German synthetic gasoline

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Leuna gasoline
other names

"German gasoline"

Trade names

Leuna

Brief description Petrol
origin

synthetic

properties
Physical state liquid
safety instructions
GHS labeling of hazardous substances
no classification available
H and P phrases H: see above
P: see above
As far as possible and customary, SI units are used. Unless otherwise noted, the data given apply to standard conditions .

German synthetic gasoline , even Leuna petrol after the developer company and largest supplier, was from the late 1920s, a gasoline fuel in Germany, in Hydrierwerken of coal was produced. The IG Farben sold them to do so first in the Leuna works gasoline produced mainly through its own sales company that German gasoline Aktiengesellschaft . Petrol , later also known as German gasoline , was also used in other coal liquefaction production processes from 1936 onwards and also by other companies that did not belong to IG Farben in hydrogenation plants.

history

Advertisement by Gasolin AG , Berlin for "German gasoline" from the Leuna works of IG Farben

Royal Dutch and BASF were each half involved in the International Bergin Compagnie voor Olie en Kolen Chemie, founded in 1921 for the international use of German patents on carbohydrate hydrogenation. As part of the agreement between BASF and Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1925/1926 to work together in the production of synthetic gasoline from coal, the decision was made to use Hugo Stinnes-Riebeck Oel-AG as the sales organization in Germany for synthetic gasoline use and build up.

In the German Reich , IG Farben (the successor to BASF) began in 1926 in the Merseburg ammonia plant - Leuna Werke with the industrial production of so-called Leuna gasoline (see also Motalin ) from lignite using the Bergius-Pier method . However, the production of synthetic gasoline was extremely complex and always too expensive compared to world market prices.

Therefore, as early as November 1932, the IG Farben directors Bütefisch and Gattineau met with Hitler to explain the future importance of synthetic gasoline. They received a promise from Hitler that, in the event of his government, they would support the production of synthetic gasoline by guaranteeing sales and minimum prices. Such a minimum price guarantee was then contractually agreed in the Feder-Bosch Agreement of December 14, 1933.

The oil production in Germany reached the domestic needs only to almost 30 percent. Due to the high content of heavy and lubricating oils, it was hardly possible to develop petrol specifically for aircraft. The use of the significant coal deposits via the specially developed process of coal liquefaction was therefore of great importance for strategic military reasons before the Second World War . The construction of hydrogenation plants became an essential part of the self-sufficiency efforts of the four-year plan and was politically enforced against initial resistance from industry and widely discussed in public.

Public theming

Volume of mineral oil in the years 1939–1944 (in 1000 t)
year total
(estimated)
of which synthetic
production
in %
1939 8,200 2,200 27
1940 7,600 3,348 44
1941 10,000 4.116 41
1942 9,500 4,920 52
1943 11,300 5,748 51
1944 6,830 3,830 56

In addition to Karl Aloys Schenzinger , a successful ("raw material") non-fiction author in the Third Reich (" Aniline . Novel of a dye"), the bestselling author Anton Zischka, who has lived in Mallorca since 1935, was in charge of the popular science presentation of the synthetic topic. Zischka's “Wissenschaft breaks Monopole” (1936) was introduced as compulsory reading in secondary schools, the book was translated into 18 languages ​​and used for Nazi propaganda . As in the work “Oil War” published in 1939, Zischka, sponsored by Fritz Todt , explained wars and armed conflicts as a dispute over (unevenly distributed) land and raw materials. In contrast, he presented technical developments from Germany such as the liquefaction of coal or the synthesis of ammonia developed before the First World War using the Haber-Bosch process as possible global peacemakers. In addition, the "working" Anglo-American capitalism became the "creative" " national community ”As the greatest and most important“ synthesis of a new era ”. Precisely because Zischka refrained from blatant chauvinist or racist remarks, the image of a peace-loving and modern “Third Reich” that was desired in the sense of Nazi pre-war propaganda was conveyed abroad .

Technical realizations

Ruins of a plant in Pölitz near Stettin (now Poland) on the site of the former Pölitz AG hydrogenation works
Leuna gas pump in front of the ruins of the Dresden Lukaskirche

1936 succeeded in the hydrogenation plant Scholven the Hibernia AG , the coal liquefaction of coal by the process of IG Farben. In December 1936 the Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG founded the Gelsenberg Petrol AG , in whose plant the coal liquefaction was also carried out for hard coal from 1939 onwards.

At the start of the war in 1939, seven hydrogenation plants were in production (the largest in Leuna ), three were just before production started, two under construction:

There were also plants in Bari (Albanian oil residue), Livorno (Romanian oil residue) and Blechhammer in Upper Silesia (IG Farben) for tar oils and a plant in Auschwitz / Monowitz .

In 1943 there were twelve producing hydrogenation plants. The hydrogenation works covered most of the Wehrmacht's fuel needs and were the only source of aviation fuel for the Air Force . In the spring of 1944 the number of systems had risen to 15. Because of the increasing number of Allied air raids on the unprotected refineries and hydrogenation works, an attempt was made from 1944 onwards through the mineral oil security plan to prevent the impending collapse of the fuel supply. This did not succeed - in March 1945 the capacity of the hydrogenation plants was only three percent of the 1943 peak.

bombing

After sporadic attacks, American and partly British bomber forces carried out a regular offensive against synthetic fuel production from May 1944 until the end of the war. The offensive began with an attack by 935 bombers on the hydrogenation works in Leuna, Böhlen, Zeitz, Lützkendorf and Brüx on May 12, 1944. For the President of the Armaments Office, Hans Kehrl , these and the following attacks were the "Staling degree of the armaments industry" that when Hitler held a meeting about these bombings on May 23 at the Fuehrer's headquarters on Obersalzberg , Carl Krauch unrolled a plan of the Leuna plant on which all 2,200 bombs that had fallen on the plant premises were marked with their size. Thereupon Hitler covered his eyes for half a minute, in the complete silence of those present. For the German side, these attacks were a "dream of fear" that had long been feared and one wondered why the Allies left this lifeblood of German armaments alone. Kehrl reports that he was delighted every time he heard the evening calls about the targets of the Allied bomber formations that the attacks were likely to be aimed at Berlin and not the hydrogenation works. For him it was “inexplicable” at the time why the fuel, nitrogen and Buna works, as “the most vulnerable parts of our war production”, were not consistently attacked. In a memorandum of the General Staff of the Air Force dated April 14, 1944, it was stated:

“This raises the as yet completely unresolved and opaque question, why the Anglo-American has not yet smashed these facilities, which he would be able to do with his recently so highly developed attack technique. With the destruction of our few large refineries and hydrogenation works, he could achieve a success that would actually call into question the possibility of a continuation of the war [...] Given the generous and long-term policy of the British, it is entirely conceivable that perhaps he does not do it in order not to put Germany in a position to continue the war against Russia, since it is in his interest to force the German and Russian forces against one another. "

According to Rainer Karlsch, there is no evidence for this thesis that the British generals wanted to enable the Wehrmacht to continue the war against the Soviet Union . The Marxist historian Olaf Groehler attributes the long non-bombing to a "gentlemen agreement" between heavy industries in Germany and the USA, and that is why the "Committee on Operation Analyst" has the chief director of the Morgan group Thomas W. Lamont and the lawyer from Standard Oil Elihu Root sat, refused the bombing. The fact that the bombings even came about was a solo effort by the bomber general Carl A. Spaatz . Karlsch argues against this thesis, stating that the plant in Pölitz had also been bombed, although Standard Oil was involved in it.

By June 22nd, aviation fuel production had dropped from 5,800 tons per day to 623 tons. In September 1944 production had fallen to 8% of April. Although the factories were destroyed shortly after the restart, they were always rebuilt. At times, up to 350,000 workers were employed.

Continuation after the war

Leuna-Werke, distillation systems in fuel production, 1959

In West Germany, coal liquefaction was discontinued after the war because of the unrivaled low oil prices. In the GDR, on the other hand, although it was also "intolerably uneconomical", it was not finally given up until the early 1970s, but was part of the strategic planning of the Council of Ministers until the GDR collapsed. In the Federal Republic of Germany, as a result of the first “oil crisis” in 1973, the energy research program adopted by the Federal Government in 1974 saw the establishment of seven pilot plants for coal refining (gasification and liquefaction), which went into operation from 1977 to 1980. The last very small plant still in operation in Essen with a production of approx. 200 kg / day was dismantled in 2004 and rebuilt for China Shenhua Energy in China.

literature

Web links

  • Fischer-Tropsch Archive Comprehensive archive on the Fischer-Tropsch process with historical and current documents

Individual evidence

  1. This substance has either not yet been classified with regard to its hazardousness or a reliable and citable source has not yet been found.
  2. Sharing With Standard .
  3. ^ The pens from BASF . In: Junge Welt , September 18, 2007.
  4. Review. Rainer Karlsch, Raymond G. Stokes: "Factor Oil". The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974 .
  5. Dietrich Eichholtz: History of the German war economy . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1985, Volume 2, p. 354.
  6. A Ruhrgas share from 1933 writes: “Construction and operation of systems for converting solid, hard-to-sell fuels and other types of energy and materials, especially for remote gas supply and district heating. Founded on October 11, 1926; registered on October 29, 1926. “So there was a long lead. Founded by around 92 percent of the mines that are part of the Rheinisch-Westfälischer Kohlensyndikat.
  7. ↑ Partial bond of STW AG from 1941
  8. ↑ Partial bond of the Hydrierwerke Pölitz from 1940 ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.shop-hobby.de
  9. ^ Rainer Karlsch , Raymond G. Stokes: Factor oil . Munich 2003, p. 234.
  10. ^ Hans Kehrl : Crisis Manager in the Third Reich . Düsseldorf 1974, p. 381.
  11. Kehrl, p. 370.
  12. ^ Karlsch, p. 234.
  13. Kehrl, p. 367.
  14. ^ Kehrl, p. 326.
  15. Olaf Groehler : Geschichte des Luftkriegs , Berlin 1981, p. 426 f.
  16. ^ Karlsch, p. 234.
  17. Groehler, Luftkrieg, p. 427.
  18. ^ Karlsch, p. 234.
  19. ^ Karlsch, pp. 235 and 236.