Germania hut

Germania hut City of Lennestadt Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 49 ″  N , 8 ° 1 ′ 51 ″  E
Height :	260 m above sea level NHN
Residents :	41  (Jun 30, 2020)
Postal code :	57368
Location of Germaniahütte in Lennestadt
Passing through Germaniahütte, the ironworks used to be on the left

Germaniahütte is a district of Lennestadt in the Olpe district in North Rhine-Westphalia .

The place is directly on the federal highway 236 in the section that leads from Grevenbrück to Maumke . At the end of June 2020, 41 residents lived in Germaniahütte. Neighboring towns are Grevenbrück , Theten and Maumke . The area around the village is shaped by the Lenne valley , through which the railway line of the Ruhr-Sieg line also runs.

Local development

The Germania hut as the namesake of the place

While the history of most of the districts of Lennestadt can be traced back to the 16th century and earlier on the basis of tax registers and / or other documents, the settlement of today's Germaniahütte area did not begin until the middle of the 19th century. In a baptismal register from 1848, a residence "In den Erlen", an earlier field name for today's area of ​​Germaniahütte, is mentioned for the first time.

In the following period the development was significantly influenced by industrial settlements. For the purpose of moving a plant in Würdinghausen the entrepreneur built Wilhelmsberg Thal 1854 "at Theten far from Grevenbrück" a new smelter . The main reasons were the favorable infrastructure after the expansion of the Lennetal-Straße from Altena via Grevenbrück, Altenhundem, Welschen Ennest to Krombach , the sufficient availability of water and, last but not least, the upcoming opening of the Ruhr-Sieg railway line.

In the beginning the new hut was called "Thetener Hütte". It is not known exactly when it was renamed “Germaniahütte”, after which the settlement was later named. The external reason was that a “ Germania figure ” was mounted on the roof of the machine house , a woman with a proud bearing, adorned with a laurel wreath and the inscription “Seid einig, einig, einig” on the base. A picture of the figure can be found today on a flag used at children's shooting festivals.

The Germania smelter developed into a state-of-the-art ironworks for the time, to which a steelworks was attached in 1885. The Siemens-Martin furnace and later the Thomas process were also used in steel production . In 1894, 63 steel workers were employed in the steel production area alone. It should be mentioned that the smelter had its own coking plant for firing the blast furnace and also had a direct connection to the railway line of the Ruhr-Sieg line opened in 1861.

Among the workers who were employed in the construction of the railway there were also foreigners (including from Silesia), some of whom settled near the hut.

Towards the end of the 1890s, there were changes in the operating and shareholder relationships in areas of the Germania hut. In 1898 the brothers Otto and August Buch leased the steelworks, which had already been closed at that time, and built a foundry there. The blast furnace facilities were taken over by the Witten cast steelworks in 1899. After 60 workers were still involved in the fusion of iron ore at the turn of the century, the order situation fell significantly in the period that followed. The end for the Germania hut was decided for 1909. The main reason, as with other smelters operated in the Olpe district, was that the raw materials iron ore and coal could no longer be obtained inexpensively because of the long distances.

Change in the local structure after the closure of the Germania hut

The attempts to use parts of the Germania hut for a different purpose could not be realized in the long term. On the former smelter site there is a nationally known fittings factory and a sawmill. In addition, there is another sawmill with wood processing between the railway line and the Lenne, and a dental laboratory directly on the B 236 through road. Only the remainder of an incompletely dismantled heap of blast furnace slag from iron smelting is reminiscent of the earlier days of smelting.

Incorporation

Until June 30, 1969, Germaniahütte belonged to the municipality of Elspe, then on July 1, 1969 it was incorporated into the newly founded city of Lennestadt.

Others

At the beginning of 1991 the village communities of Germaniahütte and Theten founded an association for common village interests.

Web link

• Website of the association for village affairs Germaniahütte-Theten

Individual evidence

1. ^ Information from the city of Lennestadt
2. ↑ Karl Borinski, Germaniahütte-emergence and history of the village, in: Jahrhefte Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück eV, issue 5 (1986), p. 74.
3. ^ Horst Ruegenberg: On the industrial history of the Olpe district. From the Kuhlenberger Hut in Würdinghausen to the Germania Hut in Grevenbrück . In: Heimatstimmen aus dem Kreis Olpe , Vol. 54 (1983), pp. 71–82.
4. ↑ Karl Borinski, Germaniahütte-emergence and history of the village, in: Jahrhefte Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück eV, Issue 5 (1986), p. 75.
5. ^ Karl Borinski, Germaniahütte-emergence and history of the village, in: Jahrhefte Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück eV, issue 5 (1986), p. 76.
6. ↑ germaniahuette , images from Germania Cabin, interrogation of 15 November, 2013.
7. ↑ Karl Borinski, Germaniahütte-emergence and history of the village, in: Jahrhefte Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück eV, issue 5 (1986), p. 77.
8. ^ Karl Borinski, Germaniahütte-emergence and history of the village, in: Jahrhefte Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Grevenbrück eV, issue 5 (1986), p. 81.
9. ^ Local law of the city of Lennestadt: List of localities