Kamig
The Kamig - Austrian Kaolin and Mining Industry, Aktiengesellschaft Nfg. Komm.Ges. (founded in 1922) is an Upper Austrian mining company based in Perg .
The company has been majority or wholly owned by the Götzl family since 1922 and deals with the extraction , processing and wholesaling of kaolin , quartz sand , gravel and clay in the communities of Allerheiligen im Mühlkreis , Perg , Schwertberg and Tragwein .
Some of the products are exported to Greece , Italy , Slovenia , Hungary , Germany and Switzerland .
History of kaolin mining in Upper Austria
- Pre-industrial kaolin extraction
In 1808 a resident of Kriechbaum is mentioned as a white maker in the chronicle of the Tragwein market . The kaolin was extracted from a simple pit, cleaned in wooden tubs and pressed into jute sacks .
A mention of White Earth , which has been used commercially was carried out in 1827 in the chronicle of the market support wine. There was talk of horse-drawn carriage to Linz and its use for whitening soldiers 'uniforms as well as cleaning the horses' straps and bridles . A simple preparation of the kaolin was necessary for this.
In the village of Kriechbaum, farmers operated small pits above ground from the middle of the 19th century. The raw material was processed in wooden tubs and separated from larger residues. So-called Schwertberger white clay was sold to stove fitters and smaller Hafner companies in the area around Linz and Steyr .
In 1898 R. Pollak and A. Klein acquired the kaolin deposit including the existing facilities and ran the business under the name of Dr. Klein and Comp. Kaolin and Chamotte works in Schwertberg continue. The company also acquired mining rights on neighboring properties and began building a shaft for a small-scale civil engineering.
- Industrial kaolin extraction
In 1910, the Prager Montanaktiengesellschaft acquired the mining in Kriechbaum and produced around 1800 tons of kaolin annually until the mining stopped during the First World War . In 1920 the company was sold to the Wienerberger Ziegelfabrik und Bau-AG Wien .
- Foundation of KAMIG
In 1922 Rudolf Illner founded KAMIG as the Österreichische Kaolin- und Montan Industrie Gesellschaft mbH, which was converted into a stock corporation in November 1922. The aim was to produce our own kaolin in Austria to secure our own supply . Even then, the majority of the shares were owned by the Götzl family .
The expansion of the production capacity took place from 1923 through the construction of a cable car from Kriechbaum into Josefstal , the construction of a processing plant and the development of the deposits in opencast and underground mining with several shafts . In 1938, KAMIG had 500 employees.
In 1938, Kamig was “Aryanized” with the participation of the German national politician and chairman of the board of directors Franz Dinghofer , and the Götzl family was pushed out.
After war-related restrictions and complete closure in 1945, production was resumed in 1946 and from 1952, the deposits in the village of Weinzierl in the municipality of Perg were opened up using opencast mining (briefly also underground).
Between 1960 and 1970 the amount of raw kaolin extracted mainly from underground mining reached up to 170,000 tons annually, from which 50,000 tons of kaolin, 70,000 tons of quartz sand and 50,000 tons of by-products were produced. During this time, 250 people were employed in the mining industry in Kriechbaum and around 500 in the company. KAMIG was the only mining company in the Mühlviertel and was one of the largest in the region.
Increasing competition from the development of foreign kaolin deposits, which could be mined inexpensively in opencast mining, made restructuring in the transport and processing process necessary from 1976. A 7.6 kilometer long delivery line between Kriechbaum and Aisthofen was built and processing moved from Josefstal to Aisthofen. The operating facility, the company's own cable cars, the narrow-gauge railway in the Aist valley and the Schwertberg loading station were shut down. The mining of raw kaolin in underground mining was successively reduced and ended completely in 2001.
Underground mining
- Rudolf-Schacht (from 1925)
- Nelly-Schacht (from 1932), named after the wife of Paul Götzl
- Christinen-Schacht (from 1948), named after Paul Götzl's daughter-in-law
Opencast mining
- Christinen-Tagbau in Kriechbaum (named after the daughter-in-law of Paul Götzl)
- Weinzierl (from 1952)
Founding shareholders
- Rudolf Illner (* 1891 in Deštná (Rumberg), South Moravia, † 1963 in New York) founding member, shareholder and general manager of the company from 1922 to 1938
- Paul Götzl (1884 to 1957), founding member and main shareholder from 1922 to 1938
- Franz Dinghofer (1873 to 1956), founding member of KAMIG
Owner and manager after WWII
- Fritz Götzl (born September 2, 1912; † 1984), main shareholder after restitution of the shares, general director of KAMIG from 1946
- Peter Götzl (* 1938; † November 12, 2017, 1974 senior staff member, general director of KAMIG from 1977), member of the Perg shooting club
- Alexander Götzl (April 4, 1970), main shareholder and managing director of KAMIG, holder of the Golden Medal of the Republic of Austria , chairman of the business association for Mühlviertel SOS Children's Villages
literature
- Franz Kirnbauer : 150 years of kaolin production in Kriechbaum near Schwertberg , in: Josef Nagler : Blätter für Technikgeschicht e, Volume 14, Vienna, 1952
- Peter Götzl : Glück auf, Die KAMIG through the ages , Festschrift 80 years of KAMIG, Schwertberg, 2002
- Franz Zeitlinger, Karl Rieder: Historical overview of the kaolin production in Kriechbaum, community of Allerheiligen in the Mühlkreis. The KAMIG company over the decades. , in: Oberösterreichische Geonachrichten, year 29, Linz, 2014, pp. 11–16, PDF
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andreas Huber, Linda Erker, Klaus Taschwer : The German Club. Austro-Nazis in the Hofburg. Czernin, Vienna 2020, ISBN 978-3-7076-0651-5 , p. 97 .