissolution of the business association in 2007, the Gesamtverband Steinkohle remained as the sole interest group for economic, social and collective bargaining interests; he is a member of the Federation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). In 1990 mining and geotechnical companies in the new federal states established the Bergbau / Geologie e. V. was founded in 1993 and became the Association of Mining, Geology and Environment e. V. renamed; he acts as a nationwide representative of the interests of his member companies. The German Brown Coal Industry Association e. V. looks after the interests of German lignite accelerators.

The workers in hard coal and lignite mining were represented by IG Bergbau after 1945 , and IG Mining and Energy from 1960; In 1997 it merged into the new IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie (IG BCE).

Official sources and scientific accounts

The mining in the Federal Republic of Germany is the subject of statistical representations and documentation of the Federal Ministry of Economics.

Mining officials wrote the history of mining on mining law, mining technology, mining geology and the like as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, before mining historiography developed more broadly. Mining archeology was discussed among others by Heiko Steuer and Ulrich Zimmermann and Gerd Weißgerber. Historical representations have so far concentrated on some areas and periods of the mining industry, especially in the early modern period. The Bochum historian Klaus Tenfelde has initiated a four-volume historical overview, which has been published since 2012 and covers all branches of mining and all regions in Germany.

A technologically oriented overview of mining in the Federal Republic was published in 1964 by the Glückauf publishing house . The environmental historians considered the mining industry in the context of industrialization and transformation of industrial and cultural landscapes .

Social reception

The miracle of Lengede, the rescue, illustration by Helmuth Ellgaard (1963)

Between the middle of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century, the fueling of the industrial revolution through coal and ore extraction was decisive for the social image of mining. Up to the present day, environmental aspects and the special risks and dangers of working underground determine the image of mining. In the post-war period, on February 7, 1962 , one of the worst mining accidents in Germany's history occurred in the Luisenthal mine in Saarland . An explosion in a cross  passage killed 299 miners; the mine accident resulted in extensive adjustments to safety measures in Germany and worldwide. The so-called miracle of Lengede , a series of several dramatic successful rescue operations on the occasion of a mine accident with 29 dead and several trapped and trapped miners underground on October 24, 1963 in the Lengede-Broistedt iron ore mine belonging to the Ilseder Hütte , remains much more present in the media .

literature

  • Klaus Tenfelde , Stefan Berger , Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of the German mining industry. Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2012 ff, ISBN 978-3-402-12900-5 .
  • Wilhelm and Gertrude Hermann: The old mines on the Ruhr. Past and future of a key technology . With a catalog of the "life stories" of 477 mines. 6th edition, expanded by an excursus according to p. 216 and updated in energy policy parts, 5th, completely revised and expanded edition 2003, post-processing 2002: Christiane Syré, final editing 2007: Hans-Curt Köster (=  Die Blauen Bücher ). Langewiesche, Königstein im Taunus 2008, ISBN 978-3-7845-6994-9 .
  • Volker Wrede, Matthias Zeller: Geology of the Aachen hard coal deposit. Krefeld 1988.
  • Volker Wrede, Matthias Zeller: Geology of the hard coal deposit of the Erkelenzer Horstes. Krefeld 1983.
  • Hubert Rickelmann, Hans Röhrs: Ibbenbürener hard coal mining from the beginning to the present. Paderborn 1983, ISBN 3-506-77223-6
  • Zwickau coal mining V .: The coal mining in the Zwickau district. Zwickau 2000, ISBN 3-00-006207-6
  • Wolfgang Reichel, Manfred Schauer: The Döhlener basin near Dresden. Mining monograph Volume 12, Freiberg 2006, ISBN 3-9811421-0-1
  • Andreas Berkner: Lignite mining in the southern Leipzig area. Mining monograph Volume 11, Freiberg 2004.

Web links

See also

Portal: Mining  - Overview of Wikipedia content on mining

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Bartels, Lother Klappauf: The Middle Ages. The upswing in mining under the Carolingian and Ottonian rulers, the medieval prosperity and the downturn up to the middle of the 14th century . In: Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining . tape 1 : Christoph Bartels and Rainer Slotta (eds.): The old European mining. From the beginning to the middle of the 18th century . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, p. 119 f .
  2. ^ Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (eds.): History of German mining. Volume 1: The old European mining industry. From the beginning to the middle of the 18th century. Ed .: Christoph Bartels and Rainer Slotta. Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2012, p. 16.
  3. ↑ Josef Paul: Der Kupferschiefer: lithology, stratigraphy, facies and metallogenesis of a black slate. Journal of the German Society for Geosciences. Vol. 157, 2006, No. 1, pp. 57–76 ( abstract , preview PDF with summary in German)
  4. ↑ Helmut Tonndorf: The Königstein uranium deposit. Mining in Saxony, Volume 7. State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology, Freiberg 1999 ( online )
  5. ↑ a b c Hans-J. Schneider, Hansjust W. Walter: Ore deposits in sediments - iron. In: Hans W. Füchtbauer: Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks (= Sediment Petrology Part II). Fourth, completely revised edition. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-510-65138-3 , pp. 588-604.
  6. ↑ a b Wilfried Liessmann: Historical mining in the Harz. 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition, Springer, Berlin · Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-540-31327-4 , pp. 5–17.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Sebastian: The geology of the Erzgebirge. Springer Spectrum, Berlin · Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8274-2976-6 , pp. 127–152.
  8. ↑ Peter Bankwitz: On the geology of the Cambrian iron ore deposit Schwarze Crux, north of Vesser / Thuringian Forest (SE flank of the Central European Crystalline Zone). Journal of Geological Sciences. Vol. 31, No. 3, 2003, pp. 205-224 ( ResearchGate )
  9. ↑ Ernst-Otto Teuscher: The graphite deposits of the Passau forest. In: G. Troll (Hrsg.): Mineral deposits in the eastern Bavarian Forest: Education, content and mining history. The reveal. Special volume 31, 1981, pp. 91-100 ( online )
  10. ↑ Helmut Wolf: On geology and raw material deposits of the Upper Palatinate Forest. In: Martin Dallmeier, Manfred Knedlik, Peter Staniczek, Elisabeth Vogl (Red.): The Upper Palatinate - Land of the Count Palatine in the middle of Europe. Festschrift for the 35th Nordgau Day in Vohenstrauss. Oberpfälzer Kulturbund, Regensburg 2004, pp. 87–95 ( PDF 524 kB)
  11. ^ HG Dill: The Hagendorf-Pleystein phosphate pegmatites (NE Bavaria, Germany) - a mineralogical, sedimentological and chronological overview. Estudos Geológicos. Vol. 19, No. 2, 2009, pp. 117–120 ( PDF 69 kB)
  12. ↑ Jens Kulick, Stefan Meisl, Albert-Karl Theuerjahr: The gold deposit of the iron mountain southwest of Korbach. Geological treatises Hessen, Vol. 102. Hessisches Landesamt für Bodenforschung, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 978-3-89531-804-7 .
  13. ↑ a b Heiner Lück: The development of German mining law and the mining directorate up to the General (Prussian) mining law of 1865 . In: Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining . tape 2 : Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Salts, Ores and Coals. The dawn of modernity in the 18th and early 19th centuries . Aschendorff, Münster 2015, p. 111 .
  14. ↑ Heiner Lück: The Development of German Mining Law and the Mining Directorate up to the General (Prussian) Mining Act 1865 . In: Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining . tape 2 : Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Salts, Ores and Coals. The dawn of modernity in the 18th and early 19th centuries. . Aschendorff, Münster 2015, p. 111 f .
  15. ↑ Heiner Lück: The Development of German Mining Law and the Mining Directorate up to the General (Prussian) Mining Act 1865 . In: Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining . tape 2 : Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Salts, Ores and Coals. The dawn of modernity in the 18th and early 19th centuries . Aschendorff, Münster 2015, p. 112 .
  16. ^ Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, Wilfried Reininghaus: City and mining. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar 2004.
  17. ↑ Heiner Lück: The Development of German Mining Law and the Mining Directorate up to the General (Prussian) Mining Act 1865 . In: Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining . tape 2 : Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Salts, Ores and Coals. The dawn of modernity in the 18th and early 19th centuries . Aschendorff, Münster 2015, p. 212, 216 .
  18. ^ "General Mining Law for the Prussian States (ABG)" of June 24, 1865. The "Law on Shelf Mining in the Kingdom of Saxony" of May 22, 1851 replaced the Mining Regulations of Elector Christian of June 12, 1589, but still adhered to the principle of management firmly. It was not until the "General Mining Act for the Kingdom of Saxony of June 16, 1868" (entered into force: January 3, 1869) that the principle of direction was largely abolished.
  19. ↑ Volker Berghahn: The sunken world of the mountain assessors . In: Revier-Kultur. Journal for society, art and politics in the metropolitan area . No. 3 , 1986, pp. 62-69 .
  20. ↑ Bernd Faulenbach: The Prussian Mining Assessors in Ruhr Mining . Entrepreneurial mentality between the government and private industry. In: Employees and students (ed.): Mentalities and living conditions . Examples from the social history of modern times. Rudolf Vierhaus on his 60th birthday. Göttingen 1982, p. 225–242, here p. 225 .
  21. ^ Thomas Stöllner: The prehistoric and early historical mining in Central Europe . In: Christoph Bartels and Rainer Slotta (eds.): The old European mining. From the beginning to the middle of the 18th century. (=  Klaus Tenfelde , Stefan Berger , Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of German mining ). tape 1 . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12901-2 , pp. 25-110 .
  22. ↑ Christoph Bartels, Lother Klappauf: The Middle Ages. The upswing in mining under the Carolingian and Ottonian rulers, the medieval prosperity and the downturn up to the middle of the 14th century . In: Klaus Tenfelde; Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (Hrsg.): History of the German mining industry . tape 1 : Christoph Bartels, Rainer Slotta (eds.): The old European mining. From the beginning to the middle of the 18th century . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, p. 122 .
  23. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Lorenz Dobler: The influence of mining history in the Eastern Harz on the heavy metal depth gradients in historical sediments and the fluvial heavy metal dispersion in the catchment areas of Bode and Selke in the Harz, dissertation . Hall 1999.
  24. ↑ Recent tendencies in environmental history research , conference reports Hsozkult, Graduate College Interdisciplinary Environmental History, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2004, by Richard Hölzl, Isabelle Knap, Mathias Mutz
  25. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Henning: Industrialization in Germany 1800 to 1914. Schöningh, Paderborn 1973, p. 112; Hubert Kiesewetter: Industrial Revolution in Germany 1815–1914. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 16.
  26. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society: From the reform era to the industrial and political "German double revolution", 1815-1845 / 49 . CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 563 .
  27. ↑ a b Reinhard Spree: Karl Wilhelm Hermann Pemsel. A bourgeois career in the German Empire. The rise of the lawyer Dr. jur. Hermann Ritter von Pemsel in the business elite and nobility of Bavaria. 2007. In: Reinhard Spree 2011: The industrialization of Germany in the 19th century. Accessed on May 4, 2015 .
  28. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Henning: Industrialization in Germany 1800 to 1914. Schöningh, Paderborn 1973, p. 111 ff.
  29. ^ Günther Schulz: Social and Economic History. Areas of work - problems - perspectives. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005, p. 123.
  30. ^ Heinrich Otto Buja: Engineering handbook mining technology. Deposits and extraction technology. Beuth Verlag, 2013.
  31. ↑ Hans Pohl: Economy, Business, Credit, Social Problems, Volume 1 . Franz Steiner, 2005.
  32. ^ Schmoller's yearbook for economics and social sciences . tape 90 . Duncker & Humblot, 1970.
  33. ^ Hubert Kiesewetter: Industrial Revolution in Germany: Regions as Growth Motors . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004.
  34. ↑ Horst Bringzu: coal industry in Saxony-Anhalt. Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt e. V. Halle 2005, ISBN 978-3-940744-02-9 .
  35. ^ Hans-Georg Procopius: The historical mining in the Doberlug-Kirchhain area. REGIA Verlag, Cottbus 2012, ISBN 978-3-86929-110-9 .
  36. ^ A b c d e Rainer Karlsch, Raymond G. Stokes: Factor oil. The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50276-8 .
  37. ↑ Federal Institute for Geosciences and Raw Materials, Oil and Gas Reserves in the Federal Republic of Germany on January 1, 2001 ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ↑ More details can be found in the annual reports “Petroleum and Natural Gas in the Federal Republic of Germany” of the LBEG
  39. ↑ Natural gas from Germany Wirtschaftsverband Erdöl- und Erdgasgewinnung e. V.
  40. ^ German mining: the dead live longer DW 2013, Klaus Deuse
  41. ^ Association of Raw Materials and Mining e. V. VRB Facts and Figures The contribution of the raw materials industry to overall economic value creation ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vrb.de
  42. ↑ Mining in Germany is worth it again ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. IWD, Hubertuis Bardt 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iwkoeln.de
  43. ↑ Mining After 40 years - first new mine opened in Germany Focus, November 8, 2013
  44. ↑ Underground gas storage facility at the LBEG
  45. ↑ Germany has the largest natural gas storage facilities in Europe , Die Welt 2014
  46. ^ Mining in the Federal Republic of Germany 2011 . In: Bergwirtschaft and Statistics 63rd year 2012 . 2011.
  47. ^ Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (eds.): History of German mining . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, p. 17 .
  48. ^ Heiko Steuer, Ulrich Zimmermann (ed.): Old mining in Germany . Nikol, Hamburg 2000.
  49. ↑ Gerd Weißgerber: Mining archeology - general and individual. In: Stefan Brüggerhoff, Michael Fahrenkopf, Wilhelm Gerlings (eds.): Mining and industrial history. Documentation and research, industrial archeology and museum. Festschrift for Rainer Slotta for his 60th birthday . Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, p. 67-103 .
  50. ↑ Thomas Sokoll: European mining in transition to modern times . In: Historical Seminar, New Series . No. 6 . Schulz-Kirchner, Idstein 1994.
  51. ^ Klaus Tenfelde, Stefan Berger, Hans Christoph Seidel (eds.): History of German mining . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12900-5 .
  52. ↑ Alfred Pretor, Ilse Rinn: Mining in the Federal Republic of Germany . Glückauf Publishing House, 1964.
  53. ^ Paul Burghard u. a. (Ed.): Luisenthal in February. Chronicle of a mining disaster . SDV, Saarbrücken 2012.
  54. ↑ Walter Hermülheim: Pit safety assessment of hard coal mines in emerging countries . In: Hossein H. Tudeshi, AMS Online GmbH (Ed.): Advanced Mining Solutions . No. 3 , 2011, p. 25 .
  55. ↑ Christian Hißnauer: There were eleven below. At the top was "the whole world". The thematicization of the Lengede mine disaster in a documentary play and as a conversation film . In: Christian Hißnauer and Andreas Jahn-Sudmann (eds.): Medien - zeit --zeichen. Contributions to the 19th Colloquium on Film and Television Studies . Schüren-Verlag, Marburg 2007, p. 45-53 .