Machine and fittings factory Steinle & Hartung

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Factory entrance, Klopstockweg 10 (right) and 12, behind that factory building (1950)
Equipment designer Werner Müller with a sample of a new milk flow meter, next to it the previous meter (1961)
Factory building behind the factory entrance (2012)
Klopstockweg 10 (2012)
Klopstockweg 12 (2012)
Klopstockweg, from the former production building to the national tax office (2017)
Refurbished factory owner's villa at Stresemannstrasse 8 (2017)
Mertik Maxitrol Thale, front view
Mertik Maxitrol Thale, assembly area
Gas fireplace with remote control The Puck by Mertik Maxitrol
Symax remote control from Mertik Maxitrol for gas fires
Gas valve from Mertik Maxitrol, product GV60 for gas fires

The machine and fittings factory Steinle & Hartung was a fittings factory in Quedlinburg in Saxony-Anhalt . The factory was the largest company in town. The partially preserved building complex is a listed building . The company's line of tradition is continued today by the company Mertik Maxitrol, based in Thale in the Harz district .

location

The historic factory is located at Klopstockweg 10 in the Quedlinburg district of Süderstadt, south of Quedlinburg city center, on the back of the train station . Today's company is located at Warnstedter Straße 3 in Thale .

Company history and architecture

The company was founded on April 1st, 1877 by the engineer Otto Steinle and the businessman Hermann Hartung . Initially 14 employees were employed and fittings and measuring devices for steam engines and steam boilers were produced. From this point on, the buildings, some of which still exist today, were built on the former premises. The street-side residential and administrative buildings were designed in the neo -baroque style. The manufacturing buildings to the south of this are today (as of 2012) mostly in a ruinous condition. The facility is entered in the Quedlinburg monument register.

Steinle received his first patent in 1878 for an indirect speed controller. Initially, valves, pumps and caps were designed and built for the construction of locomotive engines. At least from 1886 steam pumps , pressure regulators , remote thermometers , pyrometers , lubricators and mercury thermometers were manufactured. In 1892 the production of pressure gauges started . In 1898 the company had around 200 employees, including many mechanics and locksmiths. Herrmann Hartung left the company that year and founded a similar plant in the Rhineland . Before 1900, the factory had its own foundry and model carpentry .

Steam drainage devices, water level indicators and draft meters were built from 1900, steam pipes in 1902. In 1903 a patent was obtained for a valve that shuts off automatically in the event of a pipe burst. Around 1900 the building of temperature controls started. On May 22, 1908, a new patent was applied for, which was of particular importance for the development of the company. The patent comprised a capillary tube system filled with a liquid / gas mixture, which avoided the temperature inaccuracies of the previously used method.

In the period after the First World War , the company ran into financial difficulties, as the company owner had suffered significant financial losses in speculative transactions. In 1936 only 175 people were employed. The new pneumatics technology that then emerged offered the company new opportunities. After just three years, the number of employees had risen to 234. In addition to pneumatic equipment, the production of electrical measuring devices had also started. During the Second World War , the company was active as a supplier for the armaments industry. 500 people worked in the plant, including prisoners of war from Belgium , France and Italy .

On August 1, 1946, the company was converted into a Soviet joint-stock company and became the property of the Soviet Union . It belonged to the Soviet stock corporation for device construction Pribor - branch office Germany . In 1946 the bronze Quedlinburg Victory Monument was melted down in the factory . In 1950 the factory was transferred to the GDR as the Quedlinburg measuring device factory .

The company then became a state-owned company and continued as VEB Mertik . From 1953 to 1964, new production buildings in reinforced concrete frame construction were built for the plant in the area between Klopstockweg and the station area. Around 2,600 people worked in the company, around 2,200 of them in Quedlinburg. Until the 1960s, a large part of the machines operated in the plant were driven by means of transmission belts from a steam engine from the time before the First World War. This facility was scrapped in 1972.

The product range was extensive and included products for different industries. An important area was the supply to the vehicle industry. So were tachograph , cooling water thermometer and thermostat, oil pressure gauge and speedometer manufactured. Another focus was on components for refrigeration technology . In addition to pressure and differential pressure switches and temperature switches, thermostatic injection valves and injection valves for refrigerants were also manufactured. The corrugated metal hoses and metal bellows (corrugated pipes) required for production were specially developed in the factory and manufactured in-house.

Other products were various pressure and temperature controllers, level controllers , pneumatic controllers , fall strap controllers and electric display and recording devices. Controllers for heating systems were manufactured in very large numbers. Also thermostats for refrigeration units, controls for washing machines and controls for gas heater constitute a larger part of the production volume.

The production took place partly as assembly line production . Parts of the production were outsourced to other companies in the course of time.

In 1971 a hall made of aluminum was built for the turning shop . Between 1975 and 1978, a seven-storey high-rise was built as a production building for operations on Quedlinburger Klopstockweg. In 1977 an air dome was set up as a material store on the so-called Brockenblick. In 1982 a large hall was built on Jungfernhohlweg. A total of 3,500 people were employed in the plant.

In the course of German reunification , Mertik came to the assets that were administered by the Treuhandanstalt . The trust originally planned to liquidate the company at the end of 1991. After nearly two years of negotiations, in 1993 bought Michigan in the United States based business family Koskela parts of the company. On May 1, 1993, since 1990 when it was Mertik Control Engineering GmbH managed company reorganized as Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG , based in Thale continued. Larry C. Koskela became managing director , and Mertik Gerd Möhring's graduate engineer and former chief technologist acted as his authorized signatory . Starting in 1993, the manufacture of products that did not belong to the core area of ​​business was gradually abandoned. The production of washing machine controls, industrially used pressure and temperature switches , thermal control devices for shipping companies and district heating as well as radiator thermostats was discontinued.

The Koskela family moved to Thale from the USA. In the valley one was new building built and inaugurated in November 1997th

Together with the USA partner company Maxitrol Company , the company is one of the world market leaders in the field of certain devices in the gas sector. Gas multiple control devices, gas pressure regulators , electronic gas modulation devices, gas filters , gas sockets , gas-water fittings and gas safety products are produced. The company has 250 patents in 30 countries. 80% of sales are exported to 45 countries. The company has offices in Senden, Westphalia , Southfield , Michigan, USA, and Abercynon , UK .

Today (as of 2016) around 170 people are employed in the company in Thale. The turnover is around 17 million euros, around 80% of which is achieved outside Germany through high exports . The company continues to be active in product development and holds more than 250 patents. Around 15% of the workforce is employed in research and development .

literature

  • Werner Kriesel : ursastat - measuring sensor with relay output (relay transmitter) and regulator without auxiliary energy (direct regulator). In: H. Haas, E. Bernicke, H. Fuchs, G. Obenhaus (general editor): ursamat-Handbuch. published by the Institute for Automatic Control Berlin. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1969.
  • Heinz Töpfer , Werner Kriesel: Small automation through devices without auxiliary energy. (= Automation technology. Volume 173). Verlag Technik, Berlin 1976. (2nd edition 1978)
  • Heinz Töpfer, Werner Kriesel: Functional units without auxiliary energy. In: Functional units of automation technology - electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic. Verlag Technik, Berlin and VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977. (4th edition. 1983, ISBN 3-341-00290-1 )
  • Werner Kriesel, Hans Rohr, Andreas Koch: History and future of measurement and automation technology. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-18-150047-X .
  • Werner Kriesel: Automatic Museum in Leipzig. In: Association of German Engineers, VDI / VDE-GMA (Hrsg.): Yearbook 1997 VDI / VDE-Gesellschaft Mess- und Automatisierungstechnik. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1997, ISBN 3-18-401611-0 .
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments of Saxony-Anhalt (Ed.): List of monuments in Saxony-Anhalt. Volume 7: Falko Grubitzsch, with the participation of Alois Bursy, Mathias Köhler, Winfried Korf, Sabine Oszmer, Peter Seyfried and Mario Titze: Quedlinburg district. Volume 1: City of Quedlinburg. Fly Head Verlag, Halle 1998, ISBN 3-910147-67-4 , p. 152.
  • Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 444 ff.

Web links

Commons : VEB Meßgerätewerk Quedlinburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 445.
  2. ^ Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 445 ff.
  3. ^ Manfred Mittelstaedt: Quedlinburg. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2003, ISBN 3-89702-560-4 , p. 105.
  4. ^ Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 446.
  5. ^ Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 446.
  6. ^ Bonnie Kern-Koskela, Larry C. Koskela, Gerd Möhring, Klaus Lampe, Melanie Zeiger: Mertik Maxitrol GmbH & Co. KG, Thale. In: Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Verlag Delta-D, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 , p. 447.

Coordinates: 51 ° 47 '0.1 "  N , 11 ° 9' 9.5"  E