Combine harvester plant in Bischofswerda / Singwitz
The VEB Progress Mähdrescherwerk Bischofswerda / Singwitz one of the large companies in the agricultural machinery of the GDR .
history
The combine harvester plant in Bischofswerda / Singwitz was created in 1984 through the merger of the two progress companies “Erntemaschinen Bischofswerda ” and “Erntemaschinen Singwitz ”. From 1951 both companies belonged to the parent companies of the combine progress agricultural machinery .
The origin of the company in Singwitz was the agricultural machinery factory Raussendorf , which was founded in Kleinboblitz near Obergurig in 1856 and relocated to nearby Singwitz in 1928 under Hermann Raussendorf. A former paper factory was taken over there and expanded into an agricultural machinery company which in the 1930s produced up to 1,000 threshing machines and 6,000 straw presses a year. Participation in arms production during World War II resulted in the expropriation and dismantling of the company in 1946. From the leftovers, the state-owned enterprise (VEB) "Kombinus" threshing machine construction was created, which initially resumed the production of traditional products.
In Bischofswerda, it was the Knauthe company that began producing simple agricultural machinery in the 1930s. This company was also expropriated and dismantled after the war before it was able to start production again as a state-owned company under the name of Agricultural Machinery Factory Bischofswerda.
Both companies were expanded and profiled in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Combine Progress. In the process, several smaller companies in the region were assigned to the Bischofswerda company in particular, including the former suitcase and leather goods factory in Neukirch in 1970 , which had been part of the Progress Combine in 1961 and was re-profiled for the production of mower parts.
In connection with the specialization of agricultural machinery companies in the GDR, combine harvester production was relocated from the Weimar plant to Singwitz at the end of the 1950s . First straw presses and haymaking machines were produced in Bischofswerda . Straw press production came to Neustadt in Saxony at the beginning of the 1960s . In the period that followed, the Bischofswerda plant was geared towards the production of large assemblies that were delivered for final production in Neustadt and Singwitz, including the cutting units for the self-propelled swaths from Neustadt. With the strong expansion of combine harvester production, the Bischofswerda company took over the final production of the improved large combine harvesters (type E 516B and later also the modified E 517 ) from Singwitz in 1983 .
As part of the Progress Combine, both companies had the status of production areas until the beginning of the 1980s. The remaining functions, from product development to sales, were part of the combine management. It was not until 1982 that it was equipped with the functions necessary for operation. Due to the close interweaving of both companies within the scope of the combine harvester product line, the merger to form the combine harvester plant in Bischofswerda / Singwitz took place shortly afterwards.
At the end of the 1980s, this company had sales of almost 1,300 million GDR marks and around 6,900 employees. Of these, around 3,300 were employed in the Bischofswerda plant and around 2,300 in the Singwitz plant. There were also parts of the company in Neukirch and Bautzen with a total of more than 1,000 employees and two parts of the company in Freiberg with a total of around 350 employees.
The origin of one of the two parts of the company in Freiberg was Ernst Grumbach & Sohn AG, founded in 1868. During the last big wave of nationalization in the GDR, this company was made public property in 1972 and assigned to the Kombinat Progress. The product range of this company with a focus on stationary chopper was continued.
In 1990 the company came under trust management as Mähdrescherwerke AG. As a result of several attempts at privatization, MDW Mähdrescherwerke GmbH was finally established in Singwitz in 1995 with the participation of Hege Hohebuch , which continued the development and production of combine harvesters. All other locations were liquidated. In 1997 Case IH took over the rights to this combine harvester program from Mähdrescherwerke GmbH and carried out the further development and, from 1999, the production of these combine harvesters in CASE Harvesting Systems GmbH in Neustadt in Saxony (formerly Progress Erntemaschinen GmbH). Since then, Mähdrescherwerke GmbH has continued its activities in the development, production and marketing of combine harvesters in connection with Hemas Hege Erntemaschinen Singwitz GmbH, which was founded in 2004 .
Products
After the Second World War, the product lines of the Raussendorf company in Singwitz and the Knauthe company in Bischofswerda began to be resumed. These were mainly threshing machines, straw presses and liquid manure pumps. This was followed by the further and in-house developments of the 1950s, which included several types of threshing machines and straw presses, including the steel version K 117 with remote depositors and straw press as well as drinking bowls, liquid manure pumps and manure removal systems.
The exact allocation of the following new developments is only possible to a limited extent, especially at the companies Erntemaschinen Bischofswerda and Erntemaschinen Neustadt in Saxony. As early as the end of the 1950s, the Bischofswerda company was profiled for the production of small products and assemblies, while final production took place in Neustadt in Saxony and Singwitz. From this point on, the product development of the Progress companies was also combined in a centralized unit. Under these circumstances, the products of the Bischofswerda company are mentioned at this time in the company Progress Harvesting Machines Neustadt in Saxony and at this point only reference is made to products of the combine harvester product line.
This includes:
- E 175 combine harvesters and other types of this series (from 1960 in Singwitz), which were developed in the combine harvester factory in Weimar on the basis of a license from the USSR and were also produced there until 1962
- E 512 combine harvester (from 1968) as the first modern high-performance combine harvester
- Combine harvester E 516 (from 1976) and the successor type E 517 (from 1988) initiate the step towards large combine harvester
- E 514 combine harvester (from 1983) as a further development of the E 512 model
- E 524 combine harvester as the first model in a new series (from 1988)
More than 100,000 of these products were produced up to and including 1989.
From the mid-1970s, bicycles were produced in the Neukirch division.
The following products from MDW Mähdrescher GmbH in the 1990s were based on the Progress series concept of the E 514 and E 524 combine harvesters. The following types were produced as further developed types:
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 514 (from 1990)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 514S (from 1991)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 524 (from 1992)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 525 (from 1992)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 525H (from 1993)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 527 (from 1993)
- Combine harvester ERNTEMEISTER 527STS (from 1994)
- ERNTEMEISTER 521 combine harvester (from 1995) as a further development of the E 514
A special innovation was the Arcus 2500 combine harvester, which was awarded a gold medal at Agritechnica in 1997. The completely new threshing and vehicle concept of this combine harvester enabled high performance with a small installation space. A series production was not possible due to the takeover activities of the CASE IH company during this period.
literature
- Krombholz, K .: Agricultural machinery in the GDR - light and shadow . DLG-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-7690-0717-6 .
- Collective of authors: The nationally owned combine progress agricultural machinery Neustadt in Saxony and its companies 1945 - 1990 . Publication of the traditional association KOFO Neustadt / Sa. eV, Neustadt in Saxony 2005.
- G. Bauer: The fascination of agricultural engineering - 100 years of agricultural engineering companies and manufacturers in transition . Verlag Union Agrar, Frankfurt / Main 2003, ISBN 3-7690-0596-1 .
- G. Theißen: Braked top technology - the development of the Arcus combine harvester . In: profi - magazine for professional agricultural technology . tape 20 , no. 8 , 2008, ISSN 0937-1583 , p. 64 .
- H. Bertram, K. Herrmann: Pure innovation - 20 years of Agritechnica innovations . DLG-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2005, ISBN 3-7690-0666-6 .
- Jan Welkerling: PROGRESS in all ears . Self-published, Nuremberg 2005.
- Jan Welkerling: PROGRESS in the market economy . Self-published, Nuremberg 2011.
Footnotes
- ↑ Company history. Raussendorf Maschinen- und Gerätebau GmbH, accessed on June 29, 2016 .
