Nickel works in Aue

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Nickelhütte Aue GmbH
legal form Company with limited liability
founding 1635 as a blue color mill,
name changed to Nickelhütte at the beginning of the 20th century
Seat Aue , Germany
management Managing Directors:
Volker Carluss, Henry Sobieraj
Number of employees about 400
Branch metallurgy
Website www.nickelhuette-aue.de/

Production facilities of the nickel works, seen from the Friedenskirche ; May 2009
One of the two tall chimneys was removed in spring 2016.

The nickel Aue is a modern production facility for pure non-ferrous metals such as nickel , copper , cobalt , molybdenum , vanadium and tungsten . It emerged from the historic Niederpfannenstiel blue paint factory , which was founded in 1635 by Veit Hans Schnorr in Niederpfannenstiel near Aue .

location

The industrial company is an integral part of the Niederpfannenstiel district of Au and occupies an area of ​​around 48,000 square meters. It is bordered in the northeast by Clara-Zetkin-Strasse, in the east by Staatsstrasse 255 and in the south and west by an arch of the black water into which the Rumpelsbach flows directly on the factory premises.

Founding of the blue color mill

The Niederpfannenstiel blue paint factory in the middle of the 19th century, the origin of the Aue nickel smelter

Veit Hans Schnorr , tradesmen at the Schneeberger and Neustädtler mines, received the privilege to build a paint mill on February 10, 1635 from the barons Albert Otto and Veit IV of Schönburg-Waldenburg . He had bought the site in Niederpfannenstiel shortly before. Here were the remains of a smelter , probably destroyed by Holk's troops in August 1633. The privilege also included the assurance that no further blue color mills were allowed to be built in the Schönburg area, an inexpensive amount of wood from the surrounding forests, and the right to bake, butcher and serve beer. The beer served here was cheaper than the Aue on the other side of the Schwarzwasser in the Electorate of Saxony. This led to Auer citizens drinking their beer in Niederpfannenstiel, which the city of Aue complained about. The founding of the paint mill can be traced back to the fact that the cobalt production had fallen to 16 percent compared to the years 1620–1624 and was at a low point during the Thirty Years' War . Since the price of the safflor produced up to now was five times lower than the price of smalt , it was in the interests of the trades to get into the smalt business themselves. After the last cobalt contract expired in 1628, free trade in cobalt was possible, from which Schnorr obtained his cobalt. But already on July 10, 1635 there was another cobalt contract, according to which the Hamburg merchant Hans Friese bought cobalt for 3 thalers per hundredweight. This contract was valid for 3 years. On December 20, 1638 there was a new contract with Friese. The hundredweight of cobalt now had to be paid for with 3 talers and 6 groschen for the hundredweight. This contract was for 6 years. However, Friese did not buy all of the cobalt and safflower, so there was still a free market, but only lower prices were achieved. On September 5, 1641, a cobalt contract was then concluded in which all of the cobalt ore extracted was brought in. Prices and funding quotas were set here. In addition to Friese and Schnorr, the Schneeberg city judge and tradesmen Hans Burkhardt, who founded the Oberschlema blue paint factory in 1644 , were also involved. On January 18, 1642, the contract was confirmed by Elector Johann Georg I. After Friese's death in February 1643, the Leipzig merchant Sebastian Oehme took over the shares of Friese on November 8, 1644. On July 28, 1649, a new cobalt contract was concluded. Of the three previously involved, Oehme built a paint mill on the Sehma near Annaberg in 1649 . A new addition was the Schneeberg businessman Erasmus Schindler, who founded a blue paint factory in the Albernau district of Zschorlau . Each of those involved contributed a quarter of the cobalt purchase.

In 1659 the blue color works agreed on uniform sales prices. The trade then took place through a trading company with defeats in Schneeberg and Leipzig.

In 1668, Elector Johann Georg II bought the troubled glassworks in Unterjugel and used this opportunity to "double" his blue color factory in Oberschlema, which he had inherited in 1851. The division of the cobalt ore into the four plants of a quarter each, as stipulated in the contract of 1649, has now been changed so that the Oberschlema plant received two fifths and the other three plants each received one fifth of the cobalt ore.

In 1714 there was a devastating major fire on factory and residential buildings in Niederpfannenstiel. Reconstruction work and new buildings then ensured further paint production. Among other things, the mansion (demolished in 1954) and a new forge building were built.

On December 11th, 1848, the three blue color works Schindler, Niederpfannenstiel and Zschopenthal founded the Saxon Private Blue Color Works Association. As a result, blue color production was concentrated in Niederpfannenstiel. The factory in Zschopenthal was closed in 1850 and in 1855 the production of cobalt blue in the Schindlerswerk was discontinued in favor of synthetic ultramarine .

Manufacture and trade in the blue colors

After mechanical crushing, the bismuth contained in the ores is separated out by means of saigern . Arsenic, sulfur and nickel are separated from the remaining ore by roasting in a furnace and sent for further processing. The cobalt oxide present after roasting is traded as safflower. To create the blue color, the cobalt oxide is melted with calcium , potash and quartz and results in the basic color material, the smalt. - A contemporary description from the factory in Pfannenstiel makes this process clear:

" When the wax burner is to start, the 8 ports ( chamotte - crucible ) dried in the drying hood are entered into the tempering furnace [...] where the gradually increasing heat reaches the most perfect degree of incandescent heat (1100 to 1250 ° C) [...] ] must have reached after 3 days. Twelve men are employed to enter the ports in the melting furnace. Once the registered ports have been set up and the melting furnace […] has regained its perfect heat level, the mixture is also brought into the ports using an iron ladle […]. As far as the course of the melting process itself is concerned, all melting ports are broken open with [...] iron after a melting time of 5 hours. Once all the ports have been broken open, the fire starts again up to incandescent heat [...] and the mass is stirred with (a) tough tooth in order to obtain well-melted smalt glass . "

And Christian Lehmann reported on the health risks in 1700:

" ... the wild, poisonous smoke flew away from the kilns and into the open air, but the adjacent fields and pastures were noticeably damaged / until in the previous Seculo the famous happy miner David Haidler in St. Joachimsthal in the Kingdom of Bohemia opened the arsenical smelting works of invented poisonous cobalts and other wild ores and set up such chimneys there for the first time. […] In 1670 a poison hut was built on Weipert and the cobalt was packaged, and the Pilbach was so devastated that there was no more fish in it. […] 2 horses licked the poison hut, both died. […] I have known various miners (poison and cobalt workers) also calciners, who were eaten away by the poison on their skin and lungs, suffering and dying miserable. "

The trade in cobalt ores and the dyes made from them promised good profits and was placed under the strictest control of the Saxon elector, an inspector for the blue paint works was appointed. Cobalt thieves or private exporters even faced the death penalty. With the levying of the twentieth tax from 1602, the works guaranteed the elector a well-filled state purse. Due to the successful business of the Saxon blue paint works, the cobalt contract was renewed eight times until 1700, whereby the questions of the production and distribution of bismuth were also included.

When the Saxon porcelain could be produced in the porcelain factory in Meißen from 1710, the beautiful cobalt blue from the Ore Mountains played an important role in the trade in fine tableware.

The Swedish scientist Georg Brandt was able to isolate cobalt in pure form for the first time in 1735, exactly 100 years after the first blue paint factory was founded.

The bismuth deposited first was a second important trade item for the blue color factories.

The blue paint workers

Both skilled workers such as paint millers and paint masters and unskilled workers, paint boys , were employed in the blue paint factories . The workers received only a small weekly wage in relation to the large profits made by the owners. The specialist knowledge acquired over many years in the production of paint, in the operation of the melting furnaces and the energy systems led to the emergence of a skilled workforce who also paid attention to the preservation of mining traditions. They took part in mountain parades together with a typical Farbenwerker habit , a white linen coat, tight white trousers, blue apron, linen shirt with a blue collar, a black manhole hat with a neck scarf and a Saxon cockade. The parade uniform also included the tools, ladle, crutch, scraper and stick. Higher-ranking color workers also wore blue-gray parade jackets with gold braids.

The company health insurance fund introduced here in the Pfannenstiel blue color factory in 1717 is noteworthy and is considered to be the first to be established in Germany. Proportional payments by the inking and factory owners as well as tips and fines formed the financial basis. In return, the fund paid sick pay for longer illnesses and death grants and a small pension to the surviving dependents in the event of death.

A number of outstanding personalities made outstanding contributions to the blue paint factory, including the founder of the factory, his wife Rosina Schnorr , who successfully continued the factory after the owner was abducted, and her son Veit Hans Schnorr von Carolsfeld , who ensured its continued existence as a businessman. The blue color factory factor Kurt Alexander Winkler , who introduced nickel production from the existing ores, and his son Clemens Alexander Winkler , who worked in the factory as a smelter, also played an important role in the history of the Niederpfannenstiel factory.

On March 1, 1889, Hüttenberg director Paul Georgi took over the position of director of the Niederpfannenstiel blue paint factory. At the same time he gained a great reputation in the public life of the city of Aue: he was chairman of the colonial society , the medical column of the Red Cross and the German Stage People's Association . Georgis activity it was due to that the cobalt production was expanded and the products of the private blue colors work gained an international reputation.

The blue paint factory becomes the nickel smelter

Working at VEB Nickelhütte Aue (1982)
Nickel in powder form

The cobalt ores found and processed in other European countries in the 18th and 19th centuries led to a decline in demand for cobalt colors from factories in the Ore Mountains. In addition, scientists in England, France and Holland had developed the inexpensive artificial ultramarine blue , which was mixed from clay , quartz, soda , sulfur and charcoal and largely replaced smalt production from the middle of the 19th century.

Thanks to the work of Kurt Alexander Winkler and Ernst August Geitner , the Pfannenstiel paint factory was retained despite the deterioration in sales. In 1823 Geitner first produced an alloy called Argentan from a mixture of copper, nickel and zinc, which was well suited for the production of stainless and inexpensive cutlery and metal tableware. The supply of new cutlery factories in Aue with nickel from 1849 brought the blue color factory an economic boom. At the same time, the Saxon Private Blue Color Works Association and the Royal Saxon Blue Color Works in Oberschlema retained the monopoly of cobalt color production. In 1885 a second Smalte production plant was put into operation on the site in Niederpfannenstiel and the number of employees increased to 80.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new process for the extraction of pure metals from previous heaps was developed, which resulted in an improved raw material base. From 1914 onwards, new melting processes with modern hearth furnaces improved the yield and working conditions.

During the Nazi era , the plant, now known as Nickelhütte , began producing copper, cupral (a pesticide ), sodium arsenite (a poisonous dust against animal pests) and charcoal tablets in 1942 . The nickel smelter was classified as a vital factory and the workforce was released from military service. In 1940 the Saxon state leased the plant under the direction of the General Directorate of the State Metallurgical Works and Blue Paint Works in Freiberg. In 1944 the plant had to file for bankruptcy.

After the end of the Second World War , the nickel smelter came under the direction of SMAD . Important operating facilities such as the energy supply, the flame furnace hall, the nickel electrolysis and the plant protection product production facilities continued to operate. In 1947 Wismut AG confiscated parts of the company premises. Here, under the name Object 100, a uranium processing plant was built into the existing building. Up to 1957, around 980,000 t of uranium ore were processed using wet mechanical and chemical methods.

From 1946 the company operated under the name Hütten- und Blaufarbenwerk Aue Sa. With the order no. 240 of the SMAD of July 7, 1948, the plant owned by the State of Saxony was placed under the industrial administration of Saxony. On January 1, 1949, it was incorporated into VVB Buntmetalle, based in Freiberg , as VEB Hütten- und Blaufarbenwerk Aue. In 1951 it was merged with the VEB Hütten- und Blaufarbenwerk Oberschlema to form VEB Nickelhütte Aue / Sa. The research and development center was relocated from the traditional Aue location to St. Egidien at the beginning of 1954 . The St. Egidien nickel smelter there was established in 1952 as part of the Aue nickel smelter after the opening of the first nickel deposit near Callenberg . In 1957, the premises used by SDAG Wismut were returned to VEB Nickelhütte Aue / Sa.

The administration had the storage, production and furnace halls partially demolished by 1963, the remaining parts of the factory were reconstructed and equipped with modern technology. Of the original twelve chimneys on the factory premises, two have been preserved, which have been significantly increased and equipped with exhaust filters. As VEB Nickelhütte Aue, the plant continued to produce the ultra-pure nickel, nickel (II) sulfate and other non-ferrous metals that are in demand worldwide . In addition, small quantities of blue paints were produced again because the factory there was relocated to Aue due to serious mining damage in the town of Oberschlema. Until the 1980s, the nickel smelter also produced spray cupral (copper oxychloride), vanadium pentoxide , germanium dioxide , copper oxide and bismuth metal. By developing a process for the recovery of non-ferrous metals from waste materials, the raw material basis for the production of nickel and other metals was secured in the long term. In the course of the restructuring of the economy, the nickel smelter was integrated into the VEB Mansfeld Kombinat "Wilhelm Pieck" in 1966. From January 1st, 1980, the Aue nickel smelter was assigned to the VEB mining and smelting combine "Albert Funk" .

The tall chimneys, which have been part of the city skyline since the 1950s, will be dismantled in spring 2016. This work was supposed to start in autumn 2015, but had to be postponed due to the priority removal of a cell tower. The 170 m high chimney made of concrete is no longer needed and would cause a static problem over time. So the city administration and the management of the nickel smelter have agreed on the removal, a demolition would have incalculable consequences. A specialist company from Cloppenburg removes around four meters of the twenty centimeter thick concrete wall from above every day. The completion of the work is not precisely defined.

Modern nickel production and other metallurgical products

Nickel in briquette form

After the end of the GDR, Siegfried Jacob Metallwerke GmbH & Co.KG from Ennepetal took over Nickelhütte Aue in 1991 and turned it into a market economy. Under the direction of Peter Koch and Gert Windisch, the technical facilities were modernized, the existing buildings were renovated and the ecological conditions of production improved. The area of ​​the plant was expanded through the purchase of some fallow land in the Aue-Neustadt district. This secured the jobs of 400 people and strengthened the region's economic power.

Today's production process at Nickelhütte includes the business areas of pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, copper recycling, alloy production, transformer dismantling, non-ferrous metal trading and power generation. Non-ferrous metal scrap (Cu, Al, Ms, Zn, Pb), dross (waste products from metal melts), precious metal-containing catalysts and nickel-containing dusts, sludges, salts, acids and capacitors are used as starting materials . These recycling materials are purchased from Germany as well as from Europe, Asian, African and American countries. The metal salts obtained in compliance with all health and safety regulations are sold all over the world. Nickelhütte Aue is now one of the world's leading suppliers of nickel concentrates, nickel salts and nickel and copper-based alloys.

Regional commitment

Mining traditions and participation in a new exploration

The management is committed to shaping and maintaining the regional mining-historical traditions, but is also active in current projects in the region. Since 2010, Nickelhütte Aue has been a partner in EFS - Erzgebirgische Fluss- und Schwerspatwerke GmbH, which operates the re- exploration of an ore deposit in precipitation near Oberwiesenthal . The geologist Wolfgang Schilka researched for a few years in order to be able to exploit the deposits in the Ore Mountains again after the raw material prices have risen sharply on the world market. To this end, the old Wismut tunnel, shaft 215, was ceremoniously reopened in November 2010 . The ceremony was attended by the Saxon chief miner Reinhard Schmidt and the Saxon finance minister Georg Unland . The digestion is mainly used to extract fluorspar , barite and copper sulfide and iron sulfide ores. The river spate is to be processed in the former lignite heating plant of the nickel smelter. The strong degree of intergrowth of fluorspar with barite and quartz makes it necessary to crush it in ball mills to less than 160 micrometers with subsequent flotation. It is calculated with 135,000 tons of fluorspar and barite annually . The plan was to promote the first “new bin” in 2012. The required access ramp to the fluorite / barite ore vein is a few kilometers long and - according to information published on lapis.de in 2012 - will only be able to go into operation in 2014. The cost of all development work will then have been more than 12 million euros. The new mining site has now been given the name of the nearby location: Precipitation pit and started mining ores in 2013.

Nickelhütte sports community and social work

  • The operation is also the main carrier and the sponsor for the 2nd German Schachbundesliga gambling Erzgebirgische chess club nickel Aue (ESV nickel Aue).
The chess section was founded on July 14, 1980 in the BSG Wismut Aue and existed until 1990. The chess players were active in the GDR league. In the new Federal Republic of Germany, the Nickelhütte Aue plant took over the sponsorship, so that the association received the name of the sponsoring company on September 1, 2004. - The 1st team was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga in 2003. In 2008 the chess players were even in the finals of the four best teams for the German Cup. From 2010 to 2011 they played in the 1st Bundesliga , but gave up again in the top division for financial reasons. In 2014 ESV Nickelhütte Aue again reached first place in the table, but immediately renounced promotion.
The association has 79 members, including 24 children and young people (as of spring 2020). The players meet regularly for training, and a training camp is also organized for the children and young people.
The president of the ESV is Rainer Hillebrand, who joined the chess section in 1958 and was then head of the section for twenty years. He also took over this position in the new ESV and is thus Germany's longest- serving
chess president .
  • Social projects in the region are often supported by sponsoring or personal campaigns.

Recognition of the company's commitment

Peter Koch, former managing director of the facility, was made an honorary citizen of the city of Aue and received the Federal Cross of Merit in 2007 for his services to the company and his socially responsible behavior .

literature

  • Aue, mosaic stones of history , published by Stadtverwaltung Aue, printer and publisher Mike Rockstroh, Aue 1997; Pages 49–66 “The blue color factories are factories that cannot be found anywhere else in Saxony but in the Ore Mountains, and are therefore worthy of our attention.”
  • Manfred Blechschmidt , Klaus Walther : From the Niederpfannenstiel blue paint factory to the state-owned Nickelhütte Aue - episodes and images from 350 years of history . Lößnitz, Rockstroh, 1985
  • Siegfried Sieber : History of the Niederpfannenstiel blue paint factory in Aue in the Ore Mountains on the occasion of its three hundredth anniversary . Schwarzenberg, Glückauf-Verl., 1935
  • Mike Haustein: The Legacy of the Blue Ink Factory 1635-2010. Nickelhütte Aue, 2010 ISBN 978-3-931770-88-4
  • Ernst Ludwig Schubarth: Elements of technical chemistry, for use in teaching in the Königl. Industrial institute and the provincial industrial schools ; 2nd edition 1835, A. Rücker, here: 14th chapter: p. 151 ff - Smalte, Wismuth, Kobalt ( full text in the Google book search).
  • Albrecht Kirsche: Cistercian, glassmaker and turner. Waxmann Verlag GmbH, Münster 2005
  • Michael Wetzel: The Schönburg Office of Hartenstein 1702–1878. Leipzig University Press 2004
  • Till, Schuster, Wehland, Schnädelbach: Industrial history in the Auer Valley 1945–1990 . Ed .: Stadtverwaltung Aue. City administration Aue, Aue 1999, DNB  1017792712 , p. 16-18 .

Web links

Commons : Nickelhütte Aue  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ CG Hesse: Journal of the blue color works in the Kingdom of Saxony; 2nd part - Pfannenstieler blue color factory ; without year
  2. PDF document From the Niederpfannenstiel blue ink factory to Aue nickel smelter
  3. ^ Supplement from a preliminary work by the press department of the Aue town hall from 2002.
  4. Magazine mountain bells , 2-2008; Page 2 (PDF; 3.5 MB)
  5. ^ The St. Egidien nickel smelter in the State Archives of the Free State of Saxony
  6. Eat the nickel smelter soon. In: WochenENDspiegel , March 7, 2016.
  7. Video of the demolition of the forge on youtube.com , duration 2:54 minutes.
  8. Treasure hunters in Central Germany. Mining is returning to the Ore Mountains. Broadcast by mdr on November 30, 2010; accessed on February 4, 2010 and prepared with notes from the broadcast.
  9. Premiere: New fluorite mining in the Saxon Ore Mountains on lapis.de, accessed on September 20, 2012
  10. Homepage of SG Nickelhütte Aue
  11. Homepage of ESV Nickelhütte Aue
  12. Press release from the city administration of Aue-Bad Schlema from March 11, 2020: 2nd children and youth open tournament of ESV Nickelhütte Aue eV

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 ′ 8 ″  N , 12 ° 43 ′ 0 ″  E