Glückauf Sondershausen potash works
| Glückauf Sondershausen | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| other names | Manhole | ||
| Mining technology | Chamber construction | ||
| Funding / year | 2,300,000 t | ||
| Funding / total | 110,000,000 t | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | GSES GmbH | ||
| Employees | approx. 230 | ||
| Start of operation | 1893 | ||
| End of operation | (1991) | ||
| Successor use | Offset, rock salt mining, visitor mine | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Rock salt / carnallitite (potash salt) | ||
| Mightiness | 2-8 | ||
| Degradation of | Carnallitite (potash salt) | ||
| Mightiness | 10 m | ||
| Raw material content | 20% | ||
| Greatest depth | 1150 m | ||
| Mightiness | 20-60 | ||
| Raw material content | 94-98% | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 51 ° 22 '11.7 " N , 10 ° 50' 47.9" E | ||
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| Location | Sondershausen | ||
| local community | Sondershausen | ||
| District ( NUTS3 ) | Kyffhäuserkreis | ||
| country | Free State of Thuringia | ||
| Country | Germany | ||
| District | South Harz Potash District | ||
The “Glückauf” potash mine in Sondershausen in the Kyffhäuserkreis in Thuringia is the world's oldest still passable potash mine and is considered the eleventh German potash mine. It is currently used as an adventure mine and rock salt extraction. The deposit covers an area of over 23 km². The construction of the works and the drilling of the first shaft began in 1893, the first carnallite / potash flöz Staßfurt (K2) was found in May 1892 by the entrepreneur Heinrich Brügmann from Brünninghausen near Dortmund . Already in December 1891 he found a massive rock salt deposit during a test drilling. The Sondershausen site developed into the GDR's potash combine . 96 years, until 1991 potash was mined here . At the time of the closure, almost 3,000 people were working at the Sondershausen site. In 1995 the Glückauf Sondershausen Development and Security Company Ltd (GSES GmbH) was founded, which from then on took care of the offset and in 2011 employed around 230 people. Since 2006, 200,000 t of rock salt have been promoted annually as road salt for winter maintenance.
Between 1896 and 1991 the plant produced a total of 110 million tons of crude salt. In 1989 alone, a production volume of 2.3 million tons was achieved. The potash salt was mainly processed into fertilizers in our own factory.
history
Discovery of the salt warehouse
On March 13, 1891, the entrepreneur Heinrich Leonhard Brügmann (1832-1893) applied to the Princely District Administrator Henniger in Sondershausen to issue a prospecting license . He was a trained surveyor , director of the Dortmund Union brewery and member of the mining board of the Wilhelmshall zu Anderbeck union and wanted to look for potash in the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen . The prospecting permit was granted to him on June 15, so that the planned exploratory drilling could already be carried out from August 1 of the same year. Brügmann received a 2.7 hectare prospecting field at the so-called Gänsespitze near Jecha .
On December 1, 1891, the bore in thrust 465.2 m depth in an approximately 10 m powerful rock salt lager that the geological formation of the Allersteinsalzes belonged. Half a year later, a 25 m thick carnallite deposit, the Staßfurt potash seam , was drilled at a depth of 616 m . After 700.72 m the bore ended in the Staßfurt rock salt .
The founding years from 1892 to 1898
At that time, the Kingdom of Prussia had the potash monopoly and wanted to maintain this with the so-called Schutzbohrgemeinschaft . The aim of this was to conduct barring negotiations and to prevent all private activities in the potash industry beyond the Prussian borders, which was supported by the Upper Mining Office and the Prussian Minister for Trade and Industry.
Such talks were held with the princely government in Sondershausen as well, but in the end they did not have particularly good results. Because Brügmann did not want to block, but rather to produce, create jobs and place orders for local businesses. This meant a tremendous economic upswing for the small country, which was no larger in area than the island of Rügen . This was also associated with ample increases in the state budget of the principality.
At the end of the negotiations, a one-off compromise was reached between the parties. The establishment of the eleventh German potash plant in the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen was accepted by Prussia, but it had to remain the only one. All start-ups were blocked and banned. Thus Brügmann received the sole potash extraction rights for an area of 519.126 km², on which theoretically 25 large potash works would have found space.
On November 20, the final purchase contract was concluded with the approval of the state parliament and the sovereign, Prince Karl Günther . Due to the enormous area, the sales sum would have been 3 million marks , which Brügmann could not pay as an individual investor. So they agreed on an annual pit gradient of 40,000 marks and 15 percent of the net profit of the plant for an indefinite period.
On February 9, 1893, Brügmann founded the Glückauf-Sondershausen union with the support of the Cologne-based Schaafhausen'schen Bankverein . Up to the complete start of operations in 1898, the investments amounted to 4,976,094.14 marks.
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The groundbreaking ceremony for drilling the potash shaft took place on May 1, 1893 between the villages of Stockhausen and Großfurra near the Erfurt-Nordhausen railway line and on the banks of the Wipper . In 634 m depth they came across a 14 m thick potash flöz from the minerals sylvite , halite and anhydrite . Brügmann did not live to see the start of funding. He died on 10 December 1893 in Cologne to influenza . In his honor, the first special house shaft was named Brügmannschacht .
The production of 32,100 tonnes of potash salt began in 1896 and was initially dispatched unmilled. Two years later and after the completion of the potassium chloride factory, the first batch of potassium chlorine concentrate left the Sondershausen plant as agricultural fertilizer on February 24th.
Finally, on March 1, 1898, the Glückauf-Sondershausen union officially became a full member of the German potash indicator with provisional, very low production quotas that were in effect as early as 1896/1897.
Follow-up development and expansion until 1926
A second syndicate period from 1899 to 1901 with new quota calculation and distribution had a positive effect on Sondershausen in terms of quality, but not quantitatively. "Glückauf" received just 55% of the average rate of the works in the syndicate. The third period (1902–1904) raised the quota to around 70% after increasingly loud protests. But production in relation to sales did not increase any more, as private drilling companies were established en masse around the turn of the century. In 1910, Kaiser Wilhelm II passed the 1st Reich Scale Act , which regulated sales and prevented new plants from being established. With regard to the allocation and amount of quotas, this state regulation had a positive effect on the plant in Sondershausen.
In order to achieve new production and sales quotas for the plant, the Schwarzburg Special Houses State Minister Hermann Petersen advocated the construction of a second shaft. In October 1909, Shaft II was sunk at a depth of 790 m near the Sondershäuser Hauptbahnhof and the village of Bebra . A part of the righteous Glückauf-Sondershausen now formed the righteous of the newly founded union "Glückauf-Bebra" , a subsidiary . This made Shaft II one of the first four second shafts sunk in Germany in the potash industry. Since the work was built at the gateway to the royal seat - the train station - the mine was to be given an aesthetically pleasing design according to the princely arrangement. A special composition of traditional house and industrial architecture was created that unites the design principles of Art Nouveau . In particular, the 44 m high scaffolding of the headframe is considered outstanding. At the request of the prince, it was inspired by the Parisian Eiffel Tower and is today one of the landmarks of the city of Sondershausen alongside the residential palace . In honor of the Minister of State, the shaft was given the name Petersenschacht .
In the following years, the company aimed for further expansion . As the contracts with the Prussian Schutzbohrgemeinschaft were not able to establish any further independent mining companies in the Principality, a “loophole” in the contract was used: numerous subsidiaries were established for which independent quotas were obtained.
On April 5, 1909, the following five unions existed with the associated shares of the total area with the potash extraction rights:
- Glückauf-Sondershausen (22.7%)
- Glückauf-Bebra (8.2%)
- Glückauf-Ost (14.4%)
- Glückauf-Ebeleben (20.2%)
- Glückauf-West (21.3%)
Shafts III to VI were sunk by 1914 . They were given the names of the chairmen of the mine board. The 655 m deep shaft III (1911/1912) of Glückauf-Berka was named Müserschacht . The 746 m deep shaft IV (1911–1913) of Glückauf-Ost was named Raudeschacht . The Dr. Esser shaft (1912/13) and the von Nesse shaft (1912-1914) belonged to the Glückauf-Ost union as shaft V with a depth of 752 m and shaft VI with a depth of 615 m .
With this, "Glückauf" developed into a potash group in 1914 and ranked tenth among the 29 companies that made 82% of German potash production.
The First World War brought great restrictions. The export abroad dried up, production and profits fell, increased spending. Many workers were drafted into the army, prisoners of war and forced labor could not make up for the shortage. Only when they wanted to fight the famine with potash fertilizer later, demand and production increased. Shafts I, III, V and VI were closed during the war years. Only the Brügmannschacht and the Raudeschacht remained in operation - sometimes irregularly.
As early as 1917/1918, there were signs of a turning point. It acquired Kuxe the union Hohenzollern Hall in Freden on a leash and eventually was incorporated in March 1918 in the union "Glückauf Sondershausen". During the war, the Anna and Reichensland unions in Alsace and Lorraine were bought up, but they were lost again by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Large shares in the “Großherzog von Sachsen” AG potash works in Dietlas with three shafts and the Heiligenmühle union with two shafts at Oechsen were also acquired.
After the war, on April 24, 1919, the Weimar National Assembly passed a new Reich Scaling Law as the “Law on Regulating the Potash Industry” with 107 paragraphs . Here the entire German potash industry had to join forces in a compulsory syndicate. This meant that the Glückauf-Sondershausen union soon lost its economic independence. At the beginning of 1922, the takeover of the Glückauf Group by the Wintershall Group through its financing company Kali-Industrie AG was initiated, which soon became the only German potash company. On September 20, 1926, the Special Housing agreed trades Assembly on the liquidation of their company, thus went Glückauf its existence in after 34 years Wintershall Corporation on.
Miners at the start of their shift, 1989
Protest against the pit closure, 1990
Salt heaps
View from Frauenberg to the salt dumps
Main pit fan, original location in shaft VI, set up in a museum in front of shaft I.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dismantling resumed in 2006
- ↑ Disassembly stopped in 1991
- ↑ Periods of the syndicates start on January 1st and end on December 31st
literature
- City administration Sondershausen (Ed.): Sondershausen. Faces of a City 1990 to 2010. Starke Druck, Sondershausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-032395-9 .
- 875 years of Sondershausen. A font for the anniversary. Strong pressure, Sondershausen 2000, ISBN 3-9805829-7-3 .
- Hans-Jürgen Schmidt: The history of the potash industry in Sondershausen from 1926 to 1995. Strong printing, Sondershausen 2007, ISBN 978-3-9811062-1-3 .
- Moritz Baer: The development of the potash industry in the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Sondershausen 1918.
