Eisenmühle Oderwitz

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Eisenmühle Oderwitz

The Eisenmühle Oderwitz is a property consisting of several buildings on Profener Elstermühlgraben in the Oderwitz district of the Elstertrebnitz municipality in the Leipzig district in Saxony . It is named after the plant for the production of iron powder, which was operated from 1915 to 1993 and has been a museum since 2015, the only one of its kind in Germany . Large parts of the Eisenmühle Oderwitz are under monument protection .

history

In the 12th century the monks of the Pegau monastery dug a mill ditch on the White Elster at the instigation of Wiprecht von Groitzsch . At the site of the iron mill, too, a mill was established, which, as a so-called “farmer's mill”, processed the grain of the farmers in the area. A small cutting mill was added later.

After several fires between 1908 and 1913 , Clemens Kunze, who came from the Ore Mountains , acquired the site in 1914 . After the reconstruction and commissioning of the grain and saw mill, he began to build an iron powder mill, which was launched on the market as Kunze & Co. Pulverisierwerk in 1915 . The increasing demand allowed the building to be expanded in 1939, which the son had since joined. The water wheels were replaced by turbines, and a small generator was used to generate electricity.

After the Second World War , the export of iron powder fell sharply, and when all the mills in the Borna district were merged into a cooperative, the owner family moved to the Federal Republic of Germany. In the 1970s, the flour mill was taken out of service and the technology dismantled.

After the reunification , the former owner family returned to the iron mill. However, the production process proved to be no longer profitable, so that the iron mill was finally shut down in 1993 and most of the production facilities were scrapped. After that, the mill stood empty for over ten years. In 2007 a couple bought the gradually dilapidating property and began renovating it.

After eight years of hard work, the building was reopened in 2015. Since then, cultural events have taken place alongside museums. In 2016, the Eisenmühle hosted the central kick-off event for the 23rd German Milling Day .

building

There are two residential buildings on the site, which are the only ones not listed. The so-called old house contains the country pension Eisenmühle and the owner's apartment. The new house is a new building for the parents of the owners.

Former flour mill
Eastern museum wing with café
New and old house

The museum buildings form an angle with a north and an east wing. In the former, a flat building of 6 × 3 axes , there is an extensive exhibition of mechanical musical instruments . Collecting these has been a mill owner's hobby from childhood. The east wing begins with a two-storey wing with the Café Reiberei on the ground floor, the name of which refers to the iron pulverization by rubbing. The upper floor includes an event room. The iron mill museum is housed in the adjoining low-rise building with a low dwelling above the central entrance; about half of the room is kept free as an event area.

To the east, above the Mühlgraben, is the in-house small hydropower plant. It is equipped with two Francis turbines with an installed output of 45 and 25 kilowatts, respectively. The head is 1.4 m and the flow is 7.5 m³ / s. Horizontal rakes as well as a fish ascent and descent aid serve to protect the fish . The unrenovated building of the former grain mill stands on the other side of the mill ditch.

Eisenmühle Museum

Functional rubbing stretch

The iron mill museum in the historical production hall shows the entire history of the mill and especially the production process of iron powder production. To produce the iron powder, water-powered iron rods about one meter long and with a cross-section of 4 × 8 cm were rubbed together with a screeching noise, creating fine iron powder that was sieved and packed according to grain size. One set of rods lasted about six weeks in continuous operation. This ineffective rubbing process for the production of iron powder is no longer competitive today.

Iron powder is used in chemical-pharmaceutical and metallurgical processes, but also for the production of sparklers . The iron bars for the Oderwitz iron mill were obtained from various suppliers. Thyssen supplied bars of particular purity, which led to iron powder in German pharmacopoeia quality .

Two of the company's formerly sixteen grinding systems still exist. One of them has been reconstructed to function, but is no longer powered directly by water power, but rather electrically, with the electricity coming from the in-house turbines.

The Eisenmühle Oderwitz is the only existing facility of its kind in Germany and a technical monument.

Web links

Commons : Eisenmühle Oderwitz  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ID number 09,257,123th In: Saxon monument list. Retrieved November 23, 2019 .
  2. ↑ News. In: Website of the iron mill. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Germany's historical mills in the 21st century: mill romance between tradition and the present. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
  4. ↑ A technical cultural monument returns. Retrieved November 23, 2019 .
  5. ^ Eisenmühle / Oderwitz. In: Forum fish protection & fish descent. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
  6. ↑ The iron mill museum. In: Website of the iron mill museum. Retrieved November 23, 2019 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 19 ″  N , 12 ° 13 ′ 49 ″  E