Rübeland explosion accident

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Postcard of the Cramer & Buchholz powder factory from around 1910

The Rübeland explosion occurred on January 10, 1918 in the Cramer & Buchholz powder mill in Rübeland in the Harz region . 14 workers were killed, 9 seriously and 30–40 slightly injured by the severe explosion. Among those killed was the painter Käthe Evers .

procedure

The powder mill in Rübeland, Duchy of Braunschweig , existed since 1866 and was located a little outside the village on the "Hahnenkopf", a hill in the Bodetal . The company Cramer & Buchholz from Rönsahl (owner Carl August Buchholz ) acquired the I. Hampe successor powder mill in 1873, enlarged and modernized it. At the time of the accident, Carl Emil Buchholz was the owner of the factory.

On the afternoon of January 10th at 4:18 pm there was an "extreme violence" explosion in a drying room due to unexplained circumstances, which completely destroyed the building along with the coke shed and chimney and left a crater one meter deep. Other buildings in the immediate vicinity were severely damaged in some cases.

Victim

Two of those killed: Käthe Evers and (Char) Lotte Koch

The following day the accident site was officially inspected and the district director from Blankenburg prepared a multi-page report for the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig dated January 12, 1918.

The report contains the following information about the victims: 15 people were killed (later corrected to 14), two men and twelve women. Käthe Evers from Braunschweig and Charlotte Koch from Völkenrode near Braunschweig are mentioned by name, date of birth and family background .

The explosion was so violent that the report stated:

“So far, only individual parts of the fatally injured people have been found. Whether it can be determined with certainty who these parts belong to must be doubted, since they are badly mutilated and also badly blackened. All of the fatally injured persons will have been employed in the drying room themselves or immediately before. "

The further search for mortal remains was made very difficult or even impossible from January 11th by heavy snowfall.

An eyewitness reported:

"Only four of the bodies could be buried, the rest - as the worker puts it - were dissolved into atoms and could not be found."

- Stenographic reports on the negotiations of the German Reichstag. Volume 312, Verlag der Buchdruckerei der Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , 1918, p. 5019.

In the Rübeland cemetery, a plaque commemorates some of the 14 killed, including:

  • Marie Anderfuhr b. Fehsecke (* 1885) from Elbingerode , 32 years
  • Käthe Evers (* 1893) from Braunschweig, age 24
  • Hermann Fehsecke (* 1882) from Elbingerode, 35 years old
  • Heinrich Heindorf (* 1872) from Rübeland, 45 years old
  • Charlotte Koch (* 1881) from Völkenrode, age 36
  • Hermine Müller (* 1889) from Rübeland, 28 years
  • Anna Querfuhrt b. Fehsecke (* 1883) from Elbingerode, age 34
  • Frida Schneider (* 1901) from Rübeland, 16 years

At the time of the explosion, Ernst August , Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, was together with his wife Viktoria Luise only 12 km from the scene of the accident in the ducal hunting lodge Windenhütte in Altenbrak . The duke couple visited the site of the accident the following day and then presented gifts of money to three families particularly affected by the accident.

Contemporary reporting

The district director of Blankenburg and the General Command of the Army in Hanover forbade the local newspapers to publish more detailed reports on the accident. They were only allowed to bring a short report pre-formulated by the district director.

Some time later, a somewhat longer report with the title Braunschweiger Frauen in der Munitionsarbeit appeared in the Braunschweig propaganda magazine The Braunschweiger in the World Wars 1914–1918. Patriotic war memorial book commissioned by the Landesverein für Heimatschutz in the Duchy of Braunschweig , in which the work of women in armaments companies is idealized and the death of Käthe Evers and Charlotte Koch are stylized as a "heroic death" on the home front .

literature

  • M. Bergmann: Brunswick women in ammunition work. In: The Braunschweiger in the World War 1914–1918. Patriotic war memorial book on behalf of the State Association for Homeland Security in the Duchy of Braunschweig. Issue 19. E. Appelhans, Braunschweig 1920, pp. 657–658 (with two photos of the staff and of Käthe Evers).
  • Explosion accident in the Cramer & Buchholz powder factory in Rübeland / Harz. StA Wb 12 Neu 13g, No. 10795, report from the district director from Blankenburg to the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig from January 12, 1918. In: Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Steel and turnips. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). CW Niemeyer 1993, ISBN 978-3875854-62-6 , p. 70 ff.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Heinrich Heindorf was a foreman in the powder mill and at the time of the explosion was together with Director Frey in Barrack 9. The detonation wave hurled Heindorf through a window out of the building. He died of a serious head injury. Frey was buried under the rubble of the collapsed barrack, but was able to free himself on his own. He directed the subsequent rescue work until late in the evening.
  2. ↑ Charlotte Koch was one of three children of the pastor of Völkenrode. Her two brothers had already died as soldiers.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Steel and turnips. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). CW Niemeyer 1993, p. 82, FN 130.
  2. ^ Report of the district director from Blankenburg to the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig from January 12, 1918. In: Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Stahl und turnip. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). P. 70 f.
  3. ↑ Olaf Mussmann: Self-organization and chaos theory in historical science: The example of the industrial and armaments village Bomlitz 1680-1930. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1998, p. 161.
  4. ↑ a b c d Report of the district director from Blankenburg to the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig from January 12, 1918. In: Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Steel and turnips. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). P. 71.
  5. ^ A b Report of the district director from Blankenburg to the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig from January 12, 1918. In: Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Stahl und turnip. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). P. 70.
  6. ↑ M. Bergmann: Brunswick women in ammunition work. In: The Braunschweiger in the World War 1914–1918. Patriotic war memorial book on behalf of the State Association for Homeland Security in the Duchy of Braunschweig. P. 658.
  7. ^ A b Report of the district director from Blankenburg to the ducal state ministry in Braunschweig from January 12, 1918. In: Karl-Heinz Grotjahn: Stahl und turnip. Contributions and sources on the history of Lower Saxony in the First World War (1914–1918). P. 72.

Coordinates: 51 ° 44 ′ 51.3 ″  N , 10 ° 49 ′ 10.1 ″  E