Good Hope Hut
| GHH Aktienverein
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1758 as the St. Antony hut |
| resolution | 1986 |
| Reason for dissolution | Incorporation into MAN AG |
| Seat | Oberhausen , Germany |
| management | |
| Number of employees | 86,000 (1982) |
| sales | 18.7 billion DM (1982) |
| Branch | Mechanical and plant engineering |
The Gutehoffnungshütte, share Association of Mining and Metallurgical Plant (short GHH ) was an important coal and steel and engineering company based in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area . Originally founded purely as a smelter , GHH expanded early on into the mining and processing sectors , transformed in the 20th century into the largest mechanical and plant engineering company in Europe and finally merged into today's MAN Group in 1986 . The history of the GHH is closely linked to the name of the Haniel family of entrepreneurs , so that the abbreviation liked to translate the abbreviation as heard mainly Haniel .
history
The beginnings
The roots of the later GHH group lie in the St.-Antony-Hütte in Oberhausen-Osterfeld , founded in 1758 , whose establishment also marks the birth of the Ruhr area as an iron processing center. The eponymous hut Gute Hope in Oberhausen-Sterkrade began operations in 1782; In 1791 a third hut "Neu Essen" was added in the immediate vicinity. The prince-abbess of the imperial monastery of Essen , Maria Kunigunde von Sachsen , who also participated in the hut “Gute Hoffnung” and in 1796 also the hut “St. Antony ”. She hired the metallurgical specialist Gottlob Jacobi from Koblenz as head of the latter , who fundamentally modernized the plant and became a shareholder in 1799.
After the secularization of the Essen monastery in 1803 , Maria Kunigunde lost interest in her ventures and in 1805 sold her shares in the St. Antony and Neu-Essen smelters for 23,800 Reichstaler to the brothers Franz and Gerhard Haniel , while Heinrich Arnold Huyssen , a brother-in-law the Haniel brothers, at the same time acquired the Gute-Hoffnung-Hütte. In 1808 Huyssen, the Haniel brothers and Jacobi brought their shares into the steelworks union and dealership Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen (JHH); the first partnership agreement, concluded two years later, was for a long time the official founding document of what would later become the GHH Group.
| year | Employee |
|---|---|
| 1810 | 162 |
| 1830 | 300 |
| 1846 | 1,607 |
| 1858 | 3,558 |
| 1872 | 8,455 |
| 1876 | 3,491 |
| 1891 | 10,209 |
| 1905 | 20,665 |
| 1917 | 40,095 |
| 1922 | 80,425 |
| 1953 | ≈ 53,000 |
| 1970 | 95,810 |
| 1980 | 86,000 |
| 1987 (MAN AG) | 52,229 |
Under the direction of Jacobi and his successor Wilhelm Lueg , the JHH entered mechanical engineering in 1820 and made an important contribution to the industrialization of Germany and the Ruhr area in the following decades with the construction of steam engines and ships , locomotives , railroad tracks and bridges . In 1819 they built the first larger steam engine with an output of 12 horsepower , in 1830 the first passenger steamboat produced in their own shipyard , the city of Mainz and in 1840 the first locomotive, the "Ruhr". From 1854 various ore and coal mines were added, including the Oberhausen colliery as the first smelter mine in the Ruhr area. Prior to this, Franz Haniel had already acquired several stakes in the mine on his own account, including the Zeche Zollverein in Essen , which began mining in 1851. By connecting ore and coal mines, which supplied the company's own smelting works by ship and rail, Franz Haniel successfully advanced the vertical integration of his group.
At the same time, Haniel and the JHH were considered typical representatives of a socially committed “ Rhenish capitalism ”. Thus, several were from 1832 to 1847 provident funds established that should protect workers in case of illness or accident. The YHH also built houses near their mines for the permanent workforce, including the Eisenheim settlement in 1844 , which is now a listed building.
Change to a mechanical engineering group
After the death of its last co-founder Huyssen, the previous partnership JHH was converted into a corporation called Actienverein für Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb, Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) at the instigation of Hugo Haniel , whose shares remained in the possession of the respective descendants. Carl Lueg became the first chairman of the board , while Hugo Haniel took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board. In the following years, the start-up crisis hit the company hard: The prices for rails, rods and sheet metal fell by half, the turnover of goods fell from 21 to 12 million, the capital base from 30 to 7 million marks. In order to reduce costs and make production more effective, GHH switched to the Thomas process in steel production in the 1870s .
In 1909 the Swabian mining technician Paul Reusch took over the management of the GHH. He systematically expanded the already strong manufacturing sector, including through takeovers and majority stakes in the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg (1918, now HDW ), the Esslingen machine factory (1920), the Augsburg gear factory (1923) and the Deggendorfer Werft (1924). During the hyperinflation of 1921 Reusch seized the opportunity to purchase Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG (MAN), which suddenly doubled the workforce and at the same time laid the foundation for the later development of today's MAN group. In 1924 the Deggendorfer Werft und Eisenbau Gesellschaft was taken over and by 1926 the Ferrostaal trading company, founded in The Hague in 1920, was integrated. In order to take account of the sudden growth associated with the takeovers, Gutehoffnungshütte Aktienverein was converted into a holding company in 1923 and the Oberhausen parent companies were transferred to the wholly-owned subsidiary GHH Oberhausen AG . The construction of the distinctive administration and main warehouse in Oberhausen, which was built between 1921 and 1925 according to plans by the architect Peter Behrens and which today houses the central depot of the Rheinisches Industriemuseum , among other things , also fell during this period .
After the GHH had to temporarily halve its workforce during the Great Depression of 1929–1932, the motorway construction promoted by the National Socialists from 1933 onwards increased the need for bridge construction; At the same time, the armament of the Wehrmacht significantly increased sales of marine diesel engines for the war and merchant navy. During the Second World War , the GHH, like all other armaments factories, also employed forced labor , whereby at the peak in 1944 with around 31,500 men, almost a third of all employees were forced laborers (including 22,400 foreign civil workers, 8,400 prisoners of war and almost 700 concentration camp inmates). Despite this close involvement in the war economy , the relationship with the NSDAP remained tense: For example, CEO Reusch, who had repeatedly protested against political interference in company management, resigned from the board in February 1942 under pressure from the regime. Previously, in an internal statement by the Fuehrer's office, he was described as an “outright reactionary”, “who, with his disparaging and contemptuous criticism, does not stop at the person of the Fuehrer and the Reichsmarschall.”
Disengagement after 1945
After the end of the Second World War, at the instigation of the British occupying power - and against the bitter resistance of the then CEO Hermann Reusch - the GHH was disentangled and broken up into three separate areas. In particular, the iron and steel production area, including the previous GHH parent company, was spun off as Hüttenwerke Oberhausen AG (HOAG), as was the coal production area with the Sterkrade , Osterfeld , Oberhausen , Vondern , Jacobi , Franz Haniel and Hugo Haniel collieries , which from now on as mining AG New Hope was named . In the course of the coal crisis , Neue Hope was temporarily reunited with HOAG in 1959 and finally merged with the newly founded Ruhrkohle AG in 1968 . Until the mid-1990s, all mines, with one exception ( Zeche Franz Haniel ), were gradually shut down.
In 1968 Thyssen AG took over the majority of the shares in HOAG. The remaining parts of the company have been trading as Thyssen Niederrhein AG , also known as Thyssen Niederrhein Oberhausen (TNO) , since 1971 . In 1979 the last active blast furnace in Oberhausen (blast furnace A) stopped production. In 1980 what was then the largest electric steelworks in Germany was commissioned at the Oberhausen site . When it stopped production at the end of 1997, 240 years of iron and steel production in Oberhausen came to an end.
From GHH to MAN
After 1953, only the areas of processing, machine and plant construction including the MAN and shipyards subsidiaries as well as trading activities (Ferrostaal) remained under the umbrella of GHH. As a consequence, the holding was now only called GHH Aktienverein without the previous addition “for mining and smelting operations”, and the previous GHH Oberhausen AG was renamed GHH Sterkrade AG .
Although CEO Hermann Reusch perceived the forced unbundling as a personal defeat, in the long term it even turned out to be beneficial for the group, which was largely spared the coal and steel crises of the following decades. Instead, GHH concentrated on the areas of processing and industrial services from then on and in the 1960s and 1970s - supported by targeted acquisitions ( Büssing , MAN Roland , MTU ) - finally advanced to become the largest mechanical engineering group in Europe.
In 1982 GHH employed around 80,000 people with sales of 18.7 billion DM. However, around 60,000 of these were accounted for by the commercial vehicle subsidiary MAN and the companies assigned to it. When this got into a serious crisis at the beginning of the 1980s, the then GHH boss Manfred Lennings presented a reorganization concept that not only provided for the expulsion of the previous MAN board, but also a complete merger of the previous subsidiary into the parent company in the medium term. However, the ownership structure of GHH had changed significantly in the meantime, in which, following the gradual withdrawal of the Haniel family, which sold their last shares in 1985, the new major shareholders Allianz and Commerzbank now set the tone. In this case, however, Lennings' concept met with determined resistance, so that at the time the press speculated about a "Bavarian conspiracy" against the Oberhausen top management. In fact, following the forced resignation of Lennings from 1985/86, the entire group was reorganized under the name of the previous subsidiary MAN and the company headquarters moved from Oberhausen to Munich.
The parts of the group that remained in Oberhausen were restructured several times under Lennings' successor Klaus Götte and some of them were merged with MAN Turbo AG in 2004 (since 2010: MAN Diesel & Turbo ). Other areas of the business were either sold or spun off into independent companies, some of which still have the abbreviation GHH in their names. (see successor company )
people
General directors of the JHH (until 1873)
- 1810–1823 Gottlob Jacobi
- 1823–1864 Wilhelm Lueg
- 1864–1873 Carl Lueg
CEO of GHH (from 1873)
- 1873–1903 Carl Lueg
- 1904 Hugo Jacobi
- 1905–1909 Gottfried Ziegler
- 1909–1942 Paul Reusch
- 1942–1946 Hermann Kellermann
- 1947–1966 Hermann Reusch
- 1966–1975 Dietrich Wilhelm von Menges
- 1975–1983 Manfred Lennings
- 1983–1986 Klaus Götte
Chairman of the Supervisory Board (from 1873)
- 1873–1880 Hugo Haniel
- 1880–1888 Eduard James Haniel
- 1888–1895 Julius Liebrecht
- 1895–1916 Franz Haniel junior
- 1916–1921 August Haniel
- 1921–1944 Karl Haniel
- 1944–19 ?? Curt Berthold Haniel
- 19 ?? - 19 ?? Franz Haniel (1883–1965, son of Franz Haniel jun.)
- Aug 1, 1961–1983 Klaus Haniel
- 1983–1986 Matthias Seefelder
Important subsidiaries and holdings
- Büssing AG (since 1971/72, merged with MAN Nutzfahrzeuge )
- Deggendorfer Werft and Eisenbau (since 1924, merged with MAN Turbo in 2009 )
- German shipyard / HDW (1918–1973)
- Ferrostaal (1921-2008)
- Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH (1917–1953)
- kabelmetal (taken over as OKD in 1921, merged with Hackethal-Draht in 1967, sold in 1990)
- Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (since 1921)
- Machine works Esslingen (1920–1965)
- MTU Motoren- und Turbinen-Union (1960–1985)
- Roland printing machines (1979–2006)
- Schloemann-Siemag (Schloemann since 1931, Siemag since 1972, sold gradually from 2003)
- Swabian iron and steel works (1921-2005)
- Gear factory Renk Augsburg (since 1923)
Successor company
MAN Gutehoffnungshütte / MAN Energy Solutions
After the restructuring of GHH to MAN AG in 1985/86 and the subsequent relocation of the group headquarters to Munich, the parts of the group that remained in Oberhausen initially traded under the name MAN Gutehoffnungshütte GmbH (or AG) for some time . In the course of the consolidation strategy pursued by the then CEO Klaus Götte , several corporate divisions were sold or made independent in the following years (see below). The last remaining division, “Turbomachinery”, was renamed MAN Turbo in 2004 and merged with another subsidiary in 2010 to form MAN Diesel & Turbo , which is now known as MAN Energy Solutions.
GHH vehicles
The GHH Fahrzeuge GmbH in 1995 arose from the former division "mining and tunneling vehicles" MAN Gutehoffnungshütte. It produces loaders and dump trucks for mining and tunnel construction, as well as rodless aircraft tugs . Owned by the medium-sized company Schmidt, Kranz & Co. since 1999 , GHH Vehicles GmbH relocated its headquarters, business premises and production to Gelsenkirchen in 2007 .
GHH Rand screw compressors
As early as 1994, an area of compressor production had been spun off into GHH screw compressors GmbH . The company has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American conglomerate Ingersoll Rand since 1998 and produces with around 300 employees under the GHH Rand brand compressors for industrial applications as well as compressed air solutions for the pneumatic emptying of silos and tankers .
GHH Bonatrans
The wheel set production area of MAN Gutehoffnungshütte was also spun off as GHH Radsatz GmbH in 1995 and merged with the French Valdunes Group to form GHH Valdunes in February 2008 . On January 1, 2014, the plant in Oberhausen, Gutehoffnungshütte Radsatz , was taken over by Bonatrans from the Czech Republic. This now operates under the name GHH-Bonatrans. GHH-Bonatrans is one of the major European suppliers of wheels and shafts for rail vehicles .
Former GHH winery St. Antony
The St. Antony winery was also part of the GHH / MAN group until 2005 . In 1912, the GHH acquired a lime mine in Nierstein along with the neighboring vineyards to supply its ironworks . In 1920 the company began producing its own wines, which were only drunk within the group or given away to customers and sold. The lime pit was sold in 1955 and the proceeds invested in the winery and its winery. After the restructuring of GHH to MAN AG , the winery was named after the St.-Antony-Hütte and finally sold in 2005.
Today's use of the former GHH systems in Oberhausen
After the demolition of the production facilities in Alt-Oberhausen, one of the largest shopping and leisure centers in Europe was created in the 1990s as part of the Neue Mitte Oberhausen urban development concept on the former GHH / Thyssen Niederrhein (TNO) site with the " CentrO ". The electric steel mill, which stopped production in 1997, was demolished by 2006. The site is largely fallow, only a casino and a few branches from various industries could be established.
Plant I of MAN GHH in downtown Sterkrad was continuously demolished from 1989 to 2004. The "Hirsch-Center" and "Sterkrader Tor" shopping centers were built on the vacated site, as was the "Gute Hoffnung" senior citizens' center. The former company headquarters was renovated at the end of the 1990s and today serves the city as the “Technical Town Hall”.
Other structural evidence of the former GHH and HOAG in Oberhausen, in addition to the main warehouse already mentioned , is the Gutehoffnungshütte restaurant , which is now part of the Technology Center for Environmental Protection (TZU) and the preserved Oberhausen Gasometer , which is now used as a viewing point and for exhibitions. Both are under monument protection and are also stops on the Route of Industrial Culture . There are also some repurposed fragments, including the “ Turbinenhalle ” discotheque and some bridges over the Rhine-Herne Canal. There are also remains of industrial use in the Olga-Park , which was created for the State Garden Show in 1999 . Industrial ruins of the GHH and the Zeche Osterfeld were taken into account and integrated into the design of the gardens. The winding tower of the old GHH- Zeche Sterkrade was also placed under monument protection.
literature
- Johannes Bähr, Ralf Banken, Thomas Flemming: The MAN. A German Industrial History , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57762-8 ( Google preview )
- Andreas-Marco Graf von Ballestrem: It all started in the three-country corner. The main factory of GHH, the cradle of the Ruhr industry . Tubingen 1970
- Friedrich Frölich: The works of the Gutehoffnungshütte . In: Journal of the Association of German Engineers , Volume 46, 1902, p. 1021 ff., P. 1177 ff., P. 1539 ff., P. 1608 ff., P. 1695 ff., P. 1775 ff., P 1815 ff., 1861 ff .: Blast furnace works, steel works, steel and rolling mills in Neu-Oberhausen, mechanical engineering, shaft construction, etc. with detailed descriptions and site plans.
- Friedrich Frölich, Arnold Woltmann: The Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen, Rhineland. In memory of the 100th anniversary from 1810–1910. Düsseldorf 1910 ( digitized version )
- Wilhelm Grevel: History of the foundation and first development of the Gutehoffnungshütte in Sterkrade. Bädeker, Essen 1881 ( digitized version )
- Hans-Josef Joest: pioneer in the Ruhr area. Gutehoffnungshütte - from the oldest coal and steel company in Germany to the largest mechanical engineering group in Europe , Seewald, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1982 ISBN 3-512-00660-4 .
- Ursula Gabriele Pütz-Majer: Institutions of social company policy of the Gutehoffnungshütte from the beginning up to the Second World War. Social company policy - an expression of corporate responsibility? Dissertation Univ. Bremen 1994
- Erich Maschke : A group is created. Paul Reusch and the GHH , Rainer-Wunderlich-Verlag Hermann Leins , Tübingen 1969 ISBN 3-8052-0131-1 .
- Hitsashi Yano: Ironworkers in the Third Reich. The operating conditions and social situation at Gutehoffnungshütte Aktienverein and Friedr. Krupp AG 1936 to 1939 , Stuttgart 1986 ( magazine for company history , supplement 34) ISBN 3-515-04209-1 .
Web links
- Gerhard Hetzer: Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
- Early documents and newspaper articles about Gutehoffnungshütte in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ J. Bähr u. a .: The MAN. A German Industrial History , Munich 2008, p. 15 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN ..., p. 25 ff.
- ↑ See the Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen, Rhineland. In memory of the 100th anniversary. 1810-1910. Oberhausen 1910.
- ↑ until 1922 to Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 455 and 581.
- ↑ to: Gutehoffnungshütte. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 42 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 75 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 78 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 96 f.
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society , vol. 3, p. 102 f.
- ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Deutsche Gesellschaftgeschichte , Vol. 3, p. 562.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: Die MAN, p. 240 ff .; History of the MAN Group (PDF)
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 248 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 260 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, pp. 280 ff. and 299 ff.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 329.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: Die MAN, p. 306 ff. Verbatim quote p. 309.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 340 ff.
- ^ Gutehoffnungshütte / electric steelworks Oberhausen. In: industriedenkmal.de
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 350.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 356.
- ↑ The fight for heads and concepts . In: Die Zeit , No. 44/1983
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, pp. 450–456.
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 249, 346, 446 and 512 (note 56)
- ↑ Bähr u. a .: The MAN, p. 450 ff.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2011 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 notice.
- ↑ http://www.ghhrand.com
- ↑ Martin Menke: High-tech in rotation . In: eisenbahn-magazin , issue 11 2014, p. 41
- ↑ http://www.st-antony.de/die-historie.html
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 18 ″ N , 6 ° 52 ′ 15 ″ E