Dr. E. ter Meer & Cie
The chemical company Dr. E. ter Meer & Cie. In Uerdingen am Rhein there was a tar paint factory specializing in textile paints . The company founded by Edmund ter Meer in 1887 was part of IG Farbenindustrie AG from 1925 and was incorporated into the Bayer paint factories after the Second World War .
Edmund ter Meer came from a long-established Krefeld family that can be traced back to the 16th century. The ancestors came to the liberal Krefeld in the middle of the 17th century as Mennonite religious refugees, where they worked as linen and wool ribbon weavers. After the abolition of the Prussian silk monopoly for the von der Leyen company (granted in 1792 after the occupation by the French), they established themselves as silk manufacturers. That is why textile manufacturers were his first customers. When he was not yet 25 years old, Ter Meer acquired a plot of land north of the city with start-up capital of around 30,000 marks to set up a tar paint production facility. The money came from his father Hermann Eduard ter Meer . He called the company he founded in 1877 Dr. E. ter Meer & Cie. The young entrepreneur started with a worker and a laboratory boy the production of then new, artificial azo dyes for dyeing textiles. Ter Meer invented and tested new processes ( Ter Meer reaction ) that were used by the silk industry.
From 1882 to 1887 Heinrich Tillmanns, an uncle on his mother's side, was a silent partner in the aniline dyes factory now trading as Tillmanns, E. ter Meer & Co. In the following years, the expansion progressed at a rapid pace: In 1892 the product range was expanded to include the oils dimethyl and diethyl aniline . In 1887 he formed an alliance with the Cologne supplier JW Weiler & Cie. a. This company produced aniline , which was used in the manufacture of paints, resins, and medicines. In 1890 there was a merger with Rudolf Wedekind's chemical plant, which had moved from Leichlingen to Uerdingen . 1896 merged it finally with the now into a public limited company converted company Chemical factories, vorm. JW Weiler & Cie. Since then, the company has been called Chemische Fabriken, formerly Weiler-ter Meer , whose management was taken over by ter Meer alone after the death of Julius Weiler in 1904. The company expanded its product range to include inorganic heavy chemicals and set up subsidiaries in France and the United States, quickly growing into one of the leading chemical plants in Germany. By the First World War, the number of employees rose to around 1,600.
In 1916, the seven leading German companies in the dye industry - the Triple Alliance ( Agfa , BASF and Bayer ), the Dreierverband ( Hoechst , Cassella , Kalle ) and the chemical factories formerly Weiler-ter Meer - merged into the interest group of the German tar dye factories , which presumably first German trust . In 1917 Griesheim-Elektron was added. This is how the largest syndicate in Europe and, so to speak, the largest chemical company in the world came into being. Although some US American trusts outperformed it, most of them only dealt with one product (e.g. Standard Oil), while the IG manufactured many thousands.
From 1925 onwards, the company belonged to IG Farbenindustrie AG, at the end of his efforts, and he sent his son Fritz ter Meer to the board of directors . Around 1,300 people were employed at the Uerdingen location at that time. They experienced a constant expansion of the product portfolio: iron oxide and chromium oxide pigments, preservatives, fragrance precursors, leather covering paints, wood protection salts and adhesives.
In addition to the tar colors, the yellow or black iron oxide pigments were an innovative main product from the start. In 1925, Julius Laux found the Laux process , a process to turn a useless by-product of aniline production into a technically usable product that was later even in great demand. As early as 1914 attempts had been made - unsuccessfully at the time - to make something useful and, above all, something salable out of iron oxide sludge.
In the period before and during the Second World War, the export business collapsed. Under the Nazi regime, production was gradually converted to war production. Most of the factories were destroyed by the air raids in World War II. Many workers were drafted into the Wehrmacht and forced laborers took over their work. The Uerdingen plant - like the entire property of IG Farben - was confiscated by the Allies after the end of the war . After the war, the IG Farben plant in Uerdingen was integrated into the Bayer AG paint factory in 1951 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online: Ter Meer Family , accessed May 25, 2013.
- ↑ a b Das kleine Haus am Rhein ( Memento from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: WZ, February 21, 2007 (PDF).
- ↑ chempensoftware.com: Ter Sea Reaction ( Memento from August 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 25, 2013.
- ^ Ernst Köppen: Krefeld miniatures . Verlag Scherpe, 1967.
- ↑ Extra tip on Sunday 28 July 2002.
- ↑ bufata-chemie.de: IG Farben in the Weimar Republic ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2009 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. , accessed May 25, 2013.
- ↑ chempunkt.de: History of CHEMPARK Krefeld-Uerdingen , accessed on May 25, 2013.
- ↑ 1911 joined the chemical factories Weiler-ter Meer in Uerdingen, since 1919 head of the aniline plant, from 1929 head of the Uerdingen plant
- ↑ Patent DE463773 : Process for the production of aromatic amines. Published on August 2, 1928 , inventor: Julius Laux. , See also lanxess.com: Ceremony “80 Years of Iron Oxides from Uerdingen” , September 1, 2006 (PDF; 8.8 MB), accessed on May 25, 2013.
- ↑ lanxess.de: "Innovation and Iron Oxides " - From the remarks by Dr. Ulrich Koemm, Member of the Board of Management of LANXESS AG ( Memento from July 1, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), from September 1, 2006, accessed on May 25, 2013.
