Ministry of Chemical Industry

Distillation plant in the Leunawerke (1959).

Major construction site Leuna II (1963).

The Ministry of Chemical Industry of the GDR ( MfC ) existed from 1965 to 1989. It was the central guidance and control body for planning and managing the entire chemical industry in the GDR .

history

The predecessor of the Ministry of Chemical Industry was the State Secretariat for Chemistry, Stones and Earths, which was created in November 1951 by splitting up the Ministry of Heavy Industry and was renamed the State Secretariat for Chemistry in April 1953. In November 1953, the State Secretariat was again incorporated into the Ministry of Heavy Industry.

After the SAG operations - including those of the chemical industry - had been returned to the GDR by the Soviet Union on January 1, 1954 , the Ministry of Heavy Industry became the Ministry of Ore Mining, Metallurgy and Potash , the Ministry of Coal and energy as well as the Ministry of Chemical Industry. However, these ministries were later incorporated into the GDR's Economics Council .

After the dissolution of the National Economic Council at the end of 1965, the MfC was re-established. It existed until the resignation of the Council of Ministers headed by Willi Stoph on November 7, 1989. Subsequently, its tasks were carried out again by a Ministry for Heavy Industry. At the end of the 1980s, the chemical industry in the GDR, with around 18% of gross industrial production, took second place behind the industrial sector of mechanical engineering and vehicle construction.

Especially the Central German area with the so-called chemical triangle Wolfen - Leuna - Bitterfeld was an important production location for the chemical basic industry of the GDR. The largest chemical plant in Europe, consisting of the former -IG Farben -Werken in Bitterfeld emerged Leunawerke and other chemical plants located there were after 1958 by the Central Committee of the SED adopted chemistry program expanded.

The cities of the Central German Chemical Triangle not only developed into important industrial centers in the GDR, but also became the nucleus and decisive starting point for a new “socialist cultural policy”. This is where the Bitterfelder Weg , the circles of writing workers , the workers' festival of the GDR and the brigades of socialist work were brought into being.

The chemical industry's main development areas were mineral oil processing and the manufacture of plastics , synthetic fibers and fertilizers . However, the important potash and rock salt industry was subordinate to the Ministry of Ore Mining, Metallurgy and Potash.

With the change in the use of raw materials from lignite to crude oil , a profound structural change took place in the chemical industry in the GDR in the 1960s. The basis for this structural change was the friendship oil pipeline from the Soviet oil fields to Schwedt, Leuna and Böhlen , which was built in 1959 .

Entrance to the VEB Petrolchemisches Kombinat (PCK) in Schwedt (1979)

In the 1970s, considerable sums of money were invested in new chemical plants and capacity expansion in the GDR, so that oil processing rose to 22 million tons in 1980. When the Soviet Union significantly reduced oil deliveries, for which prices were below world market levels, from 1982 onwards, this reduction hit the chemical industry and the entire GDR economy hard.

Subordinate combines

The following 16 centrally managed combines were subordinate to the MfC:

• VEB Chemieanlagenbaukombinat , Leipzig - Grimma
• VEB chemical fiber combine "Wilhelm Pieck", Schwarza
• VEB Chemical Combine Bitterfeld
• VEB Chemical Works Buna , Schkopau
• VEB Fotochemisches Kombinat , Wolfen
• VEB Leuna-Werke "Walter Ulbricht" , Leuna
• VEB Kombinat Agrochemie , Piesteritz
• VEB Kombinat Lacke und Farben, Berlin
• VEB Kombinat Minol , Berlin
• VEB Kombinat Plast- und Elastverarbeitung, Berlin
• VEB Kombinat synthesis plant "Walter Ulbricht" , Schwarzheide
• VEB Cosmetics Combine, Berlin
• VEB Pharmaceutical Combine GERMED , Dresden
• VEB Petrolchemisches Kombinat , Schwedt / Oder
• VEB tire combine , Fürstenwalde
• VEB Kombinat Zellstoff und Papier, Heidenau .

minister

• Werner Winkler (SED, 1956–1958)
• Siegbert Löschau (SED, 1965–1966)
• Günther Wyschofsky (SED, 1966–1989)

State Secretaries

Period	Surname	Political party
1951-1953	Dirk van Rickelen	SED
1953-1956	Werner Winkler	SED
1956-1958	Hans Adler	SED
1965-1969	Karl-Heinz Schäfer	SED
1969-1975	Karl Kaiser	SED
1975-1989	Guido Quaas	SED
1977-1983	Hans-Joachim Kozyk	SED
1985-1989	Siegfried Hanne	SED

literature

• Ursula Hoffmann: The changes in the social structure of the Council of Ministers of the GDR 1949-1969 . Droste, Düsseldorf 1971, p. 104.
• Federal Ministry of the Interior (ed.): GDR manual . 3rd and exp. Ed. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1984, p. 901.
• Andreas Herbst , Winfried Ranke and Jürgen Winkler (eds.): This is how the GDR worked . Volume 2: Lexicon of Organizations and Institutions . Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag 1994, p. 665f.