Kirberg & Hüls

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Kirberg & Hüls was an engineering factory and iron foundry in Hilden from 1840 to 1971

Portrait of Friedrich Kirberg (1828–1914)
August Julius Hüls (1842–1904)

Clinic

On August 28, 1776, Johann Peter Kirberg bought the clinic in Hilden at Schwanenstrasse 18 from the lay judge Johann Peter Christoph Kemperdick (* 1754 in Hilden; † 1795 there). It was opposite the house on the Bech . His son Kaspar Kirberg (born September 1781 in Hilden; † 1849 there) built a woodturning workshop there in 1820 . As a trained master turner, Kaspar Kirberg ran a mechanical workshop in which mechanical hand looms were manufactured or repaired.

The Friedrich Kirberg era (senior, 1840 to 1885)

Kirberg & Hüls steam engine from 1876, No. 76
Advertisement in the Chemiker-Zeitung, 1886

Friedrich Kirberg (senior, baptized August 20, 1824; † February 28, 1914 in Hilden) was born as the son of Kaspar Kirberg († 1850) and Anna Margareta Volmer. He first learned in his parents' company and was a trained wood turner at the age of sixteen. He was interested in the metalworking and learned in addition, the locksmith . After the death of his father, the young Kirberg took over the business and switched the business to mechanized metalworking.

In 1840 he founded the first machine factory in Hilden. On November 11, 1850, he received the license for a steam engine with 4 HP for the mechanical workshop and to drive a grinding system . At the same time, the stone bridge on Schwanenstrasse was built over the Itter. In November 1852 one of the first oil lamps was installed on the bridge as street lighting in Hilden .

In 1859 Kirberg was able to set up an iron foundry with a cupola furnace . He processed 5000 quintals of English pig iron from a warehouse in Ruhrort and the rolling iron from inland. The company sold its goods in the Rhine Province and Westphalia .

In the course of 1860, the number of workers at Kirberg rose from 41 to 80.

Julius Hüls (born June 17, 1842 in Blankenheim (Eifel) , † June 4, 1904 in Duisburg ) moved to Hilden in 1861. As " Associé " he became the commercial director of Kirberg & Hüls Maschinenfabrik & Eisengießerei . The company manufactured steam boilers , steam engines and machine parts as well as band saw machines , planing and milling machines for woodworking .

In addition to his entrepreneurial commitment to the company, Friedrich Kirberg (senior) was a city councilor in the Hilden City Council from 1874 to 1900, and from 1891 to 1900 he was the third unpaid alder .

Hermann Kirberg (* 1856)

Between 1875 and 1893, Kirberg & Hüls had to go through several crises. At the end of 1875, the company had to switch to short-time working due to a general economic crisis in the iron industry . On September 1, 1885, Friedrich Kirberg (senior) handed over the business to his two sons, the businessman Friedrich Kirberg (junior, called Fritz, * 1854) and the engineer Hermann Kirberg (* 1856). Julius Hüls took this as an opportunity and left the company. Julius Hüls moved to Bonn in 1887 and later to Duisburg.

The era of Friedrich Kirberg (Junior) and Hermann Kirberg (1885 to 1908)

Machine plate of a steam engine No. 312, which Kirberg and Hüls supplied to Franzen & Söhne in Wald (Solingen) in 1898 and which was in operation until 1959

It is known from concession files that several steam boilers with steam engines in Hilden companies came from the Kirberg & Hüls workshop. In Hilden in the Wilhelm-Fabry-Museum , formerly the Vogelsang grain distillery, a functional, horizontal single-piston centrifugal governor steam engine, built by the Kirberg & Hüls company in 1876 with the factory number 76, can be viewed. It is the oldest surviving steam engine in the Rhineland . Until 1979, the steam engine drove the bag lift, the grain cleaning system, the elevator , the grist mill , the screw conveyor , the agitator in the mash tun and the sweet mash pump via a transmission system .

The new owners expanded the production range with entire transmission systems, pumps and machines for dye production .

On January 22nd, 1899 the patent DRP 107 468 was granted for a packing machine for dusty or powdery goods.

The number of employees rose to 110 by 1900. The sales market was now all of Europe and America .

At the major international industrial exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1902, a steam engine and generator made by Kirberg & Hüls supplied all the electricity .

Kirberg & Hüls, aerial photo 1951
Kirberg & Hüls, Hilden, Schwanenstrasse 28

Richard Wahle era (1908 to 1938)

In 1908 Friedrich Kirberg (Junior) sold the company to the engineer Richard Wahle (born May 31, 1863 in Prague ; † January 6, 1939 in Hilden) and to his wife Helene Wahle, nee. Kuh (born October 19, 1872 in Prague, † June 23, 1942 in the Litzmannstadt ghetto).

The new owner stuck to the name Kirberg & Hüls, an indication that Kirberg & Hüls was already a successful brand .

At the beginning of the First World War , the machine works Kirberg & Hüls ceased operations on September 30, 1914. It only opened again after the war.

The owners Richard and Helene Wahle received naturalization in 1919 . They belonged to the upper middle class of the city and were involved in a variety of ways. In 1920, Helene Wahle received the " Cross of Merit for War Aid ".

During the National Socialist era , the company benefited from the initial economic boom. The company expanded in 1934 by adding an electric welding shop .

In 1934, which was Jewish owner family Wahle the German citizenship revoked. After a complaint procedure with the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, the withdrawal was revoked because of Wahle's age and his services to the company.

Excerpt from the working rules of the Kirberg & Hüls company from 1911

Fined up to half of his average daily earnings:

  1. Anyone who acts improperly towards superiors.
  2. Anyone who causes disputes or lets himself be carried away to violence.
  3. Anyone who makes unauthorized changes to machines or to the facilities for heating, lighting, power transmission, etc.
  4. Anyone found drunk in the factory.
  5. Anyone who does not observe the accident prevention regulations of the Rheinisch-Westfälische-Maschinenbau and Kleineisen-Industrie-Berufsgenossenschaft, especially on transmissions that are in progress, does not wait for the aisle to be slowed down or switched off in accordance with regulations.
  6. Anyone who knowingly tells the untruth in matters relating to work or health insurance.
  7. Who disturbs others at work.
  8. Anyone who leaves the factory before the stipulated time or after starting work without permission.
  9. Anyone who violates the regulatory requirements.
  10. Anyone who arrives too late, be it a wage or pieceworker, receives a fine of 10 pfennigs. If the omission is more than half an hour, a fine of 20 pfennigs must be paid. One-time late arrival of no more than 10 minutes within a pay period remains unpunished.
  11. Anyone missing half a day or a full day without an excuse, which must be submitted in writing or orally to the foreman within 24 hours, will be punished with 50 pfennigs for the first time and with 1 mark for the second time in the same wage period.

Hilden, May 26, 1911

Kirberg & Hüls, owner: Richard Wahle

Checked: Hilden June 10, 1911

The police administration

The Mayor: Heitland

Giesen era (1938 to 1971)

As part of the Aryanization of companies, Kirberg & Hüls was taken over on September 1, 1938 by the former authorized signatory Anton Giesen (* May 1, 1882; † September 4, 1968), who owns it under the company name Kirberg & Hüls, A. Giesen, Maschinenfabrik & Iron foundry continued. With 50 people they operated and expanded the iron foundry, the model carpentry , the mechanical workshop and the electrical welding shop.

Richard Wahle died in 1939. His wife Helene Wahle was deported from Düsseldorf to the Litzmannstadt ghetto ( Lodz ) , and her fortune from the forced sale of the Kirberg & Hüls company fell to the Reich .

During the Second World War , Kirberg & Hüls did not have to complain about any major war damage, so that production could continue immediately after the end of the war.

In 1945 she received a temporary “ permit ” from the British military government for the production of mills for grain , spices , paints , machines for the wood , iron and iron and steel industries as well as gray cast iron up to a unit weight of 5 tons in her cupola furnace . He is a shaft-like remelting furnace for smelting of cast iron from pig iron and scrap in foundries. For 1946, Kirberg & Hüls did not receive a “permit” to manufacture machines.

In the period from 1947 to 1950, band saws, planing and milling machines for woodworking were primarily produced. In the years that followed, the production of large-scale systems for the chemical industry was added.

Despite a relatively wide range of products (gray castings up to 5000 kg, industrial furnace castings and machine castings from the foundry department: rolling mills and finishing systems for the metallurgical industry, welded constructions, individual machining of machine parts ; turned parts , planed parts , drilling work , collar and surface grinding from the machine shop) the company is no longer up to the competition in the metalworking industry. The Kirberg & Hüls factory finally ceased operations on September 30, 1971.

Modern times

Today the Hilden City Library is located on the site at Nové-Město-Platz 3. She was awarded the Library of the Year Prize in 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Kirberg & Hüls  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Wolfgang Wennig: History of the Hilden industry, From the beginnings of commercial activity to the year 1900 , Hilden City Archives 1974
  2. a b c d e f g Bernd Morgner-Gärtner: Metallverarbeitung in Hilden, chapter Kirberg & Hüls From the wood turner's workshop to the machine factory, Hildener Museumhefte Volume 4, 1992
  3. a b c d Kirberg & Hüls, Maschinenfabrik & Eisengießerei, accessed March 29, 2020
  4. Richard Wahle: Work regulations of the Kirberg & Hüls company, II.10 4 44, 1911, pages 10-11

Coordinates: 51 ° 10 '8.9 "  N , 6 ° 55' 53.3"  E