Karlsburg brewery

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The Karlsburg brewery in Bremerhaven 1904

The Karlsburg Brewery , or Actien Brewery Karlsburg , was a brewery founded in Bremerhaven in 1891 that lasted until 1974.

History of the Karlsburg brewery

The beginnings

On March 15, 1891, the master brewer Oswald Kroker (born January 5, 1850 in Oderwitz ) and the brothers Albert and Georg Sprickhoff, master bricklayers from Bremerhaven, bought the emigration center built in 1849/50 from Christian Lahusen , who had acquired the property in 1887. In July of the same year, the three entrepreneurs founded the Actien-Brauerei Karlsburg with a share capital of 500,000  marks , which was divided into 500 shares of 1,000 marks each.

The new brewery was named after the former fortress town of Carlsburg , on the site of which the large, three-winged building of the emigration center was built between the Geeste and Weser . The company started operations on March 17, 1892 and delivered the first beer on June 16, 1892 under master brewer B. Hoyer . Until the Victoria Brewery was founded in Wulsdorf in 1901, the Karlsburg Brewery was the only large brewery in Bremerhaven. In 1893/94 the amount of beer produced was 25,600  hectoliters according to the first balance sheet published in the Provinzial-Zeitung . She supplied u. a. the North German Lloyd .

In 1899/1900 the brewery in the former inner courtyard of the emigrant house between the two side wings was enlarged by a two-storey extension for additional production facilities. This extension was - in keeping with the original building - designed in the neo-renaissance style and provided with a stepped gable . On the street front, a sculpture of Charlemagne , whom Gambrinus offers a drinking cup , adorned the facade.

In the First and Second World Wars

During the First World War , the Karlsburg Brewery ran into financial difficulties when orders from the merchant navy collapsed. In January 1922, the company was finally taken over by the Haake-Beck brewery from Bremen. The production facilities were modernized, a new well laid out and a new warehouse and dispatch hall built. After the renovation phase in 1924, demand for the three types of gold , export and power beer developed very well, so that from 1929 the production plate was expanded and additional branches were opened in Minden , Cuxhaven , Dorum and Bederkesa .

During the National Socialist era , an extension of the brewery was used as a prison, where interrogations and abuse took place and members of the Bremerhaven KPD and members of the Sinti were interned. Up until the Second World War , the brewery's sales increased initially by delivering to the cruise ships of the organization Kraft durch Freude and later to the Wehrmacht and Navy , but fell sharply from 1941 onwards due to the scarcity of raw materials and the confiscation of vehicles and horses. When the south wing of the brewery burned out during a heavy bombing raid on Bremerhaven city center on September 18, 1944 and other parts of the building were damaged, production had to be almost completely stopped.

The 1950s and 1960s

After the end of the war in May 1945, the brewery was confiscated by the US occupation administration and was allowed to resume production to supply the soldiers stationed in Bremerhaven, while other manufacturers were banned from brewing until 1948. The resumption of large-scale production in the early 1950s was very successful, and sales of bottled beers in particular increased steadily in the years that followed. In 1954, almost 100 employees again worked in the company and in 1957 the destroyed south wing was rebuilt in concrete and the old parts of the building were clad with a new facade. Business also developed very well in the 1960s, so that the production volume could be doubled.

The end of the Karlsburg brewery

In the 1970s sales began to stagnate and the Karlsburg brewery found itself increasingly in a difficult position - of the three Haake-Beck brewery locations, Bremerhaven was the one with the highest production costs. The group management decided to cease operations in 1974. The last beer was brewed here on March 31, 1974 and production was shut down on June 30. The Karlsburg Pils was subsequently made at the Hemelinger brewery in Bremen.

The brewery building was initially used as a branch of Haake-Beck until it was sold to the state of Bremen in 1979 , which had the Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences built here. The newer parts of the brewery building and the front cladding were torn down and the historically valuable parts of the former emigration center were preserved and integrated into the new university building.

literature

  • Christian Petermann: The buildings of the Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences. Wirtschaftsverlag NW, Verlag für neue Wissenschaften, Bremerhaven 2005, ISBN 3-86509-250-0 .
  • Dieter Strohmeyer: Karlsburg 12-14. Emigration center, barracks, brewery, college. A house tells history and stories. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 2000, ISBN 3-933885-05-1 , pp. 62–83.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Strohmeyer: Karlsburg 12-14. Emigration center, barracks, brewery, college. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 2000, p. 67 .
  2. ^ Commercial register in the Bremerhaven City Archives, V. 45, Attachment places and accessories, 1105/1106, Bl. 210.
  3. ↑ Susanne Engelbertz: Local history guide to the sites of resistance and persecution 1933–1945. Volume 6 - Bremen, City of Bremen, Bremen-North, Bremerhaven . VAS, Bremen 1992, p. 116 .
  4. ^ Dieter Strohmeyer: Karlsburg 12-14. Emigration center, barracks, brewery, college. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 2000, p. 72 .
  5. ^ Dieter Strohmeyer: Karlsburg 12-14. Emigration center, barracks, brewery, college. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 2000, p. 65 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 24.6 "  N , 8 ° 34 ′ 58.6"  E