Carl-Friedrich mine

Carl-Friedrich mine
General information about the mine
other names	Karl-Friedrich mine
Mining technology	Underground mining
Funding / year	86,000 t
Information about the mining company
Operating company	Union of Carl-Friedrich, Eschweiler Mining Association
Employees	500
Start of operation	1903
End of operation	1927
Funded raw materials
Degradation of	Anthracite coal
Greatest depth	300 m
Geographical location
Coordinates	50 ° 48 '31.9 "  N , 6 ° 2' 59.6"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 48 '31.9 "  N , 6 ° 2' 59.6"  E
Location of the Carl-Friedrich mine
Location	Richterich
local community	Aachen
City region ( NUTS3 )	Aachen
country	State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Country	Germany
District	Aachen district

The Carl-Friedrich mine was a mine in Richterich , a district of Aachen . It belonged to the mines of the Aachen coal field and was in operation from 1903 to 1927. The mining of anthracite coal began in 1911. In 1924 the Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein took over the majority of the shares, but closed the mine three years later due to the geologically unfavorable deposits .

history

The first concession for mining in the field of what will later be the pit was awarded to the Wolters von Fisenne family by the Bonn Mining Authority as early as 1847 , and the mine field was named " Wolters Hope". In 1861 the landowner Richard Welter and the engineer Carl Widmann received a permit for another field, which they named "Carl-Friedrich". However, there was no major mining operation in both fields, only in neighboring Horbach an experimental shaft was sunk in 1870 .

In the years 1891 to 1895, the Councilor of Commerce Friedrich Wilhelm Huppertz acquired the field of the Wolters von Fisenne family and the "Carl-Friedrich" field, and in 1898 he began building the tunnel in the "Woltershoffnung" field. In the years that followed, Huppertz acquired other neighboring fields. In 1904 he closed the tunnel operation in favor of the construction of the Carl-Friedrich mine. In 1907, the Bonn Mining Authority confirmed the consolidation of its fields to form the new Carl-Friedrich mine. The field of the new "Union Carl-Friedrich" extended to a length of 8.3 and a width of 3.6 kilometers, bounded by fields of the association for hard coal mining in the worm area in the north and east and the border with the Netherlands in the west.

As early as 1903, the first shaft of the mine began to be sunk on a site between Richterich and Laurensberg directly on the Aachen – Maastricht railway line . Shaft I was intended as a weather shaft . From 1907, after the consolidation, shaft II, which later became the production shaft, was also sunk. That year, shaft I had a depth of 200 meters, shaft II was sunk to 300 meters by 1911. In 1909, the first coal was mined, but the scheduled promotion began in 1911 after three soles and seven cross passages had been ascended. By 1914, the mine had a workforce of around 500 and had a capacity of 320 tons per shift; the best annual figure before the First World War was 86,000 tons of hard coal. In the mine field there was a high-quality anthracite coal with a low proportion of volatile constituents, but the three seams had extremely unfavorable geological conditions. Like almost everywhere in the Aachen area also proved the drainage due to very high inflows difficult. The Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein (EBV), in which the neighboring association had merged in 1907 and which now owned almost all of the mines in the Aachen mining area, therefore rejected the takeover offered by Carl-Friedrich in 1913.

Share over 100 RM in the anthracite mine Carl Friedrich AG for mining and related industries from November 1938

The First World War brought the mine into considerable problems. Due to a lack of personnel and materials, production declined significantly and at times almost came to a standstill. In 1919 the annual output was only 28,000 tons. The operating company was in the same year in bankruptcy , after two years in which the bankruptcy trustee had led the operation, "anthracite mine Carl Friedrich corporation for mining and related industries" took over in 1921 as a rescue company the pit. Well-known representatives of the Ruhr mining industry, including Gustav Knepper and Ernst Tengelmann, were involved with small sums of money in this rescue company . The new company initially invested in mining and was able to increase annual production to 52,000 tons as early as 1922. In 1923, however, the occupation of the Ruhr and the passive resistance proclaimed as a reaction by the Reich government led to strikes against the demands of the French occupying power for the delivery of coal as reparations. Senior staff at the mine were expelled from the occupied Rhineland and production fell significantly.

The EBV, which had refused a takeover in 1913, finally acquired half of the share capital in 1924. He transferred the mine field Melanie to the north as a lease field , on which the production concentrated from then on. In the earlier main field, the geological problems of the deposits had proven to be too complex. The EBV also reduced the workforce to 180. In 1926 the EBV abandoned the lowest 300 m level, in the same year Carl-Friedrich extracted 40,000 tons. Finally, in 1927, the decision was made to shut down the mine. The last Hunt coal was in the Bay II to light on July 31, 1927 promoted . Most of the remaining miners were taken over by the EBV in the neighboring Laurweg and Gouley pits .

The demolition of the daytime facilities began in 1936 and the winding tower above Shaft I was dismantled in 1941. However, the shafts remained unsecured and open until the end of the 1940s; it was not until 1951 that they were filled and closed with concrete lids. Previously, test drillings in the surrounding fields had only once again provided evidence of seams that were not suitable for mining . The Carl-Friedrich union was deleted from the commercial register in 1944 and the rescue company founded in 1921 in 1954.

After the Second World War, the mine site was sold by the EBV to a textile manufacturer who set up a manufacturing company for men's clothing in the remaining buildings . The software company aixigo AG and Bergmoser + Höller Verlag are now based in the buildings . The administration building, the wash house and the locksmith's shop are still preserved .

literature

• Werner Kasig : The geological history of Laurensberg . In: Laurensberger Heimatblätter, issue 2/3, 1998

Web links

• Mining Museum Anna II mine : Carl Friedrich mine, Aachen-Richterich

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.zechensuche.de, Aachen , accessed on February 25, 2016