Fritz Werner machine tools

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The Fritz Werner AG machine tools was a machine and tool factory in Berlin-Marienfelde . A successor company, Werner GmbH , became insolvent and wound up in early 1996. Production systems for firearms and ammunition were manufactured worldwide under the Fritz Werner company , Geisenheim . Finally, the Fritz Werner Geisenheim division was merged into the MAN Ferrostaal Group .

history

Founding and beginnings in the First World War

Fritz Werner AG share dated August 24, 1915 for over 1,000 marks

On April 1, 1896, the Fritz Werner machine and tool factory was founded by Friedrich Karl Werner . High quality machine tools were developed, manufactured and sold in the company. The product range was primarily geared towards the manufacturing technology of milling . Under the sponsorship of the arms and ammunition procurement office of the German Reich during World War I , the open trading company was converted into a stock corporation on August 12, 1915 . In the 1920s, significant advances were made in the manufacture of machine tools in the company. In 1923 Fritz Werner equipped the Solothurn arms factory in Switzerland.

Arms production and World War II

In the armament phase before the Second World War , Fritz Werner AG had over 3,000 employees in 1936. In 1938 a cartridge factory was delivered to the Portuguese Ministry of War. As long as there was still peace, machine tools for weapons production were manufactured, and during the war weapons themselves with the acceptance stamp “crv” of the Army Weapons Office for Plant II . For war production, the Fritz Werner AG in Berlin used forced laborers from a warehouse on the corner of Daimler and Benzstrasse. This had underground cells along a corridor under Daimlerstrasse, in which "suspicious" people were locked. In Berlin-Buckow , from 1944 onwards, further barracks were set up on the then undeveloped areas on Marienfelder Chaussee.

Reconstruction and post-war history

Administration building in Geisenheim

The factory halls were badly damaged in the Second World War, but were rebuilt shortly after the end of the war. Milling and grinding machines were soon being manufactured again in larger numbers.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the company expanded rapidly and became involved abroad.

Werner GmbH West Berlin was founded in 1965 in order to avert the impending bankruptcy of the Berlin mechanical engineering sector with funding from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Berlin Senate . In 1966 it was incorporated into the Deutsche Industrieanlagen Gesellschaft mbH (DIAG) together with other West Berlin companies such as Alkett , Borsig , Schwartzkopff and Typograph ( Linotype typesetting machine ) at the instigation of the Federal Treasury . This company was 90% federally owned. At the end of the 1960s, Reichartshausen Castle on the Rhine was selected as the representative of DIAG.

On February 14, 1969, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson visited Werner Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH in Marienfelde. In 1976 the transfer center program was taken over by the Burr company in Ludwigsburg. This resulted in the TC series, which was further developed and expanded in the following years.

Branch plants abroad

Burma
Parts of the M18A1 Claymore

The Fritz Werner company had been working in Burma since 1953 and had an arms factory in the country since 1957. Representatives of the Fritz Werner company had established very close contact with the top management of the military junta over the years, and friendly relations developed between the dictator Ne Win and Fritz Werner . In 1971 Ne Win had a copy of the entrance hall of the royal palace of Mandalay built on the grounds of Schloss Reichartshausen . At that time, the Fritz Werner arms factory was still on the outskirts of Rangoon ; later it was relocated to the Arakan-Joma Mountains near the border with Bangladesh . This area is still closed to foreigners today. In Rangoon, Fritz Werner began with the support of the weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch with the production of HK G3 rifles, 7.62 mm and 9 mm ammunition and a range of explosive weapons such as Claymore mines and mortar shells up to 81 mm in large series.

The Myanmar Fritz Werner Industries Co. Ltd. is now part of the MAN Ferrostaal Group.

Sudan

Shortly after the Sudan had been released as of 1 January 1956 in the independence began in southern Sudan , a Civil War (until 1972, a second civil war 1983-2005). In 1959 Fritz Werner built an ammunition factory near Khartoum with German taxpayers money, which she supplied to around the year 2000 (?) Even after the break in diplomatic relations in 1965.

Nigeria

German-Nigerian cooperation began shortly after Nigerian independence (October 1, 1960). In 1963, Fritz Werner was commissioned by the Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to build a small arms and ammunition factory in the city of Kaduna in northern Nigeria . Fritz Werner created a system for the production of Beretta BM59 rifles, a license for the M1 Garand , in calibers 7.62 and 9 mm. The British Embassy in Lagos reported to London that the Geisenheim managers paid copious commissions to decision-makers in the Nigerian government. The Fritz Werner General Management of the production facility in Nigeria also purchased G3 kits from Samuel Cummings via Interarms .

Fritz Werner was entrusted with the maintenance of the Dornier aircraft of the Nigerian Air Force by the federal government. At the end of 1967, the Foreign Office approved Fritz Werner and its competitor, Dynamit Nobel , a company owned by Friedrich Karl Flick , for a delivery of 3 million rounds of caliber 7.62 mm to Nigeria. When it forbade the sale of another 3 million rounds in 1968, Fritz Werner carried out the trade via a third country. In 1976 DICON placed a follow-up order with Fritz Werner with the aim of modernizing the rifle and ammunition factory and assembling it for the production of the Nigerian Rifle (NR). The Foreign Office agreed, although Heckler & Koch objected that it was an unlicensed replica of the G3. The Fritz Werner managed to convince the diplomats that the NR based on a different gun type. That should obviously have been the FN FAL of the Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal . After the small arms expert Edward Clinton Ezell , DICON acquired the license rights in 1977. He reported that Fritz Werner's technicians remained active in Kaduna for most of the 1980s. Americans reported that the facility reached its full capacity of 15,000 FAL per year in 1987 and production of the Beretta BM59 rifle continued.

Greece

In Greece , Fritz Werner was represented by MAN Fahrzeugbau .

Iran

For Iran created Fritz Werner a production plant for the HK MP5 . The plant was located in the capital Tehran.

Argentina

In Rosario , Fritz Werner equipped the Fabrica Militar de Armas Portatiles “Domingo Matheu” (FMAP “DM”) .

Turkey

In June 2000 (at that time the Schröder I government was in power ) the Federal Security Council approved the export of an ammunition production plant for rifle ammunition of caliber 5.56 mm to Turkey. The contract value was 90 million DM.

Mexico

In June 2006, MAN Ferrostaal opened a production facility in Santiago de Querétaro . The HK-G36 replica, the FX-05 Xiuhcoatl, is mass-produced by Dirección General de Industria Militar del Ejército in Mexico . At first the GAFE were equipped with it.

Merger and restructuring

In 1984, the merger of the DIAG plants Fritz Werner , Berlin, and Hermann Kolb , Cologne, resulted in Werner and Kolb Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH , Berlin.

In 1986 Werner and Kolb employed around 800 people again, 600 of them in the main factory in Berlin. The annual turnover in that year was around DM 180 million. In 1988, the former factory and office buildings were sold to Daimler-Benz AG and the newly built factory in the immediate vicinity was moved into. The new plant comprised two workshops with around 16,000 m² on a total area of ​​around 45,000 m².

In 1992 the company became part of the Autania group.

1993 took Werner GmbH West Berlin , the Niles-Industrie GmbH . Together, the two companies employed almost 900 people. However, the workforce at both locations was reduced to around 600 by the end of 1994.

In 1995 the two companies merged to form Fritz Werner & Niles Machine Tools .

In 1996 insolvency proceedings were opened for the company's 100th anniversary. The Werner GmbH West Berlin was settled, and the Burkhardt + Weber GmbH Machine tools Reutlingen took over the production of machining centers . TWW World Wide Metal-Technologie Consulting and Transfer GmbH emerged from technical sales . The service and spare parts business for Fritz Werner machines was taken over by A&B MAP GmbH , which also filed for bankruptcy in July 2006.

With effect from January 1, 2002, the Ferrostaal Group merged its subsidiaries Fritz Werner Industrie-Auszüge GmbH , MAN Ferrostaal Oil & Gas GmbH and DIAG Deutsche Industrieanlagen Gesellschaft mbH into MAN Ferrostaal Industrieanlagen GmbH , based in Geisenheim.

In 2008, the Service Zentrale Berlin machining centers GmbH acquired the exclusive right to use all drawings, construction rights and other rights of the TC1 .. to TC3 .. from the former Fritz Werner Werkzeugmaschinen AG .

Foreign policy and criticism of work abroad

The Fritz Werner GmbH is building a munitions factory for Turkey - her boss sees no big difference to sewing machines .

“Fritz Werner Industrieausüstungen GmbH” is a prospering medium-sized company from Hesse. Founded more than a hundred years ago by the mechanical engineer of the same name in Berlin, the company is now located in a vineyard landscape near the Rheingau town of Geisenheim . Here, 350 permanent employees generate around 350 million marks annually for the » Ferrostaal « subsidiary. "Worldwide construction of turnkey production plants" is their mission. This means, for example, the construction of a sewing machine factory in Iran, or the construction of an ammonia plant in Algeria. Of course, a 90 million mark project in Turkey is politically more interesting. With partners from France and Belgium, »Fritz Werner« is to build an ammunition factory there next year.

While Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Greens parliamentary group leader Rezzo Schlauch are behind the decision, resistance is stirring in the party, which was only informed late.

At Amnesty International , the head of the Armaments, Business and Human Rights working group, Mathias John, speaks of a “scandal”: The incident proves that “the government does not want any parliamentary control over arms deals. Business secrets are more important here than human rights, ”he says.

“Fritz Werner” boss Werner Schoeltzke, on the other hand, finds the debate “completely exaggerated”. For him, a weapons factory as well as a sewing machine factory are primarily a »purely mechanical product«. In addition, Turkey belongs to NATO - "You can't measure with two different standards." Uniform hand-held ammunition is important for military "interchangeability": Better one NATO caliber for everyone than many calibres for a few. Because Schoeltzke's company claims to earn "only 10 to 15 percent" from armaments, the managing director finally emphasizes the other, more peaceful side of his company: In Russia, a military factory is being turned into a bicycle company and in Egypt a tank factory is being converted a production facility for turbine housings. And then there is the construction of an accident clinic in Russia, as well as hospital planning in the Caribbean and Morocco. For an entrepreneur like him, these are also "purely mechanical products" that have to pay off. "

people

See also

literature

  • Hans Dominik , Fritz Werner Aktiengesellschaft Berlin. Large German Companies, Volume 17: Machine tool and tool construction . Second, ext. Edition. Leipzig 1938.
  • Fritz Werner Werkzeugmaschinen AG: Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow. Berlin 1987.
  • WERNER and KOLB Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH: Hundreds of expertise. Berlin 1989.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Krupp, Borsig and Daimler also recruited from Berlin camps . ( Memento from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Berliner Zeitung , December 9, 1999
  2. Jump up ↑ covenant against evil . In: Der Spiegel . No. 34 , 1966, pp. 33 ( online ).
  3. ^ Reichartshausen Castle ( Memento from November 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Berlin Chronicle
  5. Dawn (newspaper) December 23, 1989, p. 10.
  6. ^ Directorate of Myanma Industrial Planning, Joint Venture Enterprises . ( Memento from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. VI. German firepower. In: Die Zeit , No. 12/1991.
  8. Sudan broke off relations with the Federal Republic after the Federal Republic had announced on May 12, 1965 that it would establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Source: Files on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany , 1st quarter 1965, p. 1330 (footnote 4). See also p. 760, footnote 6.
  9. Weapons from Germany, The Way to Africa . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 21, 2004
  10. Nigeria saves N7.5bn through DICON . ( Memento of March 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) In: Daily Trust.
  11. ^ Edward Ezell in the English language Wikipedia
  12. FX-05 Xiuhcoatl in the English language Wikipedia
  13. Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales in the English language Wikipedia
  14. Inversiones amarradas por 331 mdd . ( Memento of August 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: La Jornada January 31, 2003
  15. Matthias Loke: On the way to the network. WestLB is making a big entry into the machine tool industry . ( Memento from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Berliner Zeitung , June 11, 1994
  16. Werner and Niles merge . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 24, 1995
  17. Fusion with many problems . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 7, 1996, p. 9.
  18. ^ Matthias Loke: Tragedy about mechanical engineers. In: Berliner Zeitung , February 7, 1996, p. 9.
  19. Bankruptcy on the anniversary day . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 2, 1996, p. 10.
  20. Fritz Werner product range taken over . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 6, 1996, p. 10.
  21. MAN AG press release of July 11, 2002 Ferrostaal merges three companies to form MAN Ferrostaal Industrieanlagen ( Memento from January 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  22. Everything just mechanics. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 15, 2000.