Glue boiling plant in Siegerland

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The glue boiling plant in Siegerland , in which hide glue was made from meat and fat waste , was initially a by-product of the regional tannery industry before it developed into an independent branch of industry.

history

For centuries, iron ore was mined above and below ground in Siegerland . Charcoal was used to smelt the ores , the wood for it came from the so-called Haubergen . The bark of the trees was used as ground granulate for the production of tannins , the oak tree . The oak forests and the strong cattle industry - in summer the Haubergsweiden provided the summer fodder for the cattle - in turn the basis for the Siegerland tannery . Small artisanal tanneries developed into larger leather factories in the 19th century, such as the Erich Kraemer leather factory or the Siebel brothers' sole leather factories, both in Freudenberg . In Siegen , street names such as Lohgraben, Gerbereistraße and Löhrstraße or the Löhrtor still bear witness to this trade. When, from 1891, competition from rapid tanning methods gradually pushed tanning out of the market, the tanning industry began to decline. However, two other branches of the economy in Siegerland owe their origin and development to the local leather industry, namely the felt and hide glue industries. Little by little glue companies had settled near the tanneries - on the one hand because they needed as much running water as the leather-producing industry. Around 800 to 1000 liters of water were required to produce 1,000 kilograms of hide glue. So they settled in the same locations near the streams in Siegen, Freudenberg and Hilchenbach . In addition, they also obtained their raw materials directly from the tanneries, so short distances had an economic benefit: hide glue was made from the so-called glue leather , the meat and fat waste accumulated in the tanneries, in the glue boilers. The production of 100 kilograms of sole leather left around 14 kilograms of glue leather. At the beginning, many tanneries also operated glue boiling as an ancillary trade: in 1820 the glue was boiled by the red and white tanners themselves. In 1838 an independent glue-producing branch had already developed.

18th and 19th centuries

The first Siegerland glue boiler was built in Hilchenbach in 1790 . The first glue factories were founded in Siegen in 1808 (Jacob Goebel) and 1828 (Eberhard Stauf); this development began in Freudenberg in 1841 (Jost Heinrich Siebel). In 1873 there were 22 glue boilers in Siegerland. In 1880 21 companies were counted, which were mainly located in Siegen, Hilchenbach and Freudenberg, in 1888 there were 19, and in the directory of leather glue manufacturers in Germany from November 1897, 19 companies from Siegerland were also listed. Freudenberg was one of the most important locations for the German hide glue industry: In addition to the leather, felt and hair industries, glue production dominated the economic picture of the city. Hilchenbach had also developed into a tannery center - a corresponding number of glue boilers were set up there. In 1815 there were four glue boilers in the Hilchenbach office. Hadem in particular became an important location there in the 1860s due to its proximity to the water. Disputes with competitors over water use, especially the owners of the sewage fields , did not fail to appear. In the 1850s, the glue boiler in Hilchenbach was already very important: in 1854, 290 quintals of glue worth 3400 thalers were produced in four boilers with five workers, not counting the owners. In 1868 nine workers were employed, for 1883 the number of workers is given as 16 to 20. In 1904 there were 110 workers. The leading position was held by the glue factory Fr. W. Weiß, Daniel's son - it had emerged from an old white tannery. Friedrich Wilhelm Weiss initially ran a tannery between 1733 and 1814 and processed his own meat waste into glue. The family business FW Weiss Daniels & Sohn, which has been run for several generations and which was rebuilt after a fire to become the largest and most modern glue factory in Germany, developed from this source of secondary income.

industrialization

With industrialization and the growing population in cities, the need for glue also increased, because a lot of wood was still used in capital goods . Bookbinders, paper manufacturers, and many other artists and craftsmen, especially furniture manufacturers, needed glue. The upswing in the glue-producing industry was naturally also related to the increasing amount of hides processed in the regional tanneries, from which more and more glue-meat gradually fell off. Until the 1880s, the glue boilers still operated a very traditional manual production method, which was also heavily dependent on the weather. Because the glue could only be air-dried in special buildings in summer at the right temperatures. The introduction of the steam engine made year-round production possible. In Freudenberg, for example, the glue factory Louis Wilhelm Siebel was the first to take advantage of the advantages of steam power. The glue broth, which initially contained six to ten percent glue, could now be evaporated in the vacuum apparatus to a glue content of around 30 percent. In addition, special drying ducts were installed that had steam heating and a fan. In the Museum of Technology Freudenberg is still a 100-horsepower steam engine from 1904, the last relic of the old Tafelleimfabrik Otto Nöll.

20th century

When the decline in regional leather production began in the 1890s, the glue boilers had to rely on imports of glue leather from neighboring areas, Europe and overseas, since they had all increased their production. The Siegerland hide glue industry generated a third of the total German glue production around 1910 and had a considerable foreign trade factor. But glue production in Siegerland had to be cut back sharply with the outbreak of World War I due to a lack of raw materials. There were no imports from overseas from 1916. The meat waste was instead used to make animal feed, and while the need for hide glue continued to be high, the required amount could not be made. As a result, the Freudenberg glue manufacturers, for example, formed working groups and only produced in one company in order to save costs.

After the First World War, the hide glue industry experienced a brief boom until around 1923. But when world trade reorganized, the competitive situation on the raw materials market noticeably intensified. Before the war there were 140 hide and bone glue factories operating throughout Germany, but by 1920 their number had dropped to 88. Only miserable profits were made, many factories were forced to shut down again and again, and the global economic crisis also troubled the main buyers of hide glue, the furniture factories - they hardly had any orders themselves.

Second World War

After the turn of the century, up to 70 percent of the raw materials needed had to be imported. That is why the Second World War and the associated isolation from the international market brought 90 percent of all German glue boilers to a standstill. In the 1930s, the Siegerland hide glue manufacturers formed a purchasing group, but still had to severely limit their production due to strict quotas. Working groups were also formed during the war years, and a regular dispute broke out about which factories should shut down and whose production should continue - after all, the operator of an active factory could be sure that his systems and machines were being maintained, while those of the others were being maintained were left.

Post-war years

After the Second World War, only 34 glue factories in West Germany resumed production, including the Freudenberg glue factories Carl Siebel-Scholl, Beel, Irle & Co., Otto Nöll and Gebrüder Achenbach. In 1954, only four Siegerland glue boilers started operating again within five years. In addition, the new synthetic adhesives replaced traditional hide glues. Ultimately, high environmental regulations, which stipulated cost-intensive sewage treatment plants for the waste water from the glue boilers, which were heavily contaminated with chemicals, made further production a loss for the remaining hide glue factories as well. In Freudenberg, all hide glue factories closed in the 1950s and 1960s, only the Otto Nöll factory continued to operate until it closed on March 31, 1972. In 1983 the last Siegerland hide glue factory in Haiger closed . Nevertheless, there are still traces of this once so important branch of the economy: STAUF Klestoffwerke GmbH, for example, goes back to the glue boiling plant that Eberhard Stauf founded in Siegen in 1828. After the Second World War, the company concentrated on the production of synthetic adhesives, making it the only glue factory in Siegerland that has made the transition from animal glue to artificial glue. Other Leimsiedereien focused early on to other lines of business: 1893 founded Johann Friedrich Klingspor with his sister Wilhelmina Oechelhaeuser and his sister Luzi Klingspor Siegener glue factory Klingspor & Co, but made a few years later, sandpaper, emery cloth ago. Today Klingspor , based in Haiger since the 1950s, is one of the largest manufacturers of abrasives in the world.

literature

  • Hanne-Lore Arnold: tannery. Glue boiling. Felt industry. In: Hanne-Lore Arnold u. a. (Ed.): Otto-Arnold-Photography, 1927-1938. Image documents of a South Westphalian cultural landscape . Volume 1: Siegerland working world. Verlag Arnold, Siegen 1985, ISBN 3-9801121-0-1 .
  • Kurt Birk: Freudenberg as part of the Siegerland economy. In: Wilhelm Güthling (Ed.): Freudenberg in the past and present. Festival book for the 500th anniversary of the confirmation of municipal rights for Freudenberg. Freudenberg City Administration, Freudenberg 1956.
  • FW Busch: Ningeln-Bau: a contribution to industrial history in Hilchenbach. USH, Hilchenbach 1991.
  • FA Diesterweg: Statistics of the Hilchenbach office, compiled by hand in October 1815 (= contributions to the history of Hilchenbach. Volume 5). Hilchenbach 1986.
  • Paul Fickeler: The Siegerland as an example of economic history and economic geographic harmony. In: Geography. Scientific geography archive. Volume VIII, Lfg. 1, Dümmler, 1954.
  • Sibylle Hambloch: The Siegerland tannery trade 1815-1923. Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, St. Katharinen 1997. ISBN 3-89590-040-0 .
  • Friedrich-Wilhelm Henning: Economic history of the Hilchenbach area. The development of the economy in the northern Siegerland since the Middle Ages. Hilchenbach History Association, Hilchenbach 1987.
  • Adolf Link: The leather industry (producing and processing). In: About the location of industries, Part II: German industry since 1860. Issue 3, Tübingen, JCB Mohr, 1913.
  • Dr. Walter Menn: Hilchenbach. A historical overview. Festschrift for the 250th anniversary of the city. Publishing house by Wesener Nachf., Hilchenbach 1937.
  • Jörgen Schäfer: From skin and hair. On the history of leather, glue and felt production in Freudenberg. Friends of historic vehicles, Freudenberg 2002.
  • Karl-Friedrich Schenck: Statistics of the former principality of Siegen. Siegen 1820. Reprint: Verlag die wielandsschmiede, Kreuztal 1981.
  • Rolf Stracke: The economic and social structure of the leather-producing industry in Siegerland. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Victories 1946.
  • Harald Witthöft: Siegerland - What is it? Sketches for a historical identity. In: Ingo Broer, Gerhard Hufnagel, Eberhard Winterhager (eds.): Siegerland. Changing region - an inventory. University of Siegen, Siegen 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fickeler: The winning country as an example of economic history and wirtschaftsgeografischer harmony. 1954, p. 33.
  2. ↑ Heinz Bensberg's once important Siegerland leather industry homepage. Retrieved November 12, 2014.
  3. ↑ Fickeler: The winning country as an example of economic history and wirtschaftsgeografischer harmony. 1954, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Stracke: The economic and social structure of the leather-producing industry in the Siegerland. 1946, pp. 92-95.
  5. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 52.
  6. ↑ Fickeler: The winning country as an example of economic history and wirtschaftsgeografischer harmony. 1954, p. 34.
  7. ↑ Link: The leather industry (producing and processing). 1913, p. 24.
  8. ↑ Schenck: Statistics of the former Principality of Siegen. 1981, p. 378.
  9. ↑ Hambloch: The Siegerland tannery trade 1815-1923. 1997, p. 42.
  10. ^ Witthöft: Siegerland - What is it? Sketches for a historical identity. 1988, pp. 5-22.
  11. ↑ Fickeler: The winning country as an example of economic history and wirtschaftsgeografischer harmony. 1954, p. 34.
  12. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 50.
  13. ↑ Hambloch: The Siegerland tannery trade 1815-1923. 1997, p. 42.
  14. ^ The Siegerland - Tannery Homepage of Dr. Richard Vogel. Retrieved November 12, 2014.
  15. ↑ Hambloch: The Siegerland tannery trade 1815-1923. 1997, p. 42.
  16. ^ Birk: Freudenberg in the context of the Siegerland economy. 1956, p. 145.
  17. ^ Henning: Economic history of the Hilchenbach area. 1987, p. 140.
  18. ^ Diesterweg: Statistics of the Hilchenbach Office, compiled by hand in October 1815. 1986, p. 32.
  19. ^ Menn: Hilchenbach. 1937, p. 64.
  20. ^ Menn: Hilchenbach. 1937, p. 64.
  21. ↑ Busch: Ningeln-Bau: a contribution to industrial history in Hilchenbach. 1991, p. 18ff.
  22. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 52.
  23. ^ Arnold: Tannery. Glue boiling. Felt industry. 1985, p. 146.
  24. ↑ Fickeler: The winning country as an example of economic history and wirtschaftsgeografischer harmony. 1954, p. 34.
  25. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 55.
  26. ↑ Busch: Ningeln-Bau: a contribution to industrial history in Hilchenbach. 1991, p. 80.
  27. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 55.
  28. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 57.
  29. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 59.
  30. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 12.
  31. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 12.
  32. ↑ Schäfer: From skin and hair. 2002, p. 64.
  33. ^ Arnold: Tannery. Glue boiling. Felt industry. 1985, p. 146.
  34. ^ Website of Stauf Kle glue GmbH . Retrieved November 12, 2014.
  35. ^ Website of Klingspor AG . Retrieved November 12, 2014.