Kombinat Kali

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The Kombinat Kali was an industrial combine founded in 1970 in the GDR . All potash and rock salt works as well as spar pits in the GDR belonged to the combine .

prehistory

SAY Kali

Administration building of VVB Kali in Erfurt

The potash industry works on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone , which remained largely intact after the Second World War , were initially transferred to Soviet ownership as the Soviet joint-stock company (SAG) Kali and their previous owners ( Wintershall AG , Preussag and Salzdetfurt AG ) were expropriated. In 1948 several plants were separated from SAG Kali and SAG Sylvinit and SAG Kainit were founded with some of the plants . The rest of the extracted works were handed over to the states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, which resulted in the Association of People's Own Enterprises (VVB) Potash and Salts Halle a year later . In the SAG Kali itself, only the works on the Werra remained . In 1952 the potash works of the three SAGs were returned to the GDR and, together with the works of the VVB Kali- und Salze Halle, were handed over to the head office for potash and non-ore mining in Berlin (from 1956 Erfurt). In 1958 VVB Kali in Erfurt emerged from this. The individual potash and rock salt plants were managed relatively self-sufficiently up to this point, the higher-level structures largely served a planned economy coordination in questions of the entire branch of industry and with regard to exports.

VEB Kalikombinat Werra

As early as 1959, the first combine within the VVB was founded, with all independent operational structures being dissolved and the individual plants being directly subordinate to the management.

Incorporation of the Spat companies

With the dissolution of the VVB non-ferrous metals Eisleben in 1967, the VEB Harzer Spatgruben Rottleberode and Vogtlandgruben Lengenfeld (until then VEB Wolfram-Zinnerzbetrieb Pechtelsgrün) as well as the VEB Thuringian Spat- und Eisenerzgruben Schmalkalden were integrated into the VVB Kali. This took place even though these mining operations consistently mined passageway deposits and produced them with completely different technologies than the potash works. In these operations, iron and non-ferrous ore production was continually reduced , in some cases completely, in favor of river and barite production. This resulted in a stronger focus on exports, as was already the case in the potash industry.

Kombinat Kali Sondershausen

Operating locations
Sondershausen potash works - Petersenschacht (shaft II)
Merkers potash plant 1974

On January 1, 1970, VVB Kali was dissolved and the state-owned Kombinat Kali was founded. The headquarters of the Kombinat were moved to Sondershausen . The previously independent individual plants have been combined into operations (VEB) on the basis of the districts. Only the spar and ore operations were combined to form a combine operation, the works of which corresponded to the districts, which in some cases were considerably apart. The individual mines were also subdivided into the works as works departments. The latter, however, had only a technological and work-organizational character and had little influence on the administrative hierarchy. The combine was subordinate to the Ministry of Ore Mining, Metallurgy and Potash of the GDR .

structure

VEB Kalibetrieb Südharz - Sondershausen

VEB Kalibetrieb Werra - Merkers

VEB potash and rock salt plant Saale - Staßfurt

VEB river and barite plant in Lengenfeld

VEB mining machines Dietlas

VEB Kalibetrieb Zielitz

The VEB Kalibetrieb Zielitz was added in 1973 as a new establishment on a new deposit .

Products

The main products of the Kombinat were mainly the mineral fertilizers kainit , potash fertilizers (K40, K50, K60), potassium chloride , Kamex, calcium ammonium nitrate , potassium sulfate and Emge-Kali, basic chemicals such as sodium chloride (salt and table salt), magnesium chloride , bromine and bromine salts as well as the spar products Fluorspar, color spar, reducing spar, stress spar and iron ore concentrates as smelting supplements ( Maxhütte ). Mining machines were manufactured in the VEB Bergwerksmaschinen Dietlas for the most part for their own use and some for other mining operations in the GDR.

In the Volkenroda potash plant, high-quality oil was also extracted underground . In the eighties, in the context of the generally prescribed production of consumer goods, all sorts of by-products of various kinds were produced, which mostly had nothing to do with mining or potash production. With the production of 3.2 million tons of K 2 O by the combine in 1989, the GDR was in third place in a global comparison of potash fertilizer production.

Special features of individual works

Volkenroda potash plant

With a depth of 1106 m , the planned Rockensussra shaft would have been the deepest, but the depth was only drilled and the shaft did not go beyond the pre-depth until the plant was closed. The Pöthen I shaft was the deepest shaft in the combine with a depth of 1,050 m and is one of the deepest potash shafts in Germany - all three shafts of the Volkenroda plant reach depths of over 1,000 m. Up until 1991, crude oil was produced underground at the Volkenroda mine. The oil deposit was discovered in 1930 as a result of several explosions with fatalities.

Werra potash plant

While flammable gases and the associated fire weather hazards were predominantly a problem at most potash mines, fatal accidents involving carbon dioxide occurred time and again in the Werra potash district . The carbon dioxide produced in the tertiary is bound in crystalline form in the salt and could be massively released as a result of impact. In addition, it accumulated in depressions. Despite precautionary measures, miners repeatedly died in these CO 2 lakes . In order to rule out any danger during the blasting, the Werra pits were blasted centrally. However, this often led to even stronger outbreaks, with sometimes devastating consequences. On March 13, 1989, there was a CO 2 outbreak with a rockfall that damaged buildings in several villages and damaged almost 80% of the buildings in the municipality of Völkershausen .

River and barite plant

All of the company's pits were contaminated with radon , which, in spite of the relatively small mine buildings, led to complex ventilation systems in some cases in order to ensure overpressure in the pits as far as possible.

Dissolution of the combine

Protest rally in Bleicherode
Petition from the Trusetal miners to Lothar de Maizière

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in June 1990, Kali-Südharz AG, Kali-Werra AG, Kali-Zielitz AG and Fluß- und Schwerspat GmbH were founded and the Kombinat as such, as a holding company for the aforementioned companies, was incorporated into Mitteldeutsche Kali AG converted. The sole owner was the Treuhandanstalt . On December 8, 1992, the Board of Directors of the Treuhandanstalt approved a proposal for a resolution that provided for the merger of MdK with K + S AG. Kali-Werra AG, Kali-Zielitz AG and the rock salt works Bernburg merged with Kali und Salz GmbH in 1993 . The potash contract was signed on May 8, 1993. The potash merger agreement was confidential for a long time and only became public in 2014.

Production at the other potash and salt mines as well as at the spar mines was discontinued and this was taken over and stored by the trust-owned company for the safekeeping and utilization of closed mining operations mbH (GVV) . The potash plants in Sondershausen, Bleicherode, Sollstedt and Teutschenthal were taken over by disposal companies and will continue to be operated for landfill purposes. Due to the planned closings, massive industrial action (pit occupation, hunger strike ) has taken place in many plants since 1990 , which culminated in 1993 in Bischofferode . The end of potash mining in the southern Harz had massive economic consequences, from which especially smaller places without other economic prospects such as Roßleben or Bleicherode have not recovered to this day. This went hand in hand with the highest unemployment rates within Thuringia and increased emigration .

literature

  • Hans-Heinz Emons : The Potash Industry - History of a German Industry? In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society . tape 49 , 2001, p. 33 f . ( PDF; 1.6 MB ).
  • Heinz Bartl, Günter Döring, Karl Hartung, Christian Schilder, Rainer Slotta : Potash in the southern Harz-Unstrut district. 3 volumes. German Mining Museum Bochum, Bochum 2003–2005, ISBN 3-937203-00-1 ( publications from the German Mining Museum Bochum 166, 1-2 and 132).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 40146 Inventory overview VEB river and barite plant Lengenfeld. Holdings of the Freiberg mountain archive. In: archiv.sachsen.de. Retrieved March 6, 2016 .
  2. ↑ 1962 the GDR produced 1.8 million tons of potash products; of which it exported 60 percent. (Source: SBZ from A to Z , 7th edition, 1962, p. 208)
  3. ↑ Resolution proposal for the administrative board of the Treuhandanstalt of December 8, 1992 made available online by Thüringer Allgemeine
  4. ↑ Kalivertrag Archive.org
  5. ↑ Lieberknecht: Potash contract is disclosed to the state parliament , In: Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung of March 25, 2014
  6. ^ Mdr.de: Gerhard Jüttemann: Treuhand is enemy number one | MDR.DE. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .
  7. ↑ mdr.de: Wigbert Mühl: We had new machines. | MDR.DE. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .
  8. ↑ mdr.de: Walter Ertmer: The trust has blocked everything | MDR.DE. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .
  9. ↑ mdr.de: Willibald Nebel: As a result of the closure, I have an 18 percent pension discount | MDR.DE. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .
  10. ↑ mdr.de: Interview: Director Dirk Schneider: "The Hunt for White Gold" | MDR.DE. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .