Pit unity

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The unity mine (also unity shaft ; Czech Důl Svornost ) is an abandoned mine in the Czech town of Jáchymov in the Bohemian Ore Mountains . It is the oldest uranium ore mine in the world. Radon-containing springs discovered in the course of mining are still used in the city's spa facilities today, with the health spa company also owning and operating the mine.

The pit unity is common with the tunnel no. 1 a place within the "cultural landscape montane Jáchymov" the since 2019 as a UNESCO World Heritage excellent Ore Mountain Mining Region .

history

Founding and operation until the 19th century

The pit agreement was a result of the settlement of a dispute between mine owners of the quarter luciae 1518 founded pit S. Anna rich geschüb at Kolberg and founded in 1529 quarter Trinity pit S. Anna gender at Kolberg . In the chronicle of Johannes Mathesius , who at that time was employed as rector and pastor in Sankt Joachimsthal , there is the note:

"The bill crucis / is the quarrel between S. Aña gender / and dê von the thirdê / fourth measure according to S. Anna the reichê Geschüb am Kolberg contractê / uñ who made the unity."

The Einigkeit am Kolberg mine was founded in the following quarter Luciae 1530. Originally the mine was used for silver mining, later cobalt, arsenic and ultimately uranium were mined. 1 In the 18th century, a depth of 292 meters was reached.

19th century

In 1801, the city administration of St. Joachimsthal acquired all shares in the mine. A few years later, a water-filled cavity was hit at a depth of 417 meters, which caused the pit to sink within a short time . Then began the construction of water column machines , which were put into operation in 1806. Another water ingress in 1810 flooded the pit up to the 5th level. In the period that followed, the cost of dewatering exceeded the financial resources of the city administration, and in 1850 it was taken over by the state. In 1848 the pit reached a maximum depth of 419 meters and had 8 levels.

In the 19th century, uranium ore was only mined at the same time and occasionally given to chemical, glass and porcelain factories that produced colors for glass and porcelain according to a recipe by Martin Heinrich Klaproth . It was only when Adolf Patera improved the manufacturing process that a turning point was initiated and as early as 1853, the planned mining of uranium ore began in the Einigkeit mine - initially for the manufacture of paint.

On March 12, 1864, another spring was approached at a depth of 532 meters , which resulted in the pit being flooded within a very short time. At the beginning of 1866 the swamp began, which only ended after three years and the spring was closed. In 1896, however, there was another ingress of water. The mine workings were flooded and the water rose to the level of the Daniel Erbstolln water solution tunnel on the 6th level .

20th century

Daytime facilities on the western mountain slope above the town church
View from the east
Reconstructed headframe

The operation of the Austro-Hungarian unity silver mine was discontinued on May 1st, 1901 and the mine workings were partially flooded as a result. The lengthy negotiations that had previously been carried out for the handover to a private trade union were unsuccessful. At the beginning of January 1905 the mine water was examined for radioactivity for the first time and a corresponding content was confirmed. As a result, these waters began to be used in the city's first medicinal baths.

With the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, it became the new owner and from 1922 onwards the mine was swamped . This was completed in 1924 and the mine was operational again. In the course of the work to restart operations, new shaft buildings , a machine room with an electric hoisting machine , mechanical workshops and a residential building for the mine employees were built.

In the early 20th century, the three Jáchymov mines were Edelleutstolln , unity bay and Werner shaft for Joachimsthalerstrasse union united ; From the beginning of the 1920s , this also operated several nickel ore mines near Sohland and Rosenhain. After the annexation of the Sudetenland , the Joachimsthaler union was incorporated into the Reichswerke Hermann Göring as St. Joachimsthaler Bergbau GmbH . The St. Joachimsthal uranium ore mining company managed by Kurt Patzschke , consisting of the Wernerschacht (důl Rovnost) , Einigkeitschacht and Edelleutstolln (důl Bratrství) facilities , had 266 employees in 1938, 162 of them underground. In 1939, 274 people worked in the St. Joachimsthal uranium ore mine , 164 of them underground. In 1938, 105 tons of pitchblende were mined in the three plants ; in the following year, 88 tons of pitchblende and 30 tons of nickel-cobalt-bismuth ore were mined. There was joint processing for all three companies.

Uranerz was mined under German administration until the end of the war in 1945. At the end of 1944, the Office of Strategic Services evaluated aerial photographs of the mine. According to the report based on this, the uranium ore production was lower than the pre-war level and bombing of the St. Joachimsthal uranium ore mining facilities was not carried out. After the end of the war, funding for the USSR began as early as May 1945, under the management of the newly founded state company Jáchymovské doly, np 2 . For this purpose, forced laborers were used to a large extent, who had to carry out the extraction under inhumane conditions and largely without mining experience - experienced miners were hardly available.

In 1948 the daytime facilities, including the headframe and engine room, were extensively rebuilt. In order to check uranium mineralization, the 220-meter-long Štola č was ordered from Jáchymovské doly, np from 1952 . 1 (tunnel no. 1) , the mouth of which is in the immediate vicinity of the daytime facilities. In the course of the construction, the evangelist corridor was hit. In order to prevent the forced laborers attempting to escape through the connection between the pit and the tunnel, massive bars were installed at the mouth hole. Operation in the tunnel was discontinued in 1957.

From June 1, 1961, the 2390 meter long Nová Svornost water dissolving tunnel was excavated at level 12 , which replaced the Daniel Erbstolln when it was completed .

Between 1962 and 1964, uranium production was gradually reduced and, at the same time, hydrological explorations and underground safety work were carried out with the aim of continuing to use the mine for the spa facilities after the uranium mining had ceased. Uranium mining was completely stopped in 1964. On April 1, 1964, the Unity mine and its facilities were transferred to the Československé státní lázně a zřídla (Czechoslovak State Baths ) .

After 1990, Léčebné lázně Jáchymov as (Jáchymov Spa, Inc. ) was founded and has been the owner and operator of the mine ever since. Between 1993 and 1996 the underground and surface facilities were extensively renovated and modernized. The most striking testimony to these measures is the headframe, reconstructed according to the old model.

21st century

The operator allows the 12th floor to be inspected at irregular intervals. The higher soles are usually not accessible. In 2008, the construction of tunnel no. 1 was opened to the public for the first time. Various expansion variants are shown , in front of which mine cars and mining technology are shown. It is also a stop on the 8.5 km long Jáchymovské peklo (Hell of Jáchymov) educational trail .

Forced labor camp

Mauthausener Stiege between the forced labor camp and the shaft (2007)

The first camps were set up during the Second World War and were occupied by 60 Russian (war) prisoners. After the end of the war, German civilian internees, prisoners of war and, to a lesser extent, German miners exempted from being expelled from Czechoslovakia were used for forced labor. Exact occupancy figures between 1945 and 1949 are not certain, the investigations carried out since then come to partly very different information. The numbers fluctuate between 1200 and 2100 German (war) prisoners and other prisoners for the years 1945 to 1947. In July 1948 a total of 4270 prisoners of war and 798 “other” Germans were interned. For the end of September 1949 "still 3370" German prisoners of war are said to have been interned. The last German forced laborers left the camp on the morning of December 3, and 405 Czech prisoners were interned immediately afterwards. On December 4, 1949, the entire facilities of the mine and labor camp were taken over by the station command of the Sbor vězeňské stráže (prison guard corps) in Ostrov and the camp was declared a "forced labor camp". A total of 750 prisoners were interned on May 3, 1951, and 720 on September 1 of that year.

As a result of an amnesty issued by President Antonín Zápotocký in 1953 , prisoners were released with a sentence of less than five years, which significantly reduced the number of internees. The "forced labor camp" was closed on October 29, 1954.

The connection between the pit and the higher camp was made by the so-called Mauthausener Stiege (Mauthausenské schody) , a three-meter-wide staircase with a length of 230–260 steps. The stairs are very steep and at the time of the forced labor camp they were secured against attempts to escape by various security measures such as fences and gates at both ends. It was given the name at an indefinable point in time by former prisoners of the Mauthausen concentration camp in memory of the torments suffered there. The stairs are still preserved today.

Deposit and type locality

The total length of the tunnels within the deposit is more than 100 kilometers. The most important silver corridors are Joachimsthaler Geschiebe , Küh- , Prokop- , Clemens- , Andreas- , Rose von Jericho- , Hildebrand- and Evangelist-Gang as well as Fundgrüber Gang . A geological survey from 1977 revealed a high geological diversity. A total of 17 metal ores (including silver, uranium, tin, lead, cobalt, platinum and tungsten) and more than 400 different minerals were found.

In addition, the mine is true unity for the minerals Adolfpaterait , Běhounekit , Braunerit , Čejkait , Geschieberit , Ježekit , Kroupait , Línekit , Mathesiusit , Ondrušit , Paddlewheelit , schröckingerite , Slavkovit , StepIt , Švenekit , Svornostit , Vajdakit and Vysokýit as type locality , that is, they were first discovered and described here.

Mine water containing radon

Overview of the sources in use
designation fertility Water temperature Radon content
Curie 3 30 l ⁄ min 29 ° C 5 kBq ⁄ l
C1 30 l ⁄ min 29 ° C 11 kBq ⁄ l
Běhounek 4 300 l ⁄ min 36 ° C 10 kBq ⁄ l
Agricola 10 l ⁄ min 29 ° C 20 kBq ⁄ l
Status: March 2015

For a long time no one was aware of the benefits of the spring that was approached in 1864. After the assumed use of radioactive baths in Bad Gastein triggered a real boom in the search for these waters, the West Bohemian health resorts, located in an area with strong terrestrial radiation, moved into focus in 1904/1905. At the beginning of January 1905, the mine water in Joachimsthal was examined and its radioactive content was confirmed.

As a result, the first radon bath (two tubs in house no. 282) was set up the following year. Initially, the water from the spring was siphoned off at the level of the Daniel Erbstollen and transported to the baths in wooden chests. From 1908 it was transported via a pipeline, which from 1911 was extended to the baths in the newly built Kurhaus.

In the course of mining the deposit, further springs were discovered and taken, including the particularly rich spring HG-1 4 (on May 3, 1952).

The water from the springs in use is led into a basin on the 12th level, mixed and pumped from there into a higher-lying collecting basin, then into the bottom of the Daniel Erbstolln and finally via a pipeline about 3 kilometers long to the spa facilities directed.

literature

  • Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal". Uranium mining and forced labor in Czechoslovakia after 1945 (=  history . Volume 87 ). LIT Verlag, Berlin / Münster / Vienna / Zurich / London 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-1766-4 , mine and warehouse ›Svornost‹ - unity (also unity); Secret code K, S. 175-182 ( Google Books [accessed February 23, 2015]).

Web links

Commons : pit unity  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

1 Mining of cobalt ceased in 1851, arsenic in 1894 and silver in 1900.
2The state-owned company Jáchymovské doly, np was initially subordinate to the central management of the Czechoslovak mining companies, which in turn was subordinate to the Ministry of Industry. After November 2, 1955, it was continued under the name Ústřední správa výzkumu a těžby radioaktivních surovin .
3On the occasion of a visit by Marie Curie to the mine in 1925, the first spring was christened the Curie spring .
4thIn 1966 Otto Hahn , František Běhounek and František Šlik (a descendant of the Schlik family ) visited the mine on the occasion of the celebrations of 450 years of Jáchymov town, 250 years of mountain school and 60 years of spa . On this occasion, the source HG-1 received the new name pramen Běhounek (Běhounek source) .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ore Mountains Mining Region : Jáchymov Mining Cultural Landscape , accessed on February 11, 2015.
  2. ^ A b Johannes Mathesius : Sarepta or Bergpostill / Sampt of the Joachimßthalischen short chronicles. Nuremberg 1562, Welthes Jar ein yede Zechen angangen /… (letter A) ( limited preview in Google book search).
  3. ^ A b Johannes Mathesius: Sarepta or Bergpostill / Sampt of the Joachimßthalischen short chronicles. Nuremberg 1562, Chronika der Keyserlichen freyen Bergstadt Sanct Jochimsthal /… (year 1530) ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  4. ^ Johannes Mathesius: Sarepta or Bergpostill / Sampt of the Joachimßthalischen short chronicles. Nuremberg 1562, Welthes Jar ein yede Zechen angangen /… (Letter E) ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  5. ↑ a b c d Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 176 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Krušnohorci - Tips for trips to the Ore Mountains: Důl Svornost (Czech) accessed on February 23, 2015.
  7. ↑ Irena Seidlerová, Jan Seidler: Jáchymover uranium and radioactivity research at the turn of 19-20. Century . Ed .: Rudolf Holze. Universitätsverlag Chemnitz, Chemnitz 2010, ISBN 978-3-941003-22-4 , p. 13–14 , urn : nbn: de: bsz: ch1-qucosa-62259 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e Jáchymov . Karlovy Vary Region Tourism Portal; accessed on March 1, 2015.
  9. ↑ Irena Seidlerová, Jan Seidler: Jáchymover uranium and radioactivity research at the turn of 19-20. Century . .. Ed .: Rudolf Holze. S. 45 .
  10. ↑ Irena Seidlerová, Jan Seidler: Jáchymover uranium and radioactivity research at the turn of 19-20. Century . Ed .: Rudolf Holze. S. 100 .
  11. ↑ Joseph Braunbeck: The radiant double-headed eagle. Nuclear from Austria-Hungary . Leykam Buchverlagsgesellschaft, Graz 1996, ISBN 3-7011-7333-8 , p. 114 ( books.google.de [accessed on March 4, 2015]).
  12. ↑ a b c Pit Unity and Tunnel No. 1 . Mining region Krušné hory - Ore Mountains, ops; accessed on February 11, 2015.
  13. ^ Sächsisches Bergamt (Hrsg.): Yearbook for the mining and metallurgy industry in Saxony. Born in 1922 . 96th volume, p. B 39 ( digital.ub.tu-freiberg.de [PDF; accessed on April 15, 2019] statistics from 1921).
  14. ↑ Mining directory of the Freiberg Mining Authority, 1939/40, ed. v. Oberbergamt Freiberg, pp. 129-130. ( Digitized version ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ), Accessed on May 30, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tu-freiberg.de
  15. ^ Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 146 .
  16. ^ Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 176-177 .
  17. ^ A b Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 182 .
  18. ↑ Joachimsthal (Jáchymov) - the Eintracht colliery (Svornost) . Karlovy Vary Region Tourism Portal; accessed on March 1, 2015.
  19. ↑ gear-shaped uranium deposits - Jachymov . Mineralienatlas.de; accessed on March 4, 2015.
  20. ↑ The history of the Joachimsthal baths . Léčebné lázně Jáchymov as; Retrieved April 3, 2016.
  21. ↑ Reconstruction of the “Einigkeit” shaft in Joachimsthal , accessed on March 9, 2015.
  22. ^ Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 176-178 .
  23. ^ Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 298 .
  24. ↑ Mineralienatlas : type locality unity (Svornost), St. Joachimsthal (Jáchymov), region (Karlovarsky kraj) / Karlsbad .
  25. ↑ a b Radon is energy Energy is life - a healing source from the depths of the earth (PDF) Léčebné lázně Jáchymov as; accessed on March 9, 2015.
  26. ↑ Irena Seidlerová, Jan Seidler: Jáchymover uranium and radioactivity research at the turn of 19-20. Century . Ed .: Rudolf Holze. S. 76-77, 100 .
  27. ↑ Irena Seidlerová, Jan Seidler: Jáchymover uranium and radioactivity research at the turn of 19-20. Century . Ed .: Rudolf Holze. S. 15 .
  28. ^ Otfrid Pustejovsky: Stalin's bomb and the "Hell of Joachimsthal" . S. 104 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 21.2 "  N , 12 ° 54 ′ 41.4"  E