Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Król

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The hard coal mine Król ( Polish Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Król ; German Königsgrube ) is a decommissioned hard coal mine in Chorzów (German name Königshütte), Poland.

Divisions and mergers of the royal pit

history

While there was a close connection between the two Prussian state-owned companies Königshütte and Königsgrube in the early days of the mine, development took place separately from 1871 onwards. The Königshütte was privatized, while the mine remained in state ownership until 1922.

Beginnings

The search for coal in the area of ​​today's Chorzów was initiated by Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden and was successful in 1791. The reason for the search was that the lead and silver mining in Tarnowitz urgently needed boiler fire material. The first digs by the mountain jury Isaac from Beuthen opened up the "Gebhardflöz" at a depth of only 11 m. Initially the mine was named Karl von Hessen , but was renamed Königsgrube (Polish: Król ) on July 24, 1800 .

The time up to 1900

1797 first regular could promote be taken after it was succeeded by the installation of a steam engine , the water drainage problems to solve. The commissioning of the Königshütte blast furnace in 1802, the Lydognia Zinkhütte in 1810 and the large amount of coal consumed by the Gleiwitz foundry meant that the three shafts “Caution”, “Scharnhorst” and “Blücher” were sunk between 1815 and 1815 , the soles of which were all above the Master key inheritance clusters. This tunnel leading to Gleiwitz , which also loosened the Queen Luise mine , drained the king's pit until 1863.

Postcard view from 1922

Until 1840, coal mining took place exclusively in the part of the field that was west of the Königshütte. Only then was the eastern field made accessible by bringing down several production shafts. From 1848 onwards the dewatering took place with the help of the "karst shaft". During these years the miners of the Königsgrube carried out a strike against the owners of the mine for economic reasons. However, it was suppressed with the help of the Prussian army.

Between 1876 and 1878 the large field awarded in 1822 was precisely measured (25.57 km²; initially 29 km²). In this context, individual fields have been separated and leased or sold to private mining companies. The most important are:

Around 1879 the mine produced 1.6 million t of hard coal with 4454 employees. At that time it also owned the coal fields "Zum high Kreuz" and "Neue Hedwig".

The situation around 1912

At the beginning of the 20th century continues to be very large was Berechtsame the mine (as of 1926: 24.39 sq km) in the four fields east, south, west and north divided and exploited of independently operating mines.

Ostfeld

At this point in time, the coal was lifted to the surface via the two conveyor shafts “von Krug I and II” ( location ) (later “Jacek I / II”). Both were 168 m deep and shaft I was also used for drainage. Two or three saddle seams were removed from up to four levels. In addition to the two production shafts, the "Erbreich I / II" shafts were used for cable travel and ventilation on this site. In the eastern part of the eastern field there were 6 shafts that were used for ventilation, and in the south-western part there were another 5 weather shafts. Two shafts were flushing shafts. In 1908 a new weather and cableway shaft was added near Agneshütte. The east and west fields of the mine were connected underground. The low number of flushing shafts can be explained by the fact that in 1911 only 2.16% of the annual production was backfilled with dry backfill and this proportion only increased to 3.2% by 1920. Already at this point in time the construction of a third shaft was planned.

Reinforced concrete scaffolding over the Jacek III / Prezydent shaft (status 2013)

Südfeld

In this area ( location ) the seams in the southern wing of the Königshütte saddle were mined. The two conveying, cableway and pulling-in weather shafts were named “Bismarck I and II” (later “Piast I / II”) and in 1912 were 160.4 m deep. This mine was located directly on the field border to the Deutschlandgrube / KWK Polska and got its name from the Bismarckhütte located to the south .

In addition to the two conveyor shafts, the system also had two separate weather shafts; In addition, the "Lochmann" and "Paul" shafts in the southwestern east field were also used as extending weather shafts.

West field

Here ( location ), in addition to several seams of the saddle seam group, two hanging seams were mined, which all together resulted in a thickness between 19 m and 23 m. The conveying shaft was "Bahnschacht II" (not to be confused with those of the same name by Countess Laura ), the cable car journey took place via "Bahnschacht I". Both had depths of 188 m and were located directly at the Chorzów-Miasto train station, which was also used for removal. The railway shaft system had been given a new separation in 1906, but only used dry processing due to the high degree of coal purity. Seven shafts were used for ventilation, the rope ride for the 2nd to 4th levels took place on the "Marie" shaft in the Pnioki district of Chorzów. “Marie” (depth 177 m) was connected to the two extraction shafts through the “Freundes” shaft. This cross passage was continued far into the eastern field.

North field

The development of the northern field ( location ) did not begin until 1898, when the so-called “experimental shaft” (later “Wyzwolnie 1”) was sunk on the field border to “Carnallsfreude” near Hohenlinde / Łagiewniki. A second shaft was added in 1902 and production began in 1905. The "Gebhardflöz" was cut at a depth of 279 m and level II was set in shaft II at 282 m. The alignment work in the following years showed that the coal mountains are severely disturbed in this field and the seams "Hope", "Blücher", "Gerhard", "Heintzmann", "Ober- und Niederbank" (saddle seams) occur in individual clods. Around 1910, "Shaft I" received a shaft hoe and a dry separation as well as a siding to Chorzow station.

The mine from 1922 to 1939

In 1922, the entire mine was leased by the Polish-French company Skarboferm for 36 years, which changed the names of the four operating facilities to Król-Święty (Jacek; East), Król Piast (South), Święta Barbara (West) and Wyzwolenie (North) .

One of the first measures taken by the new operator was the cessation of production in the southern field and the demolition of the daytime facilities on Piast, with the exception of the headframe above shaft 2. From then on, the coal was lifted 1/2 to the surface on Jacek.

This made it necessary to bundle and increase the production capacities for the east and south fields. Therefore, from 1929 to 1933, under the direction of the engineer Richard Heilemann from Katowice, the central shaft "Jacek III" (later Prezydent) with a 42.5 m high reinforced concrete frame and a new preparation was built on the Król-Święty facility. The shaft had two skip conveyors with a capacity of 10 tons each and enabled a lifting capacity of 500 tons of coal per hour.

The high unemployment in the thirties led to the fact that the population near the east shaft "Agnieszka" wildly mined coal in near-surface seams, often at great risk. This extraction is estimated at 500 to 600 tons per day and the shafts built for this purpose are called “Armutsschächte / Biedaszyby”.

In 1937, a network was created for the north and west fields under the name Barbara-Wyzwolenie . The east field (together with the production from the south) was named Prezydent (after President Mościcki ).

The time of the Second World War

Just a few days (on September 13, 1939) after the attack on Poland and thus the beginning of the Second World War, the 3,300-strong workforce was able to pull up to the Königsgrube and start mining again. Since the miners were initially not called up for the armed forces, in 1940 the entire Upper Silesian mining area increased by almost 15% compared to 1938. This level could only be kept so high until 1944 because, on the one hand, massive numbers of forced laborers and prisoners of war were used and on the other hand, Upper Silesia was beyond the reach of Allied bombers.

Both parts of the Königsgrube ("President / Prezydent" and "Barbara-Wyzwolenie") were added to the Reichswerke Hermann Göring in November 1939 and exploited from 1940 by the Oberschlesien AG mining administration based in Katowice.

The years from 1945

After the war, the Polish names of the mines were used again and they were assigned together with Matylda , Michał , Polska and Śląsk and Chorzowskie Zjednoczenie Przemysłu Węglowego, while Chorzów was administered by the Bytom ZPW.

In the mid-1950s, coal production in the southern field was reactivated. It was about the extraction of the left safety pillars from the pillar mining of the mighty near-surface seams as well as the extraction of coal deposits below the old 160 m level, which in the 1920s had been considered not worth mining. This coal, obtained in the southern field, was to be unearthed and processed on Polska . It is not possible to determine with certainty whether this happened or whether the excavated “Piast 2” shaft was used for it.

In the area of ​​the Barbara-Wyzwolenie mine , coal supplies in the west field were running low and mining shifted to the north field. The facility was hit by a mine fire on March 21, 1954, which is believed to have killed 94 miners. In the 1960s, the 560 m level was driven in the north field and a new laundry was built on Wyzwolenie in 1964/65 . But just a few years later, in January 1970, the merger with Chorzów took place and the promotion to Wyzwolenie was discontinued .

Only two years later, in January 1972, there was another merger between Prezydent and Polska , so that the end of the independent Königsgrube mine was reached. The Jacek I shaft received a new headframe, but in 1995 the Polska and Prezydent composite mine was also closed .

Funding figures

1791: 1,849 t; 1847: 91,228; 1873: 1.03 million t; 1913: 2.88 million t; 1896: 1.64 million t; 1913: 2.83 million t; 1944: 3.45 million t; 1945: 545,696 t; 1971: 1.13 million t

present

Only two remains of the numerous systems and shafts have survived:

Tower over the Elżbieta shaft
  • On the site of the Prezydent plant, there is still the reinforced concrete headframe from 1931 over the Jacek III shaft and some buildings that are used for cultural events.
  • The mine still had the “Elżbieta” shaft in Chorzów at ul. Siemianowicka, the headframe and daytime facilities of which look like a castle and which was built between 1913 and 1914. The shaft was originally called "Meitzenschacht" (after the former director of the Königsgrube). The shaft was 190 meters deep and was used for ventilation and transport of pit timber. Today a restaurant is housed in the buildings.

literature

  • Paul Deutsch: The Upper Silesian coal and steel industry before and after the division of the industrial area . Bonn 1926.
  • 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 April 13, 2017).
  • Jerzy Jaros: Słownik historyczny kopalń węgla na ziemiach polskich . Katowice 1984.
  • 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.
  • Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . Edited by the author and the Dortmund working group in the Association of Mining Historic Sites Ruhrrevier e. V. o.O., May 2015.
  • Zygfryd Piątek: Coal mining in Poland in the interwar period 1918 to 1939 . In: The cut 1/2000. 52nd year.

Web links

  • 43 Flötzkarten [sic!] Of the Upper Silesian coal basin as JPG files, the field boundaries, seams and shafts according to the inventory from 1902, published by Priebatsch's Buchhandlung Verlag, Breslau (accessed July 14, 2015).
  • Location of all shafts mentioned (accessed on October 9, 2015)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 55.
  2. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 62.
  3. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 98 ff.
  4. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 108 ff.
  5. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 162.
  6. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . P. 141f.
  7. ↑ Norbert Meier: Königsgrube and Königshütte . Table 2.4 a) p. 198f.