German works
After the defeat of the German Empire in the First World War and the resulting armaments restrictions, 13 former army and naval workshops were combined under the name Deutsche Werke AG and converted to civilian production. These included the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel , the Royal Bavarian Gun Foundry and Projectile Factory Ingolstadt , the Rifle Factory Spandau , the Rifle Factory Erfurt and others. The administrative seat of Deutsche Werke AG was Berlin. The later transformation into independent sole proprietorship created among others the Deutsche Industriewerke , Berlin and the Deutsche Werke Kiel AG.
History of Deutsche Werke Kiel AG
The German works Kiel AG (DWK) was a major shipyard in Kiel . It went back to the Königliche Werft Kiel, founded in 1867 . The company, which was renamed Kaiserliche Werft Kiel after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, was, like its sister shipyards in Wilhelmshaven and Danzig, mainly engaged in the repair of warships for the Imperial Navy . During the period in office of Wilhelm II , the three imperial shipyards benefited from the massive armament of the German Empire, particularly from 1900 to the beginning of World War I in mid-1914.
After the establishment of the Weimar Republic , the Versailles Treaty led to a drastic collapse in orders, as the strength of the navy was significantly reduced. The state shipyard, renamed Reichswerft Kiel , was converted into a stock corporation called Deutsche Werke Kiel AG (DWK) on February 1, 1925 by a resolution of the Reichstag . The torpedo workshop of the former Imperial Navy in Kiel- Friedrichsort on the opposite bank of the Kiel Fjord was part of the main factory in Kiel- Gaarden-Ost .
The large shipyard had six dry docks , four floating docks and four floating cranes with a lifting capacity of up to 150 t as well as a large marine floating dock for ships up to 50,000 tons . Of the three helges for the new shipbuilding, two were suitable for the largest ships.
At the beginning of the 1920s, the German plants started building railroad vehicles, especially railcars . After the first in-house developments, Triebwagenbau AG (TAG) was founded with AEG in 1926 . In 1937 the AEG got out, the TAG was dissolved, the further construction was done by the DWK alone.
After mainly civilian ships such as tankers , freighters and fish steamers were built and repaired in the 1920s , an era of rearmament began again during the Nazi era, so that the German works concentrated entirely on naval shipbuilding again. From 1934 the submarine construction began again; initially with the small type II , and later with the larger types VII and XIV . However, the focus remained on the construction of large ships for the navy until the beginning of the Second World War . In 1937 the Howaldtswerke were taken over by Heinrich Diederichsen by the Deutsche Werke. In addition, put the plant in Kiel-Friedrichsort torpedo tubes and monthly up to 70 torpedoes from the type G7a ago.
In 1941 the shipyard Deutsche Werke Werk Gotenhafen was opened as a branch . An external labor camp of the Stutthof concentration camp was set up there.
In the course of the Second World War , over 2,500 forced laborers were employed in armaments production in Kiel and Friedrichsort , who were housed in various barracks in the Kiel area.
From 1944, operations in Kiel concentrated only on the manufacture of sections for the boats of the new submarine class XXI , which were assembled by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and AG Weser . For this purpose, dry dock III was converted into the "Konrad" bunker in mid-1944.
67 percent of the shipyard was destroyed in the air raids on Kiel . After the end of the war, the former ironclad Admiral Scheer capsized in the outer construction port. The wreck of the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper , which was blown up by Wehrmacht troops on May 3, 1945 , was in a dry dock. The shipyard was completely dismantled except for the two dry docks V and VI located directly on the fjord. The “Konrad” bunker was blown up and the neighboring dry docks I, II and IV and the equipment ports filled with rubble from the city together with the partially broken off wreck of the Admiral Scheer . The Admiral Hipper was sealed in the dock by British units, towed into the outer fjord in front of Heikendorf and there grounded opposite the light cruiser Emden .
The area of machine and locomotive construction in Friedrichsort were combined in 1945 in Holsteinische Maschinenbau AG (Holmag), from 1948 in Maschinenbau Kiel (MaK). In 1953 the Howaldtswerke bought the two former dry docks No. V and VI of the DWK and later rebuilt the shipyard as Kieler Howaldtswerke Werk Gaarden .
Ships of the Deutsche Werke Kiel (selection)
- Panzerschiff Deutschland (later renamed Lützow )
- Destroyer Z 1 to Z 4 ( destroyer type 1934 )
- Battleship Gneisenau
- Heavy cruiser Blücher
- Aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin (not completed after launch)
Deutsche Werke AG in Dachau
In Dachau, a former ammunition factory was integrated into Deutsche Werke AG as the "Dachau L" plant and a former powder factory as the "Dachau P" plant. In "Dachau L", as an offshoot of the plant in Munich, threshing machines were produced. The plant was closed in November 1924. "Dachau P" was shut down in 1923. In 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was established on the site of "Dachau P" . In 1937, the new prisoner compound was built in the immediate vicinity and is now used as a memorial.
literature
- Eberhard Rössler : The German submarines and their shipyards. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-5879-8 .
Web links
- List of all former state armaments factories that have merged into the German works
- British aerial photo of the Deutsche Werke from spring 1942. (The white arrow marks the battleship Scharnhorst , which is waiting for repairs at the equipment pier .)
- History in chronology The shipyard after the end of the war. In the foreground on the left the bunker "Konrad", behind the capsized heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer
- Early documents and newspaper articles on German works in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Meyer's Lexicon. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1925, columns 682/683
- ↑ www.zwangsarbeiter-sh.de
- ^ Excursus in the Kiel armaments industry under National Socialism. In: www. gegenwind.info. Retrieved September 24, 2016 .
- ^ Daniel Roth: Followers Care . On the corporate social policy of Deutsche Werke Kiel AG in the “Third Reich”. In: Democratic History . tape 13 , 2000 ( beirat-fuer-geschichte.de [PDF; accessed on September 24, 2016]).
- ↑ Werner Dreher: The Deutsche Werke AG in Dachau - The Dachau branch in the crisis years 1921 to 1923 as reflected in the works council files . In: Amperland - quarterly local history for the districts of Dachau, Freising and Fürstenfeldbruck . 31st year, issue 4, 1995, ISSN 0003-1992 .