MIAG
The MIAG mill construction and industrial corporation is a former engineering company from Braunschweig , Germany , in 1972 by the company Gebrüder Bühler in Uzwil , Switzerland was acquired.
The company was founded in Frankfurt / Main in 1925 from the merger of Hugo Greffenius AG, based there, with four other flour mill manufacturers:
- Mill construction company and machine factory vorm. Seck brothers - Dresden- Zschachwitz , founded in 1873
- Machine factory for mill construction, vorm. CGW Kapler Akt.Ges. - Berlin, founded in 1875
- G. Luther, machine factory and mill construction ( Luther-Werke ) - Braunschweig, founded in 1875
- Brunswick Mühlenbauanstalt nurse, Giesecke & Konegen (AGK) - 1895 by former employees Luther Ernst nurse , Carl Giesecke & Julius Konegen founded
history
H. Greffenius, owner of the Frankfurt Mühlenbauanstalt of the same name (formerly Simon-Bühler-Baumann), acquired the majority of shares in the four other companies mentioned above with the help of some banks in 1921. Initially, an umbrella company was founded in Frankfurt under the name Mühlenbau- und Industrie AG, which was renamed MIAG Mühlenbau und Industrie AG in 1922. In 1923, an interest group was formed between MIAG and the five companies, in which the mutual use of patents, territorial divisions, etc. were agreed. The five companies remained independent until the merger of all companies in 1925 . In the following years there was a total reorganization and rationalization. The head office with the administration and construction came to Braunschweig, the production was split up ( roller mills to Dresden, plansifers to Braunschweig). After a lull in orders, the plants in Berlin and Frankfurt were shut down in 1927. After that, however, business picked up again, and the number of employees in Braunschweig and Dresden increased by 1,000 to 6,861. During this time, the first MIAG machines came onto the market, new designs in which the know-how and patents of all predecessor companies merged. The first roller mill was the GN model, further developed from the AGK chair G. The first MIAG plansifter brought together the cantilever chair from Konegen, the rider brush from Luther and the insert frame from Seck. Another new market success was the grain preparer and the HN roller mill with servo regulation. MIAG became the most important mill building company in the world.
The world economic crisis of 1930 did not pass MIAG by either. There were mass layoffs, the workforce dropped to around 4,000. Ernst Amme died on a business trip in the Far East. In 1934, Roßstrasse was renamed Ernst-Amme-Strasse and, as an extension, Julius-Konegen-Strasse. After the seizure of power in 1933, there were brutal clashes between the various political directions. Ten trade unionists, four of whom were MIAG members, were murdered by the Nazis. The number of employees fell further to approx. 3500. The Lutherwerk was almost completely shut down. Hans Lerch , who came from Hanomag in Hanover, took over the majority of the shares in 1935 and became CEO . The grounds of the Ammewerk were considerably expanded to the rear through the purchase of land. The company received large government contracts. For this, the Lutherwerk was reactivated. Stephan Luther, who was previously director at Seck in Dresden, became commercial director, Walter Jordan technical director. The plant was given a certain independence. The mill and storage construction turnover also increased, the total number of employees increased to 8000 by 1937.
During the Second World War , MIAG was involved in the program for the production of assault guns and light tank destroyers . The company director Ernst Blaicher , a supporting member of the SS , was in contact with the SS. During Big Week 1944, two MIAG factories were selected as destinations in Braunschweig, where parts for the Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighter plane were produced. 76 US machines were to attack this target. When the planes were over Braunschweig, the cloud cover over the city was too low, so that most of the bombs fell on residential areas in the city and other companies, but only a few bombs fell on the MIAG works. The attack killed 110 people in Braunschweig, and 2000 became homeless. Forced laborers from the concentration camps were used in the tank construction at MIAG-Mühlenbau in the former Zschachwitz district of Sporbitz (since 1950 district of Dresden ) . For this purpose, a foreign labor camp was set up on the company premises. According to statistics from January 1945, there were 1,097 forced laborers.
The Lutherwerk left MIAG completely in 1941 and operated under the name Luther & Co. GmbH, the company was Walter Jordan. In 1944 it was 90% destroyed by targeted bombing. Stephan Luther died as a result of a serious wound. After the war, it was dismantled and confiscated by the British. It was not until 1950 that the production of consumer goods, vehicle trailers, etc. started up again under W. Jordan. The mill construction was no longer operated. In 1979 the plant went bankrupt and was shut down entirely in 1980. In 1945, the Ammewerk was also severely damaged by bombs; 55–70% of it was destroyed. The factory was spared dismantling thanks to the skilful maneuvering of the management. The reconstruction of the destroyed factory as well as the sales departments and foreign agencies began immediately.
The Dresden branch was nationalized in 1949 and became VEB Mühlenbau Dresden-Zschachwitz. After the loss of this factory, production for the entire product range had to be set up in Braunschweig. At that time the workforce was around 2440. In 1947 the company was converted into a GmbH, H. Lerch was the sole owner. MIAG came back to the market well with its tried and tested machines, the volume of orders increased from year to year, the number of employees was already 3,685 at the end of 1950. In 1955 the subsidiary MIAG North America was founded in Minneapolis. In addition to the declining mill construction, global plant construction for cement production or paper technology and large silo technology for grain in seaports became additional pillars.
When H. Lerch suddenly died in 1958, the widow Mary Lerch took over the company rights. The company was run by a five-person management. The former nurse branch in Buenos Aires was repurchased and renamed MIAG Argentina. In the following years, numerous other foreign branches, e. Some of them have their own factories (including in São Paulo, Malmö, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Milan, Toronto, Tokyo, Johannesburg). The workforce in 1960 was approx. 4,300. At the end of the 1960s there was a drop in sales, the workforce sank to around 3300 by 1972. In September 1972 all MIAG shares, including eleven subsidiaries, were taken over by Bühler, Konstanz, the German subsidiary of Bühler in Uzwil / Switzerland. Business operations initially continued unchanged, only the new developments and the sales areas were coordinated.
From 1973 the new company name of the Braunschweig plant and all foreign companies became BÜHLER-MIAG. The machine program of both houses was adjusted and the worldwide sales merged. Partly very outdated production in Braunschweig modernized by considerable investments.
Commercial vehicle manufacturing
MIAG also manufactured electric vehicles in Bielefeld from 1936 to 1938 . Electric vehicle production was relocated to the former plant of Röhr Auto AG in Ober-Ramstadt in 1937 . Forklift trucks and crane vehicles were also built there until the war . Furthermore, an agricultural tractor of the type LD20 with a 2 cylinder diesel engine was produced. It was not until 1950 that a transporter with a payload of 2 t was produced again, which was powered by the 25 hp engine from the VW Beetle . Since the Volkswagen factory brought the VW T1 onto the market as its own transporter in 1950 and did not want to continue to supply rival companies, MIAG had to use a two-cylinder engine (MWM KD 15 Z and MWM KD 115Z from Motoren-Werke Mannheim ). Sales were not good and after a year production was stopped. Until the 1980s, the Bühler Group still manufactured crane systems for truck chassis.
In 1983 the vehicle production of Bühler-MIAG GmbH was spun off as MIAG Fahrzeugbau GmbH. This still produces forklift trucks and explosion-proof industrial trucks in Braunschweig.
Mining equipment
There is evidence of two, but probably three , battery locomotives built for the Preussag mine in Clausthal. The machines seem to have proven themselves well, because after the closure of the Clausthal mines they were handed over to the Grund and Bergwerkwohlfahrt mines and only replaced there at the end of the 1940s by more powerful machines of the unit type EL9 .
literature
- Helmut Weihsmann : Building under the swastika. Architecture of doom. Promedia Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-85371-113-8 , p. 321.
Web links
- MIAG share from 1932
- Website of MIAG Fahrzeugbau GmbH
- Early documents and newspaper articles on MIAG in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Clausthal-Zellerfeld mountain archive + there Feldbahn.Forum ask for information.