Burbacher Hut

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The Burbacher Hütte is a former ironworks founded in 1856 in Burbach , a district of the city of Saarbrücken .

history

Saarstahl factory premises in Burbach, formerly Burbacher Hütte

On June 22, 1856, a consortium of Luxembourg industrialists founded the Saarbrücker Eisenhüttengesellschaft - Société en participation des Forges de Sarrebruck . Decisive for the choice of location was, on the one hand, the proximity to the raw material sources ( Minette from Lorraine , hard coal from the Saar area ), and on the other hand, the convenient location on the Saar.

The first blast furnace was blown in as early as 1857, and the coking plant went into operation in 1858 . Another blast furnace was added in 1858 and 1859. In 1861 the legal form changed. Under the name Société Anonyme des Mines du Luxembourg et des Forges de Sarrebruck - Luxembourg mining and Saarbrücken ironworks stock corporation , the company now operated as a stock corporation under Belgian law. In 1871, the operators, together with the Luxembourg company Société en commandite des Forges d'Eich, Le Gallais, Metz et Cie, founded a modern blast furnace plant with a total of four blast furnaces in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg . Half of the pig iron extracted there was transported to Burbach for further processing. In 1882 this partnership founded another company ( Société Anonyme des Hauts Fourneaux et Forges de Dudelange - Dudelange ironworks share association ) in Luxembourg, this time in Dudelange . From 1880 onwards, Burbach produced its steel using the Thomas process , and from 1895 using the Siemens-Martin process .

At the beginning of the 20th century, extensive expansions were on the agenda. Among other things, the hut grew by the following parts:

1902-1903 Universal rolling mill
1904 Wire rod mill
1907 New Thomasstahlwerk with four converters and a new mixer hall
1909 Electrical center, EZ2 hall or E-Werk
1911 Completion of the ammonia factory

In 1909, eight blast furnaces were in use in Burbach, producing around 330,000 t of pig iron. In 1910 the hut employed around 5,100 people. In 1911 the Burbacher Hütte merged with several Luxembourg and Lorraine mining companies (including Société en commandite des Forges d'Eich, Le Gallais, Metz et Cie and Société Anonyme des Hauts Fourneaux et Forges de Dudelange - Eisenhütten-Aktien-Verein Dudelange ) to ARBED - Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange, Société Anonyme - Vereinigte Hüttenwerke Burbach-Eich-Dudelange AG . During the First World War , the Burbach plant was almost completely shut down. In the period from 1920, when the Saar area was under the mandate of the League of Nations , extensive plant modernizations were carried out again.

During the Second World War, the group used several hundred forced laborers and prisoners of war from the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Poland and Italy with the forced labor camp in the sheet metal rolling mill in Burbach.

Today's Saarstahl building with the Saar in the foreground

Largely destroyed as a result of the Second World War, then gradually rebuilt and modernized, production could not start again until 1946. In 1967 there was diversification through the purchase of the Lüttgens wagon factory in the vicinity of the hut . Three years later, the smelter put a modern wire mill into operation. In 1971 the Burbacher Hütte, which belongs to ARBED, merged with the Völklinger Hütte . The company, in which ARBED and the Röchling family, as owners of the Völklinger Hütte, each had a half share, traded under the name Stahlwerke Röchling-Burbach GmbH . In 1975, at the beginning of the steel crisis , around 6,000 people were employed in Burbach. From 1975 onwards there were extensive restructuring measures. So fell u. a. pig iron production in Burbach, as well as the rolling mills, are decommissioned. In 1982 Stahlwerke Röchling-Burbach GmbH merged with Neunkircher Eisenwerk AG to form the new ARBED-Saarstahl GmbH . The Burbacher Hütte subsequently came to a gradual standstill, the only exception being the wire mill with around 1,000 jobs that continued to operate. After renovation, a commercial area was created in the following years from the company site that has now become vacant. Due to economic problems both at the parent company ARBED and at the subsidiary Arbed Saarstahl GmbH, further restructuring took place, from which today's Saarstahl AG emerged , which still operates a wire mill in Burbach.

Hut directors

Todays situation

As of 2009, around 700 people were still employed in Saarstahl AG's wire line on the Burbacher Hütte site.

Large parts of the former factory space were converted into commercial space by the Gesellschaft für Innovation und Unternehmensförderung mbH (GIU) belonging to the city of Saarbrücken . In addition to several specialist stores u. a. Primarily service and IT companies from the furniture, building materials and electronics sectors have settled there. The former electrical center of the hut is now a concert and event hall under the name E-Werk .

Web links

Commons : Burbacher Hütte  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marc Schoentgen: "Heim ins Reich"? Retrieved August 17, 2019 .
  2. ^ Deportation: Forced labor in the Wadgasser area. Spurker Cemetery Memorial, accessed on August 17, 2019 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 14 '13.2 "  N , 6 ° 57' 23.8"  E