Flender works

Sign at the entrance to the yard with the logo, around 2000

The Flender-Werke (from 1973 Flender-Werft AG ) were a shipyard in Lübeck . The company was founded in 1917 as a branch of Brückenbau Flender AG in Benrath near Düsseldorf. In 1926 the company became formally independent under the name Lübecker Flender-Werke and in 1973 it was renamed Flender-Werft AG . The company, based on the Trave in the Herrenwyk district of Lübeck , was at times one of the larger German shipyards.

history

After retiring from military service, Titus Türk , now retired Rear Admiral. D., head of the security service at Brückenbau Flender AG . He later became the shipyard's representative.

To prevent a collapse, the Senate supported the shipyard with 1.5 million RM. As a result, the company broke away from its parent company in 1926 and became independent as Lübeck Flender-Werke AG . In the same year, the shipyard built the "Temeraire", the first largest ship built in Lübeck.

Cooling hall

For the 1200 m ² large Auskühlhalle of 1928 established Seegrenzschlachthof the Flender plant supplied Lübeck the iron beams and roof construction .

When it was intended to transfer Henry Koch's shipyard to a state shipyard , the previously uninvolved Flender-Werke got involved and raised their disadvantage in terms of state support and requested that the company be included in further merger considerations.

During the reorganization of the Lübeck shipyards, Flender always presented itself as an economically sound company and therefore ideally suited for the renovation of the Kochsche Werft. In truth, however, its two majority shareholders, Dresdner Bank and Commerz- und Privat-Bank (CoPri) , prevented the end of the shipyard here.

A new approach proposed by the CoPri was discussed on February 15, 1933. It stipulated that the share capital of Flender-Werke would be lost and that the claims of their creditors would be converted into shares in the new company. Lübeck was supposed to buy up the property of the Flender shipyard. The new company name would be "Flender-Koch AG". However, Ewers emphatically ruled out the operation of a shipyard by the Lübeck state. The Flender majority shareholders rejected a merger.

In the end, however, the Kochsche Werft was shut down and the Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft became a semi-shipyard. From then on, it only acted as a shipyard if Flender was unable to fulfill all of the orders. The Lübecker Kreditanstalt bought the Kochsche Werft at auction in 1934 and received from the Senate a license to sell the items it had acquired.

Flender acquired the floating dock along with accessories and machines. Flender also received the authorization to demolish the facilities on the shipyard property with the exception of the fencing, the administration building, the carpentry, the massive part of the boiler shop, the shipbuilding hall with its cranes and the annex ( tool shop ), the southern slipway with crane, as well as those on the site laid tracks. The power center building was added later. It was paid in part in the form of shares stemming from a capital increase. With the exception of Lübeck districts, the shares could not be sold before June 30, 1938. By means of a contract, the state agreed to Flender for the next ten years to award contracts to Flender or to procure such in order to maintain their competitiveness. Furthermore, the state had it entered in the land register that no new shipyard could be built on the former Kochschen shipyard without Flender's consent. The dismantling began in the summer .

Second World War

The Navy was preparing in the 1930s on . The Flender works received orders for the construction of conventional submarines and later individual sections for the construction of submarines of the new type XXI ("electric boats"). A total of 42 submarines were put into service at the Flender works from 1940 to 1944:

U 83 - U 87 : Type VII B
U 88 - U 92 : Type VII C
U 120 - U 121 : Type II B
U 301 - U 316 : Type VII C
U 317 - U 328 : Type VII C / 41
U 903 - U 904 : Type VII C

In addition, 157 sections (section 4 - crew living quarters) for the submarine type XXI, which were built by suppliers inland, were equipped for final assembly at Flender.

In 1944 a small one-man submarine was developed in the shipyard's design office. The test boat, which was already completed on March 15, 1944, made a good impression when presented to experts from the Navy High Command (OKM). Up to November 1944 various companies had built 324 boats under the name “Biber” . Towards the end of the war, this type was further developed into the Biber III type. Exhibits from this period can be found in the Herrenwyk History Workshop .

post war period

After the war, during the boom in the 1950s, the Flender works employed up to 4,000 people. In 1965 the Regina Maris was built, the later yacht Alexander by Giannis Latsis . After a dramatic drop in orders in the 1970s and job cuts to only 600 employees, the shipyard was able to make a name for itself with the construction of container ships and RoRo ships , such as the Stuttgart Express class and the Santa Cruz class .

After several successful years, in which the number of employees had risen again to 800, the construction of two high-speed ferries for the Greek shipping company Superfast Ferries resulted in huge losses, which then led to the bankruptcy of Flender-Werke in 2002 . The last ship was the Norröna (construction 694), which was built for the Smyril Line , based on the Faroe Islands .

Superfast XI (2002), shortly before its completion at the Flender equipment quay
Norröna
The 1700 TEU container ship Santa Margherita of the shipping company Claus Peter Offen, which was completed in the spring of 1994, shortly before delivery to the equipment pier of the Flender shipyard

literature

Rainer Wiedemann: The long farewell to Flender. Thomas Helms Verlag , Schwerin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940207-45-6 .

Heinz Haaker: The "Ship Value of Henry Koch AG" - A Chapter in Lübeck's Shipbuilding and Industrial History. German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven 1994, Ernst-Kabel-Verlag, ISBN 3-8225-0299-5 .

Web links

Early documents and newspaper articles on the Flender works in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Time travel: the turnpike photo and its unknown photographer (later shipyard photographer)

Individual evidence

↑ A strike by the Flenderwerk workforce in October 1928 meant that the construction work was delayed as planned.

↑ In contrast to the Koch'schen Werft, the Flender-Werke received larger amounts. Thus, as it claims, there could be no question of discrimination.

↑ The 1931 annual report shows only an insignificantly different economic situation at the Lübeck Flender works from Henry Koch's shipyard during this period. Flender himself thus provides evidence that his previous allegations are untenable.

↑ Heinz Haaker: The "Ship Value of Henry Koch AG" - A chapter of Lübeck's shipbuilding and industrial history. Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum, Bremerhaven 1994, Ernst-Kabel-Verlag, ISBN 3-8225-0299-5 , pp. 87-88.

↑ uboat.net

↑ 800 employees fear the end. manager magazin from June 4, 2002

↑ Photo: Building 694

53.897875 10.785967Coordinates: 53 ° 53 '52.4 " N , 10 ° 47' 9.5" E

[1] A strike by the Flenderwerk workforce in October 1928 meant that the construction work was delayed as planned.

[2] In contrast to the Koch'schen Werft, the Flender-Werke received larger amounts. Thus, as it claims, there could be no question of discrimination.

[3] The 1931 annual report shows only an insignificantly different economic situation at the Lübeck Flender works from Henry Koch's shipyard during this period. Flender himself thus provides evidence that his previous allegations are untenable.