Maxhütte (Maxhütte-Haidhof)
The Maxhütte in Haidhof , founded as T. Michiels, Henry Goffard & Cie , shortly thereafter renamed Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft Maximilians-Hütte - near Burglengenfeld (named after Maximilian II, King of Bavaria ), was a steel mill . In 1851 the nucleus of the Maxhütte (MH) was founded. Production began in January 1853. After a large part of production and the head office had been relocated to Rosenberg, the Maxhütte-Haidhof plant was a subsidiary of MH. Today it is partly an industrial monument in Maxhütte-Haidhof as well as a start-up center and a company branch.
history
T. Michiels, Henry Goffard & Cie
With the beginning of the history of modern railways in the middle of the 19th century and the connected, networked transport system, the need for rails also grew. At the latest when the eagle began its commercial operation on the route between the two cities of Nuremberg and Fürth , the railway had also arrived in Bavaria . Gustav von Schlör in particular , Bavarian State Minister for Trade and Public Works - also known as Minister of Railways - was a vehement supporter of a nationwide railway network. As director of the private Ostbahn-Gesellschaft , he pushed through the construction of the railway line from Schwandorf via Weiden to Bayreuth in the Bavarian state parliament , thereby laying the foundation for the economic development of this structurally weak region.
Gustav von Schlör suggested in a petition as early as 1848, ″ To summarize the economic conditions in the Upper Palatinate in a rolling mill to be built by the state in order to secure sales for the many charcoal stoves and to at least partially satisfy the rail requirements. ″ This submission failed , because the Bavarian state government lacked the necessary capital.
On October 12, 1850, the Belgian consul in Munich, Télémaque Fortuné Michiels, together with the railway builder Henry Goffard, proposed to the Bavarian King Maximilian II to build a rolling mill for rail production near Munich. Télémaque F. Michiels was also an entrepreneur and maintained in Eschweiler-Aue through his anonymous company (public limited company) T. Michiels & Cie. a steel rolling mill since 1852, later Phoenix AG for mining and smelter operations .
Due to newly discovered coal deposits, it was decided to relocate the planned steelworks to the Upper Palatinate instead of near Munich. On December 22nd, 1850 Michiels traveled to Burglengenfeld , where in the Sauforst there (the term comes from ″ looking ″ and not from ″ sow ″ (= pigs)) in 1835 a ″ brownish mass ″ namely red coal - today stored as lignite in brown coal known - found and has since been dismantled. After various, ultimately successful negotiations with the two state ministers Gustav von Schlör and Ludwig von der Pfordten , both entrepreneurs (Michiels and Goffard) bought the first piece of land between Burglengenfeld and Haidhof . This took place even before a factory rail supply contract was signed with the Bavarian government and its state railways.
On April 17, 1851, Michiels and Goffard signed a contract with the royal Bavarian state government for the construction of a rail rolling mill in the Upper Palatinate and for the continuous delivery of rail tracks to the Bavarian state railways. On the same day, the limited partnership on shares ″ T. Michiels, Henry Goffard & Cie ″ founded with financial participation from Munich and Augsburg business people. The factory to be built in Sauforst near Burglengenfeld was given as the seat of the company and 600,000 guilders as the company's capital . On July 29, 1851, permission to build the ironworks in Sauforst was granted. The construction of the rolling mill was delayed considerably due to various obstacles of a personal and technical nature. The recruited workers were neither specialists nor highly motivated, and a great many came from the criminal milieu. The lignite coal extracted on site (also known as raw lignite or young lignite) was extremely moist (water content around 40%) and it could not be used in the puddle furnace or in the welding furnace without prior drying. For this reason, several hundred drying chambers had to be set up on the premises. It was not until January 10, 1853 that operations could finally start.
Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft Maximilians-Hütte - in short: Maxhütte
On March 4, 1853, the district court Burglengenfeld reported to the government of the Upper Palatinate in Regensburg that "four butels and a welding furnace" were working day and night. The background to this announcement was that the company ran out of capital. Before things really started, there was a risk of bankruptcy. The co-partner Télémaque Fortuné Michiels was the first to leave the company. In a subsequent general meeting, the limited partnership for shares ″ T. Michiels, Henry Goffard & Cie ″ and to found a new company with different statutes. The Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft Maximilians-Hütte was founded on September 26, 1853, and was sealed with the handwritten signature of King Maximilian II.
Although, according to information from the business director Henry Goffard, the plant was in regular operation in August 1853 and 50 tons of rails were produced per week, the rail supply contract that had been concluded could not be fulfilled. At this point, Goffard recommended that the Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft Maximilians-Hütte be called Maxhütte for short . On December 6, 1853, a ″ royal comissar ″ named Franz Freiherr von Lobkowitz was appointed to move the work forward. Von Lobkowitz not only had sufficient economic knowledge, but as the ″ royal comissaire ″ of the Eastern Railway Company, he also had specialist knowledge.
Pious era
When Henry Goffard died of a lung disease on October 28, 1854, the plant was on the verge of bankruptcy. Chief engineer Ernst Fromm, who had been with the plant since June 1853, wrote a positive report that prompted Maxhütten shareholder Josef Anton Ritter von Maffei to postpone the liquidation of the plant. After a few days to think about it, von Maffei decided to support the young Maxhütte financially with a larger amount of money. This decision in turn prompted the Belgian company Lieutenant and Peltzer in Verviers to take a financial stake in the Maxhütte.
The young Rhenish metallurgical engineer Ernst Fromm, who was appointed to the technical management of the Maxhütte in September 1853, and the shareholder Josef Anton Ritter von Maffei and the "royal comissar" Franz Freiherr von Lobkowitz jointly ensured the upswing of the Maxhütte from now on. As early as March 1855, Fromm was able to report to the board of directors that the operating results were more favorable than hoped and that the output of the ovens was even greater than that of the ovens in other German plants that were fed with good hard coal.
In 1855 the production of iron bandages was started. Since the ore deliveries from the Amberg state mines were not very reliable, Ernst Fromm suggested as early as 1856 that the pig iron be produced using the most modern methods from their own ores and their own blast furnaces. The idea of our own blast furnace in Rosenberg, today's district of Sulzbach-Rosenberg , was born.
First, however, the first puddle steel was produced in the Haidhof plant in 1858. With the purchase of ore fields near Sulzbach from the ore supplier at the time, Count von Poninsky , the foundation stone was practically laid for the development of the Maxhütte in Rosenberg. The ore fields Etzmannsberg, Karoline, St. Anna, St. Georg, Delphin and Eichelberg were bought. The Delphin field was opened up with a shaft in 1895 and at the same time renamed Erzfeld Fromm with the Fromm shaft. The production ran there until 1943.
Rosenberg plant
In August 1861, the Haidhofer Maxhütte acquired a larger area with a limestone quarry opposite the village of Rosenberg and the Rosenberg castle stables along the newly opened Nuremberg-Schwandorf-Regensburg railway line. The price was 15,117.30 guilders. The project was also supported by Theodor von Cramer-Klett , owner of the Maschinenbau Actiengesellschaft Nürnberg (later MAN ). Alongside Gustav von Schlör and Franz Freiherr von Lobkowitz, Cramer-Klett was one of the most important pioneers of the railway in Bavaria. In August 1864 the first blast furnace was put into operation in Rosenberg.
The main factory at that time in Haidhof was gradually expanded, and by 1866 21 double puddle ovens, one single puddle oven and twelve welding ovens were in operation. A single double puddle furnace could produce 600 tons of wrought iron per year, while in Prussia it was only 480 tons. The annual capacity of these 21 double puddle ovens alone was 12,600 tons.
In addition, in 1866 the Stabeisenstraße was expanded. Since the company was founded in 1853 and the initial false start, Maxhütte has developed rapidly and in a very short time became the largest ironworking company in southern Germany. It was also the only manufacturer of crude steel and rolled steel products in northeast Bavaria. At that time, Maxhütte dominated the domestic pig iron market. The around 50 smaller blast furnaces of other entrepreneurs were hardly significant.
In 1867 the newly opened Bohemian Railway made it possible to transport high-quality coal from Bohemia and the local, very moist lignite coal lost its importance. In the same year, in 1867, only 90,000 quintals of Sauforster Lignitz coal were mined, but 671,000 quintals of hard coal from Bohemia were used. In the same year two more welding furnaces were installed.
In 1855, the English invented Henry Bessemer the Bessemer converter , a cylindrical refractory vessel with which the pig iron was converted to steel. Such a Bessemer converter made it possible to produce the same amount of steel in 20 to 30 minutes as a puddle furnace per day. However, the process was very young and knowledge of the metallurgical-chemical processes in the converter was still relatively unknown. The process was further optimized until the 1860s.
The management of the Maxhütte in Haidhof decided to purchase this future-oriented technology despite the technology that was not yet fully marketable. In the spring of 1868 the Bessemer-Hütte was put into operation in Haidhof, which was good for an annual capacity of 4,000 tons of steel. However, the Bavarian State Railways already explicitly requested steel head and all-steel rails made of Bessemer steel in their delivery contracts for 1869 and 1870. Mainly because this steel was much harder and could therefore handle higher loads than the old puddle steel. The railways eventually became heavier and heavier due to their great success. In order to be able to fulfill these supply contracts - the company's own Bessemer steel production had to be further optimized - Bessemerstahl was bought from Osnabrück, among others.
Unterwellenborn plant
In 1868 and 1869 the management decided to purchase the low-phosphorus pig iron, which was urgently needed, from Thuringia . The low-phosphorus ore fields of the United Reviere trade unions near Kamsdorf in Thuringia were then acquired for only 122,000 marks. That this was a very wise decision became apparent just two years later, when competitors offered up to three million marks for these areas. Because of the shortage of ore at the Maxhütte, the state mines in Amberg had to help out for several years. In 1869 there were already 22 double puddle furnaces and 15 welding furnaces, and the heavy iron rolling mill was expanded. In 1870 a further double puddle furnace and an additional welding furnace were added.
In September 1870, the third pig iron blast furnace was put into operation in Rosenberg to meet the requirements of the Haidhofer puddling company. This blast furnace was operated with Saar coke.
In 1872 the Maxhütte (Unterwellenborn) branch in Unterwellenborn in Thuringia was put into operation. The first pig iron blast furnace was blown there on June 10, 1873. Only this pig iron was then taken by train to Haidhof. After installing Bessemer converters in Thuringia, from 1878 the Bessemer steel was transported to Eastern Bavaria and after the construction of a block rolling mill in the Thuringian branch the finished block steel was delivered.
A milestone that should not be underestimated was written in 1874 when the company owners appointed senior engineer Ernst Fromm senior (his son Ernst now also works in the Maxhütte in Haidhof) as general manager. Thanks to their high technical understanding as well as their partly groundbreaking decisions, both Fromms ensured another economic success of the Maxhütte in good time, because the steel business often fluctuated between being ″ cheering heavenly, sad to death ″ due to massive problems that regularly occurred. Both Fromms quickly recognized the importance of the Thomas process , invented in 1876/77 , which was to replace the Bessemer converter in the Maxhütte for a short time.
In 1878, in addition to the umpteen puddling and welding furnaces, Haidhof had three cupolas and two Bessemer pears. In the same year, the rolling mill for the manufacture of long railway sleepers was started up and a new fine iron rolling mill was put into operation.
In the winter of 1880, a modern trio rolling mill for the manufacture of beams started up. The execution of all these new buildings was meanwhile the responsibility of the chief engineer Ernst Fromm junior.
On March 31, 1886, Ernst Fromm senior resigned as head of the Maxhütte and handed this job over to his son, the royal councilor of commerce, Dr. Ing. E. H. Ernst Ritter von Fromm, who was the sole director of Maxhütte until September 30, 1915. Then he became a member of the supervisory board. On January 29, 1917, Fromm junior was entered in the nobility register as ″ Knight of ″.
The Thomas process prevailed in the Rosenberg plant since 1889. This meant that the puddling process in Haidhof was coming to an end. The focus of steel production was now in Rosenberg. The Bessemer process also came to an end, so that Haidhof temporarily abandoned mild steel production.
Relocation to Rosenberg
In 1892 the head office moved from Haidhof to Rosenberg. The last rail is rolled in Haidhof on October 13, 1892, but sheet metal continues to be rolled. To compensate for this, the first Siemens-Martin furnace with a capacity of 10 tons was put into operation in February 1893 . This is used to clean pig iron with subsequent steel production. After the liquid steel has solidified in the molds , the ingots / slabs are transported to the rolling mill for further processing.
In 1903 a new rolling mill was built in Haidhof to replace the old one. The same products are made there as on the old one. In 1905 a new fine rolling mill is built and put into operation. At first it was still powered by steam engines, but from 1910 onwards, it was converted to an electric drive.
In 1908 the entire puddling plant was shut down and demolished. In 1911 the first electric sheet rolling mill was built and in 1912 a hot rolling mill was built. In 1913 a second sheet metal line was put into operation. Shortly before the start of the war, 68,700 tons of steel were produced in Haidhof per year, while in the period 1875/1876 it was only around 39,300 tons. Together with Rosenberg, 129,000 tons of steel were produced in this year in 1913/14.
On July 2, 1914, Albert Vogel was appointed technical director at Haidhof. During the First World War, cast steel grenades were manufactured in Haidhof. After the end of the war, the plant was modernized in early 1919. Among other things, a large intermediate rolling mill, a centralized gas generation plant, a modern Siemens-Martin steelworks with three tiltable furnaces, a large gray cast iron foundry and an electrical power station are being built. The latter is heated with raw lignite from Wackersdorfer. In 1918 the Siemens-Martin steelworks in Haidhof had four Siemens-Martin furnaces. Due to the general shortage of coal, the Siemens-Martin plant could only be operated on 14 days in 1919.
Röchling era - the founding families are stepping back
In 1921, the Maxhütte therefore acquired the majority of the Mont-Cenis coal mine in Westphalia and thus secured a good supply of coal. This purchase was made possible because on April 7, 1921 Hermann Röchling acquired 50% of the share capital of Maxhütte. In advance, in 1917, he bought the Mont Cenis mine. A Belgian group of companies acquired around a third of the share capital. On the same day (April 7, 1921), the previous supervisory board members Hugo Ritter and Edler von Maffei as well as Dr. Ing. E. H. Ernst Ritter von Fromm returns. This ended the founding era.
In 1925 the fine line was converted from 1905. The bar mill was extensively modernized with the installation of the new medium and fine lines, the associated new pusher furnaces, the necessary finishing and the construction of two large shipping halls. While up to now the main focus was on bar and shaped iron, the production of thin sheets, in particular stamped and dynamo sheets, is becoming more and more important. In addition, a modern Siemens Martin plant with three tiltable 30-tonne ovens, a side scrap yard, magnetic cranes, two electric loading cranes in the oven hall, a pouring crane and several work cranes will go into operation.
Era flick
On September 29, 1929, Friedrich Flick bought the share package from the Röchling concern and that of the Belgian group of companies. In 1931 the Maxhütte and Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke companies were expanded into the holding company Charlottenhütte AG. At that time the Maxhütte (MH) works in Rosenberg, Haidhof, the Fronberg ironworks, the pits in Auerbach and Sulzbach-Rosenberg and the works in Unterwellenborn and the Thuringian ore mines belonged to them.
After the Second World War, the Allies threatened dismantling of the Haidhof ironworks with the support of the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs . In addition, the Free State of Bavaria granted Friedrich Flick - or his deputy Konrad Kaletsch , who was acquitted in the Nuremberg trials on December 22, 1947 - a loan of DM 20 million in 1951 and received in return 26% of the Maxhütten shares. In 1954/55 the Free State of Bavaria returned this share package to Flick for ″ only ″ DM 33 million.
On September 26, 1953, the Maxhütte celebrated its 100th anniversary in the congress hall of the Deutsches Museum in Munich .
In 1962 the cold rolling mill in Haidhof was put into operation (for continuous bar and reinforcing steel production) and in the early 1970s (from 1971) steel production was concentrated on Rosenberg. For this reason, the Siemens-Martin steelworks in Haidhof was closed in 1971. This was the beginning of the end of the Haidhof plant.
The Klöckner era
After Friedrich Flick died on July 20, 1972, the entire Maxhütte was sold to the Klöckner Group on August 17, 1976 for DM 270 million in a "night and fog" campaign . This earned the new owner substantial public subsidies . In the steel crisis that was taking place at the time, these subsidies and the resulting synergy effects were very welcome.
In 1978 the foundry and rolling mill I at the Haidhof plant were shut down.
Bankruptcy 1987 to 1990
On the night of September 30 to October 1, 1985, the Maxhütten board sold the cold rolling mill in Haidhof to the main owner, Klöckner-Werke. This whole process was a big political issue, it was - besides cash - among other things about steel quotas. On March 31, 1987, the last shift took place in the cold rolling mill there. On April 16, 1987, the entire Maxhütte went bankrupt (total workforce: 4,500 employees). On June 30, 1990, the Maxhütte-Haidhof plant was finally shut down.
Use of the former Maxhütten area
The Mittelstandszentrum Maximilianshütte GmbH has been located on the Maxhütten area (Hüttenstrasse 1, 93142 Maxhütte-Haidhof) since March 14, 1997. The shareholders are the district of Schwandorf and the cities of Maxhütte-Haidhof, Teublitz and Burglengenfeld.
The company Läpple Automotive (part of the town of Teublitz), which is located on the former Maxhütten site, produces body components and systems for the automotive industry on around 400,000 square meters. Among other things, doors, rear, front, roof and side parts are mainly made of sheet metal for mid-range and upper-class vehicles as well as for sports cars, but also for commercial vehicles. The company is a subsidiary of Läpple AG in Heilbronn .
literature
- Stefan Helml: The Maxhütte: Mining in Sulzbach-Rosenberg and Auerbach. Otto Wirth publishing house, Amberg
- Thilo Krieger: 100 years of the Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft Maximilianshütte. 1853-1953. Sulzbach-Rosenberg, self-published
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 12 '26.5 " N , 12 ° 5' 16.8" E