Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Łagiewniki

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Depiction of the mine fields of the Florentine mine. Detail from a seam map from 1901.

The Łagiewniki coal mine (Polish: Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Łagiewniki ; old German name Grube Florentine ) is a disused coal mine in Bytom , Poland.

history

Florentine mine until 1922

As early as 1822, in the district of Łagiewniki / Hohenlinde, south of the city center of Bytom / Beuthen, coal was extracted from several shafts ("Leonard", "Hope", "Detlev", "Schalscha" and "Waldemar") and used for smelting zinc ores used. Both the hard coal mining and the construction of the zinc smelter were the work of Franz von Winckler . The three mine fields that were consolidated into the Florentine mine on February 14, 1870, were “Florentine” (awarded on January 5, 1825), “Bernhard” (January 11, 1842) and “Redensblick” (December 1, 1855).

The first underground construction shaft was the “Schwerin” shaft sunk in 1856 (later “Drzymały”); two years later the “Grundmann” shaft (later Damrota) was added for material transport and as a retracting weather shaft, and in 1871 the “Redensblick” double shaft system (Rycerski I and II).

In 1881 the mine had 19 steam engines with a total output of 1,407 hp (5 machines with an output of 1,200 hp for lifting water), employed 1,164 people (154 of them women), and had an annual output of 299,837 tons.

In 1889 the mine became part of the Kattowitzer AG for mining and ironworks . In 1896, thanks to good economic development, the "Carnallsfreude" field was acquired and opened up through two shafts. By leasing the fields "Florentine Extension", "King XV" and "Peace", the mine finally had a mining field of 6.34 km².

In 1912 the mine had three operating departments:

  • "Schwerin" ( Lage ) with a 270 m deep shaft and a mining floor at 270 m.
  • "Redensblick" ( location ) with two production shafts (330 m depth) and mining on the 280 m and 330 m levels as well
  • "Carnallsfreude" ( location ) with a shaft (also 330 m depth), which was used for rope travel and dewatering and was a retracting weather shaft. In this part of the field, mining also took place on the 320 m level.

The period from 1922 to 1945

As a result of the division of Upper Silesia in 1922, more than three quarters of the field property and all mining facilities fell to Poland and only a 0.47 km² strip of 0.47 km² in the north, directly bordering the Heinitzgrube , remained with Germany. That is why the coal there was mined from Heinitz, while the 5.87 km² mine located in Poland took on the name Florentyna . This division changed nothing in terms of ownership.

However, from 1929 onwards there were major economic problems. On the one hand, it was not possible to get the old owner, the "Kattowitzer AG für Bergbau und Eisenhüttenbetrieb", into a safe and future-proof fairway, on the other hand, the global economic crisis led to a collapse in coal production to 414,799 tons. The takeover of the parent company by the Polish state also led to the mine changing its name to Łagiewniki in 1936 .

The Florentine mine carried its new name Łagiewniki from 1936 to 1939 and from 1945. Even before the German Reich invaded Poland, production recovered and in 1938 reached a value of 922,467 t.

At the end of 1941 it became part of the German group "Berg- und Hüttenwerkgesellschaft Karwin-Trzynietz" (mountain hut) based in Cieszyn / Teschen . The aim of the National Socialists was to increase production. For this purpose - as in many other mines - forced laborers, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews were used. Investments were not made at all.

From 1945 to 1971

When Soviet troops marched into Łagiewniki on January 28, 1945, the German occupation ended. Before production could be restarted, a fire had to be extinguished in a depth of 320 m near the “Miarki” shaft (Carnallsfreude) and part of the Rycerskie (Redensblick) mining field had to be swamped.

The mechanization of mining, the construction of a washing machine to separate coal and waste rock, the deeper digging of several shafts to the 470 m level and the mining of coal in the field of the Rozbark pit led to a noticeable increase in production from 1956 onwards. Nevertheless, in the following years it became apparent that the richest and most cheaply accessible coal seams had been mined. Because of the associated risks, however, people were reluctant to extract coal from the security pillars on a large scale. Rather, from 1963 onwards, the mining of seams 412 a / b and 416 / b, the productivity of which was estimated at 7.2 million tons.

On July 1, 1971, the colliery was integrated into the Rozbark mine , after in-house production in 1970 was around 837,200 tons. All miners were laid out on Rozbark. The last remaining shaft was named "Karol Miarki I" and was located on the premises of "Carnallsfreude" (ul. Arki Bożka).

Funding figures

  • 1873: 386,600 tons
  • 1913: 833,530 tons
  • 1938: 920,467 tons
  • 1970: 837,200 t

swell

  • Jerzy Jaros: Słownik histoynczny kolapń węgla na ziemiach polskich . Katowice 1984.
  • Yearbook for the Upper Mining District Wroclaw . Phönix-Verlag, Kattowitz / Breslau / Berlin 1913, digitized version at http://www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra/publication?id=3349&tab=3 (last accessed on May 5, 2015).
  • Kurt König: The coal mining in Upper Silesia from 1945–1955 . Scientific contributions to the history and regional studies of Eastern Central Europe. Published by the Johann Gottfried Herder Institute. Marburg 1958.
  • Damian Recław: Przemysł górnego śląska na dawnej fotografii . Muzeum w Gliwice, 2015.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Damian Recław: Przemysł górnego Śląska na dawnej fotografii . P. 150.
  2. ^ Yearbook for the Upper Mining District Wroclaw . P. 347.
  3. ↑ Damian Recław: Przemysł górnego Śląska na dawnej fotografii . P. 152.

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