Frankenholz pit

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The Frankenholz mine was the most important coal mine in the Bavarian Palatinate . Its creation is closely linked to the person of August Ferdinand Culmann and Paul Guthörl .

location

The Höcherberg area represents the eastern boundary of the Saar coal forest, which stretches from the Warndt to this point and with the Saarbrücken strata , which enclose minable seams of the best quality, form the basis of mining on the Saar to this day. These geologically older layers are separated north of Frankenholz by the Holzer conglomerate from the Ottweiler layers and Breitenbach layers , which were only extracted from smaller pits in tunnel mining, for example at the Labach mine near Breitenbach .

prehistory

The carbon layers emphasize the Höcherbergraum at various points on days off. Thus, since the 18th century in the tunnel construction by coal mined . This also happened in the area of Frankenholz . In 1755 the place came from the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken to the County of Saarbrücken . Since there were already abundant mines in the county, there was no interest in another mine. In 1816 the Höcherberg area became part of Bavaria. The Kingdom of Bavaria was naturally interested in coal deposits. The Frankenholzer Bergwerksgesellschaft was founded in the same year. Their leading head was Konrad Weiss, mountain manager and operator of the mines in Altenkirchen (Palatinate) and Steinbach am Glan .

In 1829 the exploration of the deposits began in the valley floodplain of the Klemmloches, west of the village of Frankenholz . After further tests up the valley found a seam 50 cm thick , a license application was submitted. This license was not granted. There was also disagreement within the mining company, as further experiments revealed that the seams found were irregular as a result of faults . Another borehole up the valley leaked large amounts of methane . This was a sure sign of the existence of coal .

In 1844 the lawyer August Ferdinand Culmann from Zweibrücken joined the company . He became the driving force and obtained the concession in 1845. The pit field was relatively small at 5.5 square kilometers. However, the work was stopped after 1849, as Culmann could not return to Germany after the political events of 1848/49. In 1862 the mining company was re-established in Forbach . Culmann published the memorandum on the Frankenholz coal mine in Strasbourg in 1867 and achieved the expansion of the mine field to 800 hectares. The place was now changed for the experimental work and the Stockerschacht was set up on the outskirts of Oberbexbach . Culmann believed that he would meet coal seams as quickly as possible under the layer of red sandstone there. Due to strong water ingress, the shaft had to be abandoned after a depth of 27 meters .

Now you turned back to the clamping hole. This attempt was also unsuccessful; Evidence of the presence of coal deposits was found, but there was no clarity as to their exploitation . So it was not surprising when, in 1878, demands arose for the first time to terminate the company, as it had already devoured huge sums of money. Since the majority of the shareholders were relatives of Culmann, he was able to prevail again. Another borehole was sunk on a slope above the Klemmloch Valley. Although this borehole had to be stopped at 214 meters, mining seams were found. Now the general assembly decided on April 21, 1879 to start sinking a shaft.

History of the pit (1879–1959)

The further development of the company was rapid. In 1881 the Willkomm seam was reached in 184 meters , after the construction of a shaft structure , coal mining began on December 16, 1881. A year later, shaft II was sunk for rope travel and as a weather shaft. In 1891, the year of its founder August Ferdinand Culmann, the mine had a workforce of 563 people, the 82,100 tons of coal to light promoted . Three years later, the mine was the largest coal mine in the Kingdom of Bavaria with a production of 163,200 tons of coal and a workforce of 1,011 people . However, the location of the mine did not allow the coal to be transported by train. The Bexbach train station - around 4 km away - is 140 meters lower than the daytime facilities of the mine. In 1886 a cable car was built to transport the coal . The railway scaffolding, which was first made of wood, was laid out in iron ten years later and a coal washing plant was built in the area of ​​the Bexbach train station , in which the coal was separated from the dead rock . The mine dump at Bexbacher Bahnhof consists of overburden from the Frankenholzer mine. From the train station in Bexbach, the coals then started their way by train, mainly to the Palatinate and Bavaria, but also to Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland. Some of the seams contained coal so rich in gas that these coals were marketed as "gas coals". They were used to generate luminous gas. This so-called outgassing of the coal also posed a major problem for the mine. During the entire period in which the Frankenholz mine existed, it was always very much endangered by firedamp .

The late founder of the mine was succeeded by his son August, after whom his son-in-law Alphonse Guntz , professor of chemistry at the University of Nancy , took over the management of the mine. In 1896, shaft III was sunk in the district of Höchen . This shaft was connected to the first two shafts with a 1.4 km long cable car. In 1900, a twin conveyor system was built on Shaft III. In 1908, the strong outgassing of coal led to the fact that an underground gas storage facility was drilled and this gas, which was directed upwards, was used to heat the boiler system in the mine. This was unique in Europe at the time. In the following year, the concession area of ​​the closed Nordfeld pit and the machines there were taken over. In 1919, the French state became the owner of all Saar mines under the terms of the Versailles Treaty. The mine was not operated as a state mine, but initially leased temporarily, but then in 1920 for 99 years to the “Société Anonyme des Mines de Frankenholz”. The mine field was expanded across the former Bavarian border towards Münchwies and now had the size of 1500 hectares.

In 1922 Shaft IV was sunk in Höchen and a large part of the shares in the Homburg power plant were acquired, with which there was now a close cooperation. The mine drew its electricity from here, which was generated with the coal from the mine. A year later, the Frankenholz mine was also hit by the 100-day strike that hit the entire Saar district. This strike was not only motivated by labor law, but also politically. In 1930 the mine with a workforce of 2,822 reached its maximum production with 484,220 tons of coal. In the wake of the global economic crisis, however, a slump in subsidies and the number of employees had to be absorbed by around a third. The goal of achieving an annual output of 600,000 tons by expanding the mine was never achieved. In 1931, the shareholders' company terminated the lease agreement with France, and the mine was now continued for the account of the French state.

After the Saar referendum in 1935, the mine became part of Saargruben AG on March 1st . In 1939, is on the district of Hangard the shaft V drilled, considered Wetterschacht serves on the large amounts of methane are sucked. On January 2, 1941, there was another firedamp explosion , in which this time 41 miners lost their lives. Eugen Hayer, who worked as a weather sampler on the mine in 1941, described the events of the accident fifty years later in a press report in the Saarbrücker Zeitung. On January 1, there was a seam fire on the 10th floor of the mine. Fire-fighting teams went into action on site the next day; normal shift work was not started that day. As a result of a malfunction in the Homburg power plant, the damming measures had to be temporarily suspended. When the work was continued, the firedamp explosion occurred shortly before midnight on January 2nd. After this disaster, work in the pit was suspended for years until the fires were contained. The workforce at the mine was divided between the König mine , the Kohlwald mine and the Heinitz mine in Neunkirchen.

In 1945 France again took over the Saar mines, first in military administration, from 1947 in trust administration of the "Regie des Mines de la Sarre". Jules Baumann became the director of the Frankenholzer Grube. The St. Barbara mine in Bexbach was built under his direction in 1954. In June 1954, the Frankenholz mine was closed as an independent conveyor system and incorporated into the St. Barbara mine in Bexbach, the coal from the Frankenholz mine field was now brought to the surface in Bexbach. After the reintegration of the Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany, the end for the St. Barbara mine came very quickly. On April 30, 1959, funding by Saarbergwerke AG was discontinued.

Firedamp on the pit

Due to the high level of outgassing of coal, the mine was always exposed to the risk of firedamp. Despite various measures on the part of the operator, for example drilling an underground gas storage facility in 1908, the following accidents nevertheless occurred:

  • 1884 - 5 dead
  • 1893 - 14 dead
  • 1895 - 2 dead
  • 1897 - 57 dead
  • 1916 - 2 dead
  • 1917 - 10 dead
  • 1918 - 12 dead
  • 1920 - 5 dead
  • 1941 - 41 dead

Proof of the large amounts of gas in the mine is the fact that 40 years after the mine was closed, around 12 million cubic meters of methane gas were brought to the surface via shaft V.

Depth of the pits

  • Shaft I: 720 m
  • Shaft II: 900 m
  • Shaft III: 800 m
  • Shaft IV: 767 m

Oil deposits

As early as 1900/01, the first traces of oil came to light when drilling for the “Bruderbrunnen” shaft. This borehole is located about 1000 meters south of shaft 5, which was sunk in 1937/39 and where Paul Guthörl found and was able to identify a number of fossil insect species. This borehole was penetrated by the smell of petroleum for a few meters in the Göttelborn and Lower Ottweiler strata ( Stephan A ). In 1941 , traces of crude oil were found in two coal banks 35 meters apart in the Holzer conglomerate zone . This oil was initially quite liquid, but after a few days it was as tough as soft soap. A small amount was recovered. Guthörl wrote a report in his function as a geologist for the Saarbergwerke , which was finished in 1943, but was not published until 1948 due to the events of the war.

Paul Guthörl was able to locate five of the nine oil spills occurring in the Saarkarbon in the field of the Frankenholz mine. The most important of them and the whole Saarland came to light in July 1951, when a connection across impact of shaft 5 on the 10th floor ascended was. At the beginning, 12 to 15 liters ran out of the mountain every day, in December only 3 to 5 liters. In this half year 1.35 tons of crude oil were extracted. A sample of it is today in a glass bottle in the geoscientific faculty of Saarland University . These finds were mentioned in numerous newspapers and gave rise to much speculation. In 1955 the outflows stopped completely.

Social facilities

A miners' union was founded on the mine as early as 1873 . The association was financed from compulsory contributions. In addition, the association received all fines imposed for reasons of labor law or mining law.

According to § 11 of the statutes, the owners of the mine were obliged to pay in at least half of the amounts raised by the members. With the ongoing good economic situation, however, the operators usually paid more than the amount actually owed. In 1895 there were 150,000 marks in the association's treasury. It was decided to build a mine hospital. The hospital was owned by the Frankenholzer Knappschaft until 1926, which in that year became part of the Saarknappschaft. The house had its final size by 1928. There were now 75 beds, and after the Second World War it was increased to 80 beds. The money was also used to build dormitories for the pit. In the time after the Saar referendum in 1935, a heated swimming pool was built on shaft III, and a settlement was also built in the lower part of the village of Frankenholz. The mine employees received funding for building their houses.

After the pit was closed, the hospital became a branch of the State Hospital in Homburg. The hospital was closed in 1976 and demolished four years later. Today the village square of Frankenholz and the community center of the Protestant parish Frankenholz Höchen Websweiler are located on the site .

Relics of the mining era

Almost nothing can be seen of the former Frankenholz mine. The former laundrette of the mine now houses a supermarket, an inn and a fire-resistant clothing company. The ruins of the compressor hall still stand on the site of the pit. The dormitories, factory houses and the mine villas near the mine are now privately owned, but still show their original function. The houses built for shaft III in Höchen are now privately owned. Only the two tailings of the Frankenholz mine have been preserved as landmarks. The heap near the Bexbach train station is adorned with a statue of Saint Barbara. The tailings were brought by air from Frankenholz to the coal washing plant in the mine in the station area, the coal was transported away by train and the tailings were just heaped up. The mine dump pit III Höchen is located next to shafts III and IV of the Frankenholz pit on the municipal spell of Höchen. With a height of 494 meters above sea level, this mine dump is the highest located dump in Germany.

literature

  • M. Barth and W. Forthofer: Frankenholz - a village through the ages. Verlag Hügel GmbH, Bexbach, 1997.
  • August Ferdinand Culmann: Memorandum on the Frankenholz coal mine. Strasbourg 1867, new edition 1991.
  • Delf Slotta The Saarland coal mining publisher Krüger Druck und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (Dillingen / Saar 2011), publisher: RAG Aktiengesellschaft (Herne) and Institute for Regional Studies in Saarland e. V. (Schiffweiler), ISBN 978-3-00-035206-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Short Schroeder: Paul Guthörl and the Frankenholz mine, in: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 45th year 1997, ISBN 3-9250-3690-3 , pp. 300–303.
  2. ^ Paul Guthörl: Erdölvorkommen im Saarland, in: Erdöl und Kohlen, Volume 8, Hannover 1956, pp. 533-542.

Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 50 ″  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 8 ″  E