Hoesch Schwerter profiles

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Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1745
Seat Schwerte , North Rhine-Westphalia
Number of employees 500
sales € 90 million
Branch Steel processing
Website hoesch-profile.de

The Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH is a manufacturer of special profiles of steel and stainless steel sword .

history

The company as a partnership

In 1744 Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Dücker built an iron smelter, the Oberrödinghauser Hammer, on his lands in Rödinghausen near Menden . On August 12th, 1745 he received the enfeoffment of this hut from his sovereign, the Archbishop of Cologne , and the permission to smelt the iron stone of his surrounding mines into iron. This date is therefore to be regarded as the company's founding date, since a continuous industrial operation in Rödinghausen has existed since then, later relocated to Schwerte. The pig iron was processed into steel on the Rödinghauser hammer and then further processed into bar iron. Until 1796 the business was mainly run by tenants. In 1775 the Rödinghauser Hütte was closed and relocated to Grevenborn in the municipality of Deilinghofen. In 1796 Caspar Ignatz von Dücker took over the business again. In 1819 the Grevenborner Hütte was sold to the Baron von Landsberg-Velen, as Dücker wanted to specialize in the more lucrative further processing of steel. In the same year Caspar Ignatz handed over the management of the plants to his son Theodor von Dücker .

In 1826 Theodor von Dücker built a sheet metal roller in Rödinghausen, which was granted the concession on August 20, 1827. In 1833 a Reckhammer company was set up in Steinhausen, south of Rödinghausen . In 1835 the foundation stone was laid for a puddle iron and steel bar mill . The year 1853 marked the end of the year in Rödinghausen with the construction of the new works (mainly for wire rod production). The company names changed frequently until 1850, as von Dücker accepted various companies into the company. In 1850 von Dücker resigned from the company, which then traded as "Kissing & Schmöle zu Menden". Due to the poor transport links in and to Menden and Rödinghausen, the location of the Rödinghauser works proved to be economically disadvantageous. Therefore, a branch was planned, which should be on a railway line. The choice fell on Schwerte in 1865 because, on the one hand, due to the proximity of the Ruhr area, it was to be expected that the necessary workforce would be available, and on the other hand, a good railway connection was under construction. On April 2, 1868, the foundation stone was laid for the construction of the building for the puddle iron works and the rolling mills . Production started in December 1868. The Dortmund Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported that in Schwerte, 15 puddle and 4 welding furnaces, 2 hammers, 5 rolling mills and 2 steam hammers were in operation with a workforce of 300 workers.

Iron industry at Menden and Schwerte

Share of more than 1,000 marks in the iron industry in Menden and Schwerte AG from July 1, 1916

During the start-up boom , which lasted until 1873, Schwerte was converted into a stock company. In 1871/72 800 joint stock companies were founded in Prussia alone. One of them was the "Eisenindustrie zu Menden und Schwerte AG", which was launched on August 29, 1872, while at the same time the company "Kissing & Schmöle" was liquidated as a single company. Schwerte and Menden operated a number of puddling ovens, with the help of which steel was produced and rolled into wire rod, profile iron and strip steel. However, shareholders' hopes for high profits were quickly dashed by a period of slow economic growth that lasted from 1873 to 1894, also known as the "Great Depression". At the same time, the capacities of the competition grew, so that business remained difficult until the beginning of the World War. During this phase the plant in Rödinghausen was shut down (April 1885) because the disadvantages of this location had turned out to be too serious. At the same time it was decided to set up a wire refinement. For this reason, a wire drawing shop and a wire pin factory were built, in which the wire rod, which could only be sold on the market at a loss, could be pulled down to a thickness of 0.7 mm.

In order to make Schwerte more independent of the steel market, it was decided to build a Siemens-Martin steelworks. In addition, the puddling ovens that were still in use should be switched off in order to improve the quality of the end products through the sole use of SM steel . For this purpose it was decided in May 1889 to increase the "priority ordinary share capital" by 1,375,000 marks. A block rolling mill was built right next to the steelworks, and the wire rod mills were subsequently installed in the building. Production at the plant, which originally had a capacity of 96,000 tons per year, began in 1891.

Since the construction of the steelworks in Schwerte, there has been an effort to create its own pig iron base "in order to be independent of the purchase of pig iron from someone else's hand when it comes to our own large demand". The construction of our own facility was refrained from due to the expected multi-year planning and construction phase and possible "teething problems". Instead, the existing Johanneshütte near Siegen was acquired . The Johanneshütte was built in 1873 and put into operation in 1875. It operated two blast furnaces with a capacity of 60,000 t / y . Siegerland Eisenstein was smelted, which produced good quality pig iron. The purchase was financed by new shares worth 1.623 million marks. The company remained as an independent company after the purchase in 1899.

In 1906 an iron mine (Jacob crown) with rich iron ore deposits near the Johanneshütte was acquired. The iron stone deposits justified the assumption that the profitability of the Johanneshütte could be positively influenced by efficient mining. After several years of exploration work , the first doubts arose in 1910 as to whether the purchase would prove advantageous. Significant funding did not come about until the beginning of the world war. At that time, the iron industry existed as an integrated steelworks . From iron mining to pig iron and crude steel production to further processing, the entire production chain was in Schwerter hands. The only thing missing was its own coal base, probably due to a lack of capital.

Overall, the plant had little luck with its acquisitions. The Johanneshütte was closed in 1914 after many years of losses. The Jacob crown was closed in 1917 on official instructions. Since the Schwerter plants became unprofitable over time, an extensive modernization was carried out between 1911 and 1913 with simultaneous refurbishment of the finances. The systems purchased at the time were operated until the 1960s, some even to this day.

The First World War brought considerable problems for the site. A large part of the permanent workforce was drafted and replaced by women, foreign workers and prisoners of war. However, these made up only 20% of the workforce (750 on average during the war). The increase in prices and the shortage of food and heating proved problematic for the workforce, which affected their work performance. The coal shortage repeatedly led to production restrictions. After the end of the war, the situation remained tense. The fights and strikes in the Ruhr area in 1919/20, the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 and the high inflation impaired business considerably. Only after the introduction of the Rentenmark in 1923 was there an upturn, even if only part of the facilities in Schwerte could be operated. In 1920 the Stumm Group from Neunkirchen took over the majority in Schwerte. The group invested its war profits in the Reich after it had lost considerable parts of the plant in Lorraine as a result of the Treaty of Versailles . Since the group was heavily in debt, the Schwerter location had to be sold to Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG in 1926 .

United steel mills

Schwerte belonged to the United Steel Works until 1952. The United Steel Works had been founded by several German steel groups with the aim of rationalization in order to make the German steel industry competitive on the world market again. As a result, wire production was shut down in February 1926 and steel production in August 1926 and the corresponding production quotas were distributed to other plants. At the instigation of the then board member Otto Schleimer , however, Schwerte remained as a profile rolling mill and profile drawing shop. In the course of rationalization within the United Steelworks, the company "Fassoneisenwalzwerk Soest" was closed in 1928 and a rolling mill and parts of the workforce were taken over to Schwerte. In 1927 the disused old road I was replaced by a modern one, so that since then five rolling mills have been in operation in Schwerte. The production of drawn profiles can be traced back to 1896, although an own production facility was only built in 1907/1908. The reorganization of the company after 1926 with its high capital requirements and the global economic crisis meant that the company was continuously in the red and the number of employees was correspondingly low.

The armaments boom since 1933 and the boom following the outbreak of war also had a positive effect on Schwerte's profits. On the other hand, the employee's right to have a say, introduced in 1920, was abolished by the company cell organization of the German Labor Front . Production increased continuously until 1944. Since 1933, Schwerte recorded profits again, which grew to a considerable level during the war. In 1936 the “Eisenindustrie zu Menden und Schwerte AG” was renamed “Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerk AG” to take account of the change in the production program.

At the beginning of the war in 1939 , the drafts resulted in personnel bottlenecks which could not be resolved through the deployment of women and the reactivation of company pensioners. For this reason, forced laborers were used to a lesser extent from 1940/41 onwards and Soviet prisoners of war from 1942 onwards , although their number, at a maximum of 80, was significantly lower than in other sword factories. From October 1944, production was restricted due to a lack of steel and coal. At the turn of the year 1944/45 the prisoners of war were also given to their main camps, as the existing Schwerter workforce was sufficient for the significantly reduced production. Production was shut down in three bombing raids in February and March 1945, the administration building and the workshops on Eisenindustriestraße were destroyed and the roofs of the hall hit. The mechanical systems were largely spared. With the permission of the British military authorities, production in the rolling mill was resumed in December 1945 and in the bar train in May 1946, although production remained at a low level. The first major boom after the war came with the boom following the Korean War from 1950, which had a positive impact on sword production and the company's profits.

Dortmund-Hörder-Hüttenunion, Hoesch, Krupp-Hoesch, Thyssen

In 1952, the United Steel Works were disentangled and dissolved. Schwerte was re-established as a company this year, whereby the old name was taken over from the predecessor company, and the Dortmund-Hörder Hüttenunion was added.

The years of the economic boom made themselves felt in Schwerte through considerable increases in production, so that the board of directors and the shareholders decided to undertake extensive modernization. To expand the production possibilities for special profiles, the press shop was built in 1957, which received an extrusion press for steel profiles. It was the second press of its kind in the world. As early as 1956, the bar train moved from the rolling mill to a specially built new hall. The old administration, built in 1948, had to be supplemented by a new administration building in 1957, as the number of employees rose considerably. Road VII was built in the rolling mill in 1964, for which the old roads I, IV, V and VI were closed in the following years. By replacing the physically strenuous work on the old roller lines, this line represented a considerable progress in terms of production technology, especially since the production program could also be expanded into the higher meter weight range. Mechanical processing was set up in 1964. It produced finished parts from profiles, e.g. B. running plates . This production proved to be very loss-making, so that it was largely cut back from 1973. Today the remnants of the production are located in the rolling mill (welding profiles) and in the special technology (Grätings).

In the years of the DHHU, production had grown by a factor of 4.5. In 1966 the DHHU and Hoesch merged. In 1969, Schwerte formed the "Hoesch Werke Hohenlimburg Schwerte AG" with the Hoesch Hohenlimburg location. Parts of the administration were relocated to the HWHS headquarters in Hohenlimburg. At the beginning of the seventies, a new hall was built next to the drawing mill, in which the elevator guide rail production was located. In the following years only minor modernizations were carried out, e.g. B. on rolling mill train III, which was equipped with a planetary piercing mill in 1975 and was able to take over the production of mill train II, which was subsequently closed. At the same time, a modern rotary hearth furnace was installed for road III. Over time, there was an enormous investment backlog as the profits were transferred to the mother in question and not reinvested. At the end of the nineties, the rolling mill finally got a modern lifting hearth furnace. From 2001, the linear guide rail production was set up in the drawing mill, while at the same time the elevator guide rail production was shut down due to insufficient profitability. In 2004, investments were made in a laser welding system. From 1993 to 1999 Schwerte belonged to the “Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp ”, from 1999 to 2005 of“ ThyssenKrupp AG ”. The years at ThyssenKrupp turned out to be economically very difficult, as Thyssen pursued the policy of “turning away from long products”, which includes special profiles.

Calvi Holding

"Calvi Holding", based in Merate, Italy, has been the owner of "Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH" since 2006, which has contributed significantly to improving the company's situation. In 2008 a turnover of approx. 170 million euros was achieved. From mid-2008 to mid-2010, rolling mill VII was comprehensively modernized. In 2010, 500 employees were employed, who produced 70,000 t of profiles and generated a turnover of 90 million euros.

As a result of years of mismanagement and a lack of willingness to change on the part of the company's management and the aging workforce, the company was forced to file for bankruptcy in December 2019.

Number of employees and production

Profile cross-sections

Before the First World War , the number of employees was up to 1,600, who manufactured up to 93,000 t of finished products in several production stages. The highest shipments amounted to 65,000 tons in 1912/13, with sales of 9 million marks. Between the wars, the number of employees fluctuated between 346 and 686. They produced between 20,000 t and 40,000 t profiles annually. In 1945/46 only 287 people were employed who produced 12,000 t of profiles. In 1968/69, 1,631 people worked in Schwerte (278 of them salaried). In 1969/70 around 162,000 t of profiles were produced for external dispatch, with which around 125 million DM were made in sales. The best-known employee is Friedrich Flick , who was the company's commercial director from 1913 to 1915.

literature

  • Egen, Peter Nikolaus Caspar: Investigations into the effect of some existing waterworks in Rhineland-Westphalia, Berlin 1831, p. 107 ff. (Egen investigates the sheet metal roller in Rödinghausen in July 1828).
  • Jacobi, Ludwig Hermann Wilhelm: The mining, metallurgy and trade of the government district Arnsberg in statistical representation, Iserlohn 1857, p. 354 ff.
  • Voye, Ernst: History of Industry in the Sauerland in the Mark region, Volume III: Iserlohn, Hagen 1908.
  • Voye, Ernst: Schwerte, Fröndenberg and Westhofen in their industrial development, Hagen 1908.
  • Annual report for the year 1921/22 with a brief description of the company's history on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the stock corporation.
  • Kraas, H .: The "Eisenindustrie zu Menden and Schwerte AG", Schwerter Zeitung, October 21, 1930.
  • Sixty years of iron industry at Menden and Schwerte Akt.-Ges., In Schwerte (Ruhr), file note (1932) as a template for newspapers.
  • Father Ephrem Maria Filthaus OP: Under the spell of an old factory chimney or The story of the Rödinghauser Puddelhammer, Menden 1946 (Filthaut describes the work on the Puddelhammer around 1880. In doing so, he probably refers to the memories of his father, who had worked on the plant until 1885, The outline of the figures he added probably comes from Röttgermann's dissertation from 1939).
  • Heinz Röttgermann: The history of industry in the Menden / Fröndenberg economic area and its problems since the beginning of the 19th century. 2nd and expanded edition, Menden 1952.
  • Industry - with us in the Ruhr Valley, in: Schwerter Zeitung No. 98/85, June 21, 1952.
  • Company from the chamber district. Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerk Aktiengesellschaft, Schwerte, in: Reprint from the communications of the Dortmund Chamber of Commerce and Industry, June 15, 1954.
  • Bitter, Walter: The development of the Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerk Aktiengesellschaft, in: Unser Werksbild (DHHU) No. 5, October 1958, pp. 12–15 (article for a company magazine).
  • H. Kraas: The "Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerk Aktiengesellschaft" in Schwerte (Ruhr). Prehistory and development from 1826 to 1959. A contribution to the industrial history of Westphalia, in: Der Märker, Heimatblatt for the area of ​​the former Grafschaft Mark, 8th year, issue 6 / June 1959, pp. 182–187, issue 7 / July 1959 , Pp. 206–213 (faulty).
  • OV: "To the friends of our house", 1961 and 1962 (based on the article by H. Kraas, small brochure).
  • OV (Walter Bitter?): Chronicle and development of the Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerk AG, in: Our factory. Joint company magazine of Hüttenwerke Siegerland AG, Friedrichshütte Herdorf and Blefa Kreuztal, 13th year, No. 9-10 / 1965, pp. 119–121 (article for a company magazine).
  • Graudenz, Karlheinz: Schwerter Profil 1868/1968, Soest 1968 (most extensive publication to date (32 pages)).
  • Schlecking, Katja: Noble entrepreneurs in the spiritual state. The iron and steel works of the Barons von Dücker zu Menden-Rödinghausen in the 18th century, Münster 2010 (Dissertation Paderborn 2009).
  • Acktun, Andreas: Specialties made of steel. The history of Hoesch Schwerter profiles since 1745, part 1: The first 250 years, Schwerte 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Schlecking, Katja: nobles entrepreneurs in the spiritual state. The iron and steel works of the Barons von Dücker zu Menden-Rödinghausen in the 18th century, Münster 2010 (Dissertation Paderborn 2009)
  2. Heinz Röttgermann: The history of industry in the Menden / Fröndenberg economic area and its problems since the beginning of the 19th century. 2nd and expanded edition, Menden 1952
  3. http://www.literaturatlas.de/~la27/html/body_deutsches_reich.html
  4. Supervisory Board meeting on February 25, 1889, HSP company archive
  5. ^ Mining Archive Bochum, BBA 21/457
  6. Reckendrees, Alfred: The "steel trust" project. The founding of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and its corporate development 1926 - 1933/34, Munich, 2000, p. 198 f.
  7. Reckendrees, Alfred: The "steel trust" project. The foundation of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and its corporate development 1926 - 1933/34, Munich, 2000, p. 198 ff.
  8. http://www.schwerte.de/stadtportrait/historisches/nationalsozialismus/fremdarbeiter/fremdarbeiter-01/  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.schwerte.de  

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 '18.4 "  N , 7 ° 33' 44.8"  E