Gypsum works (Neckarzimmern)

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Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 43 "  N , 9 ° 8 ′ 40.4"  E

Gypsum works in Neckarzimmern

Today's gypsum plant in Neckarzimmern in the Neckar-Odenwald district goes back to a BASF office building built during World War I , which was built to operate the neighboring gypsum gallery in Neckarzimmern . After the war, the office building was used as a silo building and later as a gypsum plant in the course of the dismantling of the Reichsschwefelwerk and its associated facilities . The gypsum works is located directly on the B 27 along the Neckar .

BASF office building and silo

A few years before the First World War, the ammonia , which previously only occurred in coking plants, was successfully manufactured on a large scale using gypsum using the Haber-Bosch process (patent application by BASF in 1910). Ammonia was an important intermediate in the manufacture of ammonium nitrate , which was used both as a fertilizer and in the manufacture of explosives ( ANC , ANNM ). As a result, BASF was looking for suitable gypsum deposits in the vicinity of its plant in Ludwigshafen-Oppau under great secrecy via straw men . They found what they were looking for in Neckarzimmern, where a gypsum tunnel had been in operation for a long time, which was owned by the Lords of Gemmingen . On May 1, 1914, BASF bought this tunnel, which had previously employed around 30 people, and expanded it considerably; also to be able to supply the Reichsschwefelwerk in neighboring Haßmersheim, which was built in 1916 .

For this, as well as for the construction of the Reichsschwefelwerk, extensive administration and the necessary office space were required. This was created in 1915 by erecting a new building. After the First World War, the Reichsschwefelwerk had to be razed and most of the office building was converted into a raw stone silo for the BASF plant in Oppau.

Use as a plasterwork

After the Second World War there was a great demand for building materials, including plaster of paris. In 1946, for example, Portland-Zementwerke Heidelberg AG rented the former office building, which had been converted into a silo building, for an initial five years. Immediately afterwards a gypsum production was set up there, which started in June 1948. It was the second gypsum plant in Neckarzimmern a few years later. First of all, stucco plaster and the "Heidelberg Lion Plaster" were produced. For technical reasons and because of the use of an unknown type of furnace, however, there were considerable quality problems. With the changeover to plaster of paris in 1950, the quality problems were under control and sales increased. However, in the meantime the usable gypsum deposits under the Hornberg were exhausted and the raw gypsum extracted was getting worse and worse. Since the company had also been running a gypsum mine in neighboring Obrigheim (the largest and oldest in Germany) since 1905, the raw gypsum could be obtained from there in the required quality. In 1958 the building was finally purchased.

In the following period there were often violent complaints from the population to the operators of the gypsum works, as well as to the owner family of the gallery, the barons of Gemmingen , because of the dust emissions from the gypsum works. The white dust rained down on the area around the plasterwork and often made it look as if it had been snowed in.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the plaster of paris “double-fired Hornberg” was mainly produced. After that the production was switched more and more to special plasters. The plasterwork was closed in the summer of 2016.

literature

  • Hans Obert: 1200 years of Neckarzimmern. Self-published by the Neckarzimmern community in 1973

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ After 100 years the gypsum works in Neckarzimmern - Mosbach - RNZ closes. www.rnz.de, accessed on April 4, 2020 .

Web links