Kaus & Steinhausen
The Kaus & Steinhausen GmbH was a Delaborierungsfirma from Hamburg . It was founded in 1947 by the scrap dealer Karl Kaus and existed until 1996.
Disassembly after the Second World War
Karl Kaus worked as a scrap dealer in bombed-out Hamburg. For its ammunition recycling, Kaus founded Kaus & Steinhausen KG, a scrap wholesale and ammunition unloading company . The company worked on defusing and then recycling surplus Allied and German ammunition. Bomb and grenade shells were sold on the scrap market, and the nitrogen contained in the explosives was sold as fertilizer. In the immediate vicinity of Wilhelmshaven , fishing cutters equipped with electromagnets landed the ammunition at the third entrance. Machine-gun and light anti-aircraft ammunition were detonated in a furnace bunker (called "crematorium"). The detonators were removed from bombs and grenades in other bunkers on the still little developed Heppenser Groden. The explosives were flushed out with pressurized water.
From 1949, the company also scrapped submarine wrecks that had been sunk in the Weser estuary and in the Wilhelmshaven harbor basin.
On Thursday, March 26, 1953, a series of explosions occurred on the company premises, with the demilitarization plant being largely destroyed.
Rearmament and NATO
The NATO allies of the Federal Republic of Germany began to be interested in the "delethalization plant" (literally: Enttödlichungs-Anlage) of the Hamburg scrap dealer Kaus at the end of the 1950s . In 1957 the British signed a contract with Kaus for the disposal of NATO ammunition from stocks of the Rhine Army , which had to be changed every five years . First, the material was disposed of in Wilhelmshaven, then in a new facility in the fortress Grauerort (Lower Saxony). Later other NATO partners, the newly founded Bundeswehr and the US armed forces use the company's offer.
The services of the private company brought considerable benefits to the armed forces. Before that, the military always had to drive their ammunition waste to the garbage dump and dispose of it (at that time in the Irish Sea , to the " Hamburger Loch " near Helgoland or in the Skagerrak ).
The business purpose was expanded to include transport and storage. In 1985 the plant in Lower Saxony moved from Grauerort to the former Dragahn explosives factory for safety reasons .
NVA contaminated sites after 1990
After 1990 a new market developed for K&S after the dissolution of the NVA . In 1990 the company founded the EBV Entsorgungs-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH in Vogelgesang near Torgau in Saxony together with the Nuremberg armaments company Diehl . Diehl initially held 70 percent, K&S the remaining 30 percent. After Diehl left the company in 1994, K&S became the sole owner of the company. At that time, 120 EBV employees were working on the dismantling of NVA ammunition. By 1995, EBV had disposed of 60,000 tons of various types of ammunition from NVA stocks.
From 1991, excess powder was blown up from bombs and grenades at Vogelsang. The BUND then criticized the system, since each blast large amounts of nitrogen oxides were released. EBV was based on the extensive grounds of the former NVA ammunition depot Elsnig near Torgau on the Elbe. A citizens' initiative was founded against the company.
In the K&S plant in Dragahn (Lower Saxony), ammunition was burned outdoors for a long time. At the urging of the Federal Environment Agency in Berlin and the Lüneburg Trade Inspectorate, Kaus & Steinhausen were finally ready in 1992 to build a closed combustion reactor after the Federal Minister of Research had promised a 50 percent grant.
K&S changed its legal form and became a GmbH. A 95 percent majority of the capital in Kaus & Steinhausen was held by the daughter of the company founder Karl Kaus, Lieselotte Klaproth (Bonn) until about 1994, then by the managing director Klaus Gassner.
The competition in the field of waste disposal companies grew ever greater. Large corporations such as DASA and Rheinmetall (including through their subsidiary Nico Pyrotechnik ) had also established themselves in the ammunition destruction market in the mid-1990s.
bankruptcy
The company's share capital in 1996 was approx. 6 million DM. In 1995 the company, including its subsidiary, had 205 employees and had a turnover of 130 million DM (1995). Your last managing director was Klaus Gassner (1992–1996).
The subsidiaries of the K&S group of companies included Jacobs & Kaus GmbH (Hamburg), which was active in cable dismantling, Kaus & Steinhausen Delaboriergesellschaft mbH, Dragahn plant ( Karwitz near Dannenberg ) and EBV Entsorgungs-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH (Vogelgesang / Saxony ).
The economic "end" for the company K&S came on June 26th, 1996 when bankruptcy proceedings were opened . The East German subsidiary EBV was bought by Rieger & Winkler Verwaltungs GmbH (Hamburg).
literature
- Hans Walden: As if lubricated. Arms production and arms trade in the Hamburg area . KOMZI Vlg. Idstein 1999, ISBN 3-929-52249-7 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Ammunition sinkings by the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Nature and environmental protection (Mellumrat magazine). May 2009, p. 30 , accessed on December 3, 2019 .
- ↑ nadir.org: This document is part of the book "How Lubricated - Armaments Production and Arms Trade in the Hamburg Area", 1998 , accessed on May 19, 2013