Wetro refractory plants

Wetro refractory works, aerial photo (2017)

Wetro refractory works (2008)

The wetro refractory works are a company for the production of refractory materials in the Saxon Upper Lusatia near Wetro .

history

Upper Lusatia north of Bautzen has rich deposits of lignite , clay and kaolin , which gave rise to lively mining as early as the middle of the 19th century. The local farmers and the manors Puschwitz and Guhra mined lignite on a small scale in the Puschwitz corridor. The clays stored under the coal seam were the reason for the construction of a chamotte factory in 1898 , which eventually took over the mines. From 1900 on, lignite was only mined as a by-product for their own purposes. In the 1930s, a material ropeway connected operations with Neschwitz station on the Bautzen – Hoyerswerda line .

After the Second World War , the chamotte factory was transferred to public ownership in 1946 . The company now operated as VEB Feuerfestwerke Wetro . At that time, coal mining was resumed by the VEB Braunkohlenwerk Puschwitz . In 1947, both companies received a rail connection via the newly built Neschwitz – Wetro railway line, which ensured the further development of the location.

Parts of the opencast mine are now also used as a hazardous waste dump (2009)

In the years 1959 to 1963, a new, then ultra-modern manufacturing facility for the production of refractory materials was built. In addition to fireclay normal and shaped bricks for steelworks and the glass industry , silicon carbide crucibles, graphite crucibles and silicate bricks were also part of the company's production profile from then on . Production was primarily for the needs of the GDR economy, but also for export.

At the end of the 1980s, VEB Feuerfestwerke Wetro had around 2,100 employees, a third of whom worked in Wetro itself. There were operational parts in Rietschen , Thonberg , Freital-Hainsberg , Sproitz and Bad Freienwalde (Oder) .

After the political change in the GDR in 1990 , there was a sharp drop in demand. Today the plant in Wetro as PD Refractories GmbH Feuerfestwerke Wetro belongs to Preiss-Daimler , which continues the traditional business.

literature

• Western Upper Lusatia between Kamenz and Königswartha (= values ​​of our homeland . Volume 51). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-000708-7 , p. 155f.

Web links

• Website of PD Industriegesellschaft mbH Feuerfestwerke Wetro

Individual evidence

1. ↑ measuring table sheet 1: 25,000 sheet 37 Kloster Sankt Marienstern, edition 1936 ( digitized at www.deutschefotothek.de )