Kremer shipyard
Coordinates: 53 ° 44 ′ 59.9 ″ N , 9 ° 39 ′ 5.5 ″ E
DW Kremer was a shipyard in Elmshorn on the Krückau .
The beginnings
The later Kremer shipyard was operated under a different name as a shipbuilding site since 1764 and is therefore one of the older on the Lower Elbe . The ship's carpentry shop in Hafenstrasse was bought by auction in May 1833 by the ship's carpenter Johann Hinrich Kremer (1802–1861) from Klostersander. The Kremer family's ancestral home is still located there today and now houses a restaurant .
Father Kremer built with his son Dietrich Wilhelm until the end of the 19th century, mainly various types of Ewern and galleasses before starting about 1870 and the first Briggs and Schonerbriggs were built on its own account or as Part ships and operated. The namesake Diedrich Wilhelm Kremer expanded the shipyard and built a sawmill powered by gas engines . From 1887 shipbuilding was slowly converted to the construction of iron and, somewhat later, steel ships, and around 1910 it was modernized and expanded again. Until the First World War, the company mainly built motor sailers and cargo steamers for foreign clients, despite competition from the expanding Dutch shipyards.
Between the world wars
After the First World War, the shipyard was further enlarged and modernized. Until the 1920s, when the last two other shipyards on the Krückau, Thormählen and Kruse, were closed, a large number of motor sailers could be built and existing ships could be motorized and converted. With around 80 to 90 percent of construction activity before the Second World War , the focus was on Kümos and special ships such as passenger ships . Even tugs for Venezuela , tankers, deep-sea tugs and freighters for Peru and several stern-wheel steamers for Brazilian accounts were among them. As a result of the global economic crisis in 1931/32, the workforce was reduced from 189 in 1930 to only seven in 1932. At the beginning of the Second World War, the shipyard was modernized again and geared towards armaments production.
post war period
After the war, shipbuilding began again in Elmshorn in 1945/46. 16 fishing trawlers with 64 GRT were built and delivered to different owners between 1945 and 1948. The shipping company Weidtmann & Ballin had ordered some of these cutters and acted as correspondent shipping company for the Alsterfleet, Werna, Gunnel, Wiebke and the Süllberg. More fishing vessels followed by 1949. After that several Kümos were built and in the fall of 1950 a contract for the construction of 18 ships for Turkey was concluded. A tanker was built for Danish accounts. Three coastal cargo ships and three tankers were ordered for German purposes. The construction of a tug for Peru began in the same year and in 1951 the launch of the thousandth ship could be celebrated. The workforce rose to 360 in 1953 and almost 500 in 1958. In 1971, due to the limited conditions at and on the Krückau, a branch was established in Glückstadt.
In May 1975 the shipyard ran into financial difficulties due to the non-cost-covering construction of oil rig suppliers for Norwegian clients and an initial bankruptcy procedure was filed. The shipyard was then sold to the Hamburg company Harms Bergung on the first of July without taking over the laid-off workers . From mid-1976 the company was only continued in Glückstadt, where it finally went bankrupt in April 1978. The construction of two still incomplete tugs for the Unterweser shipping company was finished by the Husum shipyard . The shipyard was also unable to complete the last ship under construction, the Sigrid Wehr . It was part of a series of two RoRo ships , the hulls of which were created at HDW in Kiel and were finally completed at the Rickmers shipyard in Bremerhaven . The buildings of the Elmshorn shipyard were sold to Max Bahr and demolished to make way for a hardware store.
Web links
- Ernst-Gerhardt Scholz: Kremer-Werft: The end after 1164 ships , article in Elmshorner Nachrichten, December 7, 2011
literature
- Gert Uwe Detlefsen: From the ewer to the container ship . The development of the German coasters. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1983, ISBN 3-7822-0321-6 .