Eilenburg chemical plant
The Eilenburger Chemiewerk (ECW) was a traditional chemical site in the city of Eilenburg . The factory was founded in 1887 by the Leipzig industrialist Ernst Mey for the production of celluloid and has operated under several names throughout its history. Many other chemical products, such as peroxides and cellulose acetate , have been added to the program over the years . PVC plastics have also been manufactured under the Decelith brand since 1936 . After reunification, the attempt at privatization failed; This was followed by the liquidation and subsequent re-establishment of the Eilenburger Compound-Werk (later Polyplast Compound-Werk ), which still produces plastics today. The no longer used facilities and buildings were gradually demolished and the site opened up for new investments.
The goods were mainly transported by rail; from 1892 to 1998 the plant had a siding. The works railway network grew with the plant and in 1984 had reached a length of 10 kilometers. In addition to the depot and the connecting station, there was also a container station in later years. Mainly steam storage locomotives were used .
history
From the foundation to the Second World War
In 1885, construction of a chemical factory began in the area between the city of Eilenburg and Kültzschau, which was incorporated in 1865, on the right of the Mulde . The owner was the Leipzig industrialist Ernst Mey, who was also the owner of the Leipzig-Plagwitz- based company Mey & Edlich . On May 14, 1887, the company Ernst Mey & Co. "Manufacture of linen from paper and celluloid in Leipzig" with the branch in Eilenburg was entered in the commercial register. Operations began in Eilenburg on November 1, 1887. At that time, the only product from the Eilenburg plant was cellulose nitrate for the production of celluloid and paints . At the end of 1889 the company was converted into a stock corporation . This was accompanied by the renaming to Deutsche Celluloid-Fabrik AG Leipzig (DCF).
The plant continued to grow at the beginning of the 20th century. There was also a nitriding plant and a paper dutchman . With the imitation of materials such as mother-of-pearl with celluloid, for which the company applied for a patent under the name " Perloid ", the customer base was also increased, which now also includes manufacturers of jewelry and musical instruments. In preparation for the First World War, most of the production was switched to gun cotton and expanded during the war, so that further new buildings were also built during this time. A power plant with mechanized coaling, a production facility for nitric acid and the water tower for the water supply for production and as a fire extinguishing water storage facility were built. In 1915 the headquarters of the AG was relocated to Eilenburg.
In the inflationary years after the war , the DCF had a short time approval to issue emergency money itself . In 1923, the DCF became a subsidiary of Cologne-Rottweil AG through a retroactive affiliation contract to 1921 , but was sold by the parent company to the IG-Farben Group in 1926. The global economic crisis from 1929 also forced the DCF to reduce its workforce, but it remained the city's largest employer. In 1936 the production of a plastic based on polyvinyl chloride was added to the production range. As a trade name, the term was Decelith as a partial acronym for the operation name De funnel Ce introduced lluloid factory. For the Second World War they went back to war production, but decelith was still made; in addition, the workforce increased to over 2,500, many of whom were foreign workers and prisoners of war . An agricultural business was opened not far from the company premises to supply these workers. Compared to the city in which 90 percent of all buildings were destroyed, the factory survived the war relatively undamaged apart from a few shell impacts, although facilities were destroyed and had to be repaired.
Post-war until today
At the end of May 1945 the boiler house and the power plant went back into operation, and production was resumed a month later. According to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement , the complete dismantling of the film factory and record production began in August 1945. Some of the skilled workers had to travel to the Soviet Union to rebuild the machines and train new workers. Since the DCF belonged to IG Farben, a complete dismantling was planned, but this could be averted through the efforts of the works council. In the parts of the celluloid and decelith production operations, there was therefore only partial dismantling. The dismantling was completed in September 1945. In 1946 the company was converted into a Soviet stock corporation (SAG), and at the same time the name changed to Eilenburger Celluloid-Werk (ECW). The plant was subordinate to the SAG for mineral fertilizers .
In August 1953, the Soviet government decided to return the last SAGs, which also included the ECW, to the GDR . From this time on, numerous production lines, for example the large cellulose acetate department, were rebuilt or built in existing buildings. The social and cultural area also developed. In February 1953 the ECW clubhouse opened, later also a doctor's station, a crèche and a kindergarten. The ECW set up its own children's holiday camp at a swimming lake in Pressel , as well as a holiday complex right on the beach in Göhren on Rügen . In 1954 the plant was hit particularly hard by a summer flood due to its proximity to the Mulde. The water was on average half a meter high on the company premises and partially destroyed the production facilities. Operations were forcibly suspended for ten days. The failures had to be compensated for with extra shifts. On January 1, 1955, the former production hall of the Nestler machine factory , located on Lauchberg , about 2 km south of Eilenburg-Ost , which came to VEB Plaste Bitterfeld in 1945 , was incorporated into the ECW as Plant III . As Plant II of now the ECW under standing operating part in Leipzig was called, the consumer items such as combs and soap doses produced.
Produced goods have also been exported since the factory was founded. At the end of the 1950s, the ECW resumed its export activities after the Second World War. At that time, however, this was subject to some restrictions, so foreign trade was a matter for the state VE foreign trade company Chemie Export / Import Berlin . Nevertheless, the ECW was able to make export agreements itself, which then took place through state foreign trade. The share of exports in total production was around 10 percent until the 1970s. By the 1980s, the export volume increased to 25 percent, of which around 80 percent went to the non-socialist economic area . The ECW had trade relations with 15 capitalist states and five developing countries. 20 percent of the exports went to the Comecon countries.
In 1960, the ECW brought PVC granules onto the market for the first time . In 1969, the ECW was incorporated as part of the newly created VEB Orbitaplast Gölzau , which had the disadvantage for the ECW that investments were mainly made in the parent company. On January 1, 1974, the Eilenburger Celluloid-Werk was renamed the Eilenburger Chemie-Werk and at the same time it was separated from the VEB Orbitaplast. With the renaming, the enlargement of the product range with further plastics was taken into account. The ECW was again an independent company in the Combine Chemical Works Buna .
After 1990, the Treuhandanstalt took over the business and forced its privatization to Eilenburger Chemie-Werk GmbH (later renamed Eilenburger Chemie-Werke AG ). This was accompanied by a sharp reduction in the workforce. Nevertheless, the attempt at privatization failed and the company was liquidated . In 1994 the Eilenburger Compound-Werk GmbH was founded, which only took over and developed the operating parts of PVC and compound production. In 1998 the production of PP compounds was started. Since 2006 the company has been operating under the new name Polyplast Compound-Werk (PCW). With that, the abbreviation ECW , which had been used for over 60 years, disappeared . The production range of the successor company, which belongs to the Polyplast Müller group of companies, partly includes the traditional brands such as Decelith from the former ECW. By 2008 the parent company had invested over five million euros in new production halls. The PCW still employs around 120 people today.
Dismantling and redevelopment
In the course of the 1990s, the cellulose acetate (1990), nitrocellulose (around 1994) and peroxide (around 1995) operations were gradually shut down. As the buildings were difficult to recycle, it was only a matter of time before the facilities were torn down. The first demolition work took place in 1995 on the nitriding plant. Many smaller buildings were demolished over the next few years. The most extensive demolition work began in 2007 and continued until 2009. During this time, the peroxide department, the former production facility for PVC semi-finished products, the storage area (“magazine”), the central workshops, an office and technical center building (called “millions building” due to numerous renovations), the laboratories , the turbine house and the old boiler house , which had been unused since the mid-1960s, was demolished. In 2008 the listed cultural center, which had been empty since the mid-1990s, was demolished. In the same year, building 501, the striking main building of the cellulose acetate department, as well as the former service water works and the coal bunker were dismantled. In 2009, the last unused buildings were torn down, thus completing the dismantling.
In connection with the last demolition measures, the city of Eilenburg carried out the development of the former company premises north of Ziegelstrasse and the recultivation of the areas south of Ziegelstrasse from 2007 . Since then, several medium-sized companies have settled here, in addition to PCW, among others, Stadtwerke Eilenburg with a block-type thermal power station , Eilenburger Umwelttechnik GmbH, and a mechanical engineering company. The city is marketing the new industrial park under the name Kunststoffcenter am ECW-Wasserturm .
Products
When the plant opened, the only product was cellulose nitrate , for example in the form of collodion wool , for the in-house production of the thermoplastic celluloid and the paint industry. New recipes made it possible at the beginning of the 20th century to use the celluloid produced to imitate materials such as mother-of-pearl (“ pearloid ”), ivory and horn . This also increased the customer base, which now also includes jewelry and musical instrument manufacturers.
In preparation for the First World War, production was mainly switched to gun cotton , which was used to make gunpowder . In addition, a production facility for nitric acid was built during the war . After the war there was a return to peace production, that is, raw celluloid in tablets, tubes and sticks as well as linen were made from celluloid. In addition, new plants for the production of nitro lacquer and nitrofilm underlays were built. In addition, the capacities for the production of the collodion wool required by the paint industry were expanded.
In 1924, with the construction of the serum plant south of the actual plant premises, the production of preparations for veterinary medicine began. However, this part of the company was given up again at the end of the 1920s. The laboratory buildings were converted into company apartments.
In 1936, the production of a plastic called Decelith based on polyvinyl chloride was added to the production range. The decelith (hard) was offered as a semi-finished product in the form of sheets, plates, foils and pipes, the decelith (soft) mixed with plasticizers was made for the further production of foils, plates, tubes and records. The large sale of records ensured that a separate department was set up. For the Second World War they went back to war production. Gunpowder was mainly produced in the factory, while Decelith production was maintained because the fabric was used as a substitute for window glass during the war years.
After the war, the film and record production were dismantled as reparations. Celluloid and collodion wool and decelite production continued. In 1946 the Soviet plant management decided to set up a hydrogen peroxide plant, which went into operation in 1948. A year later, the production of potassium persulphate and derivatives of hydrogen peroxide started. 1950 opened the production line for Perkasil , an addition compound of hydrogen peroxide to sodium carbonate , which was required as an oxygen carrier for the detergent industry. In the same year the production of bicycle tires was started under the name Krepp-Decelith based on Decelith (soft). However, due to the poor quality, the product could not prevail and production was discontinued after a short time.
When the factory passed into the possession of the GDR in 1953, the production of Decelith semi-finished and finished products, which were mainly required by the construction industry, was further expanded. Since the ECW could not meet the demand on its own, new plants were built in, among other places, Easterienburg , which specialized in this. In 1958 the company started producing transparent hoses made of PVC, which were used for milk lines in milking systems. In the 1950s, new thermoplastics were added to the program. In 1959, for example, the production of semi-finished products of thermoplastic PS plastic under the name Saxerol was added to the product range, which were further processed and used, among other things, for the interior paneling of refrigerators. In the same year, the manufacture of polyethylene and polypropylene began in the form of panels, which were sold under the Saxolen brand and were used, for example, in electroplating and ventilation and air conditioning technology. In 1963, organic peroxides were added to production, for example dibenzoyl peroxide .
From 1961 to 1964 a new cellulose acetate department was set up, which was supposed to make the GDR independent of western imports. Trial operation started in early May 1963. ECW was the sole manufacturer of this product in the GDR. The production output was about 6,000 tons per year, but this could only cover the domestic demand. The cellulose acetate was also granulated with the aid of plasticizers and other substances. Hand tool handles, combs, brushes and sanitary items were later made from this granulate, which was sold under the trade name Saxetat . In 1976 and 1977 a plant for cellulose acetate sheets was set up, which was important for the manufacture of spectacle frames. In 1979 a new alcoholisation plant for the cellulose nitrate department was put into operation. In 1981 the first robot in the ECW started its work in palletizing the granulate sacks. On the Lauchberg , polystyrene panels were produced on a modern panel system from capitalist foreign countries.
In order to meet the requirements of consumer goods production in the GDR , the ECW also produced corrugated foil for private use, plastic tumble dryers and belt holders for the lockers of the members of the armed organs of the GDR in its Plant III . Often this work was done by students as part of polytechnical lessons (e.g. ESP or PA ) or during vacation work. In addition, schoolchildren formed reinforcement elements for the Laussig concrete plant in a workshop on the main site .
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, most parts of the company were not competitive and had to gradually close. To this day, the Polyplast Compound plant produces the Decelith (hard and soft), as well as the TPE compound Saxomer , the PP compound Saxene and the PA compound Saxomid .
power supply
An in-house power plant was built for the first time in 1916 . It had ten steam generators , each with 10 tons of steam per hour. The coal was transported from the unloading point to the boiler house with a clad conveyor system. In 1935, a boiler house with two coal dust boilers, each with 30 tons of steam per hour, was built south of Ziegelstraße, outside the actual company premises . This meant that the factory had two heating plants that existed next to each other for a short time. In 1945, three boilers from the old boiler house, as well as the conveyor system and the two coal dust boilers, were dismantled by the Soviet Army as reparations.
In the early years, the resulting ash was on Loren removed and taken to the different deposit types. In 1953, the ashes began to be mixed with water using the so-called ash flushing process and fed into the flooded area of the Lossa east of the company premises via a pipe system .
When in the 1950s, with the start of further productions, the energy generated by the seven remaining boilers was no longer sufficient, a new heating plant with two grate- fired boilers was built at the point where the two pulverized coal boilers were until 1945 . The construction of the plant began in 1954 and was initially completed in 1957 with the commissioning of the second boiler. When the cellulose acetate department was set up in the early 1960s, two more boilers had to go into operation in the new boiler house. These each had an output of 64 tons of steam per hour. At the same time, a 120 m high concrete chimney, which is striking in a wide area, and south of the new heating plant, next to the former serum plant, a raw lignite storage area and bunker with an unloading station for coal trains were built. From now on, the old boiler house was only connected to the grid when needed until it was finally shut down in 1967.
Directly next to the old boiler house was the turbine house, which was also built in 1916 and had a total output of 16.2 megawatts with four steam turbines . The ECW was obliged to feed electricity from the company's own power plant into the network . In addition, the ECW supplied 1200 apartments, several kindergartens, nurseries and schools as well as a swimming pool with district heating in the east district . In addition there was the supply of several industrial companies, z. B. of the furniture factory Eilenburg.
Because of signs of wear and tear on the boilers, the ECW received a transportable oil boiler in 1985 with an output of 15 tons of steam per hour. A year later, the two boilers commissioned in the 1950s were refurbished so that the boiler from the 1960s, which had also been used, could be reduced in output. The remaining heating plant was shut down in the 1990s and demolished in 2001. The concrete chimney was blown up on February 15, 2002, followed by the demolition of the old boiler house, which had been unused since 1967, in 2007.
Number of employees
| Development of the number of employees |
||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1888 | 142 | |||||||||||||
| 1899 | 300 | |||||||||||||
| 1911 | 400 | |||||||||||||
| 1914 | 730 | |||||||||||||
| 1931 | 922 | |||||||||||||
| 1932 | 687 | |||||||||||||
| 1936 | 1,432 | |||||||||||||
| 1937 | 1,652 | |||||||||||||
| 1960 | 2,434 | |||||||||||||
| 1987 | 2,296 | |||||||||||||
The company started operations in the 1880s with around 140 employees. At the beginning of the 20th century, the stock corporation opened up further business areas, so that the production site continued to grow. As a result, the number of employees rose sharply, to 400 in 1911. At the outbreak of the First World War, the workforce comprised around 730 workers. During the war, when production was mainly switched to gun cotton , it skyrocketed to up to 2,000. After the war the number decreased again. A sharp drop in the number of employees is due to the effects of the global economic crisis in 1929: with more than 900 employees in 1931, the number fell to below 700 in the course of 1932. By the end of 1932 the number rose again slightly to 740, around the Workforce of pre-war production. With these figures, however, the company was still by far the largest employer in Eilenburg.
With the development of Decelith plastic and the general economic recovery in the 1930s, the number of employees rose again. By 1937 the number of employees rose sharply to over 1,600. This upward trend continued into the years of the Second World War, when the factory primarily produced gunpowder . The workforce consisted to a large extent of foreign workers and prisoners of war, the number in those years exceeded the mark of 2,500 employees. After the war, operations were resumed in June 1945 with around 160 people. By eliminating the war damage and setting up new production facilities, such as the cellulose acetate department, the number of employees was again increased significantly; In the early 1960s it was over 2,400 workers. This level was roughly maintained until reunification, although a slight decline was recorded in 1987 with almost 2,300 workers. Today around 125 people still work on the entire former premises.
Works railway
| Facts about the ECW works railway (as of 1984) | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gauge | 1435 mm | |||||||||||||
| Track length | 10 km | |||||||||||||
| Number of points | 42 | |||||||||||||
| of which: crossing points |
2 |
|||||||||||||
| Number of locomotives | 12 | |||||||||||||
| of which: Steam storage locomotives Small locomotives Steam locomotives |
7 4 1 |
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Planning for a works railway began just a few years after the plant opened. These also included the connection of two nearby brickworks. On September 23, 1892, operations, which in the early years had been completely taken over by the Prussian State Railways , began. During the First World War, there was great growth in the company and with it in the works railway network. Several loading points were created; At that time, there were 17 turntables for turning the locomotives , which could only be operated by muscle power.
As the volume of freight traffic increased as a result, the company was responsible for connecting rail operations in 1917. The in-house railway department had two locomotives at the beginning. It was a steam storage locomotive and a steam locomotive . The former took over the operation on the factory premises, since the risk of explosion in the operating parts of the nitrocellulose and celluloid production with the use of steam locomotives would have been too high. The steam locomotive was responsible for transporting the transfer freight trains between the depot and the connecting station .
After the war, two small locomotives were added to the fleet. These were mainly responsible for internal traffic. In addition, there was general cargo traffic between the plant and Eilenburg station . The operations at the four-track connecting station were subordinate to the Aw signal box built in 1927 , which was located at the junction of the Eilenburg – Wurzen railway from the Halle – Cottbus main line . The network was expanded further in the mid-1930s. This also included the expansion of the depot and the works locomotive shed, which was equipped with four stands. At the same time, the connection to a brickworks that had existed since the factory railway began operating and had not been required since 1918 was dismantled. The changeover to war production during the Second World War resulted in a sharp increase in the volume of goods traffic. To cope with this, the company bought a more powerful steam storage locomotive in 1944. However, this was too heavy for the manual turntables, so that it was given to the Wolfen film factory about ten years later .
The track and the vehicles were in poor condition after the war. Nevertheless, they stuck to the works railway. With the opening of further parts of the business in the 1950s and 1960s, several kilometers of track were added to the existing network. At the same time, most of the turntables were dismantled and replaced by switches , leaving two turntables at the water tower and the old company canteen , which have now been switched to electrical operation, as the tracks in the central part of the plant (north of the F 87) partly followed the right-angled road network there. The wagons were after they were rotated, e.g. T. pulled down from the turntables by winch. In addition, the factory bought new class V 15 / V 18 diesel locomotives and steam storage locomotives from GDR production. However, the use of diesel locomotives was later reduced because there was not enough diesel available. In the 1970s, in addition to the depot, a container train station equipped with floodlights and a 404 mobile slewing crane was put into operation in the northeast of the factory premises, with the rail network reaching its greatest extent. Since it almost reached the dermatoid plant, a connection between the two works was planned; This meant that the ECW's freight traffic would no longer have to cross trunk road 87 , which led to considerable traffic jams. However, the plans were not implemented. In 1987, a steam storage locomotive from Raw Meiningen was the last locomotive on the works railway. It was mainly purchased as a replacement for the diesel locomotives, which were of limited use.
After reunification and the conversion to the market economy, the individual parts of the company were gradually closed, so that works rail traffic also decreased. In 1994, the dismantling of buildings and facilities that were no longer in use began. The last orders of the works railway consisted in the transport of rubble and scrap trains. On December 16, 1998, traffic was officially suspended after 106 years of operation. A day later, the remaining locomotives were withdrawn and passed into the inventory of private railway companies or were scrapped. The steam storage locomotive from Raw Meiningen, put into service in 1987, was reconditioned and erected on the former factory site as a technical monument. First, the container terminal was dismantled to make way for a bypass road. This was followed by the level crossings over the B 87. The last remains of the track disappeared with the dismantling of the last unused production halls in 2009.
Trivia
The ECW had its own company newspaper published by the management of the SED company party organization at the plant. The collective appeared as a rule fortnightly from March 1954 to November 1989.
literature
- Wolfgang Beuche: The industrial history of Eilenburg. Part I: 1803-1950. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-5843-7 .
- Wolfgang Beuche: The industrial history of Eilenburg. Part II: 1950-1989. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-3043-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the former ECW logo on the website of the German Patent and Trademark Office
- ↑ Kathrin Kabelitz: Polyplast Compound: New production hall is built. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . 5th October 2012.
- ↑ Information on the former logo of the plastic brand Decelith on the website of the German Patent and Trademark Office
- ↑ bechert-design.de
- ↑ Wolfgang Beuche: The industrial history of Eilenburg. Part I: 1803-1950. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-5843-7 .
- ^ Pedagogical District Cabinet Eilenburg (Hrsg.): District Eilenburg presented. Eilenburg 1987.
- ^ Rolf Vettermann, Andreas Flegel: History of the city of Eilenburg. Eilenburg 1989, Chapters 7 and 8.
- ↑ Steffen Reichert: It was the tenth anniversary of the cessation of the ECW factory railway. In: Official Journal Eilenburg. January 30, 2009.
- ↑ zdb-katalog.de
Web links
- Polyplast Compound-Werk - successor company of the ECW
- State Archives Leipzig - information on the history of the company 1887–1945
- State Archives Leipzig - information on the history of the company 1945–1953
- State Archives Leipzig - details of the company's history 1954–1988
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Eilenburg chemical plant in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 49 " N , 12 ° 38 ′ 45" E