Central German steelworks

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Share over RM 100 in Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke AG from January 1927

The Central German steel plants AG (1926 until 1945), also known as medium-section known in Riesa , later in Berlin were a steelworks conglomerate, which for most of the time owned by Friedrich Flick was.

history

After Friedrich Flick had bought a steel empire in Siegerland around the Charlottenhütte , he attacked the Ruhr steel barons August Thyssen and Peter Klöckner head-on in 1918 by buying up shares in the Ruhrzeche Königsborn and shares in the iron works in Geisweid . The two Ruhr steel barons August Thyssen and Peter Klöckner and shortly thereafter Otto Wolff defended themselves successfully and forced Friedrich Flick to sell these shares.

After this defeat, Friedrich Flick decided to buy steel companies and smelters in what was then Central Germany and in Upper Silesia . In the early 1920s he bought large shares in Bismarckhütte (in the summer of 1920), Kattowitzer AG for mining and ironworks (late 1921) and Oberschlesischen Eisenindustrie AG .

As early as June 13, 1922, the general assembly of AG Lauchhammer decided to merge the company with Linke-Hofmann-Werke in Breslau to form Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer AG with its headquarters in Breslau. In 1926, the stock corporation for metallurgical industry in Berlin, which was owned by Friedrich Flick, acquired several plants from Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer AG. These takeovers took place with the secret support of the commercial director Möller of the Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer-Werke in Saxony .

United steel mills

In 1926 there was a sales crisis in the German steel industry. As a result, the largest steel bosses merged their companies and founded the United Steel Works AG (short: Steel Association). This new large stock corporation owned 50 percent of the steel and 20 percent of the coal capacities in Germany as a whole . Flick also brought part of his operating facilities, only the Charlottenhütte remained in his private ownership.

In November 1926, the group around the Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer-Werke and the joint stock company for the metallurgical industry was renamed Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke AG (Mittelstahl for short) with its headquarters in Riesa . On March 13, 1931, the company's headquarters were relocated from Riesa to Berlin, as the stock exchange as well as the main banks, politicians and parties were located there. With the help of Danat-Bank , Flick or his holding company Charlottenhütte then acquires the majority of the shares in Gelsenkirchener Bergwerksgesellschaft and Phoenix AG (both founding groups of the “Stahlverein”) and Flick brings the “Stahlverein” itself, the most important European coal and steel company, under its own Control.

Maxhütte

On September 29, 1929, the Charlottenhütte took over the majority of the Maxhütte and thus secured strategically important ore deposits. In 1930, Flick separates the majority of shares in Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke from United Steelworks. The Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke (Mittelstahl for short) are acquired by Maxhütte in Rosenberg, Bavaria, with its Thuringian subsidiary Unterwellenborn and then passed on to the Charlottenhütte. In addition, Flick acquired the majority of the Bautzener Waggon- und Maschinenfabrik .

National Socialism

After long negotiations over several years, the Central German steel plants on 20 May 1933 bought on the participation Maximilianshütte the General transportation equipment company (ATG), which emerged after the First World War from the German aircraft factories. In March 1933, the National Socialists and their allies were given power through the Enabling Act ( Hitler's cabinet , consisting of the NSDAP , DNVP and Stahlhelm ). Because of this, in April 1933, Flick sent Heinrich Koppenberg , then chairman of the supervisory board of Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke , to the Reich Ministry of Aviation . There he was promised larger jobs. In December 1937 the establishment of the Luftwaffe was decided and the ATG, which belongs to Mittelstahl, received the first orders for the construction of aircraft. In March 1934 orders were placed for the manufacture of bombs, grenades and ammunition. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 forced laborers were employed in the Flick Group during the war.

In 1934, Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke AG became a member of the "compulsory community in the lignite industry" and thus a founding company of BRABAG . In the same year, the Siegener Eisenindustrie AG (including the former Charlottenhütte) was transferred to the companies Mittelstahl, Maxhütte and Harpener Bergbau AG .

On July 10, 1937, the headquarters of the group was transferred to the private company Mitteldeutsche Stahl- und Walzwerke Friedrich Flick limited partnership (Friedrich Flick KG for short) and Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke AG was converted into a GmbH. At that time, 85,000 people were employed in the group. The Mittelstahl-Maxhütte group was the third largest crude steel producer in the National Socialist German Reich in the mid-1930s, after the Stahlverein and Krupp . In addition to the East German plants in Brandenburg / Havel, Groditz, Hennigsdorf near Berlin, Lauchhammer, Riesa and Freital, the Upper Silesian holdings were also part of the Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke group.

In the course of the founding of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring (1937), Flick had to give up some of the ore mines of the Maxhütte and the Harpener Bergbau AG . In return, Flick was able to acquire the lignite mines from the Petschek family from Prague through two shops in Anhalt and Lower Lusatia . Since it was a question of Jews, these sales by the Petschek family were not entirely voluntary. Like all large steel companies, the Central German steelworks were also heavily integrated into production and armament by the German Reich under the National Socialists ( NSDAP ). The owner Friedrich Flick also actively promoted this. As early as 1934 Friedrich Flick joined Heinrich Himmler's "Friends of the Reichsführer SS" . Its members support Himmler at the interface between the private sector and the state. Friedrich Flick donated around 100,000 marks annually to this association. And in 1937 he joined the NSDAP.

post war period

After the end of the Second World War, numerous steel and rolling mills of the Central German Steelworks were largely dismantled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . In the course of the following years (from 1947), some of these steel and rolling mills were rebuilt as state-owned enterprises ( VEB ) in the GDR . During the GDR era, the Riesa steelworks alone, with 13,000 employees, was the largest metallurgical combine in this republic.

After reunification on October 3, 1990, parts of the former Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke such as Brandenburger Elektrostahlwerke GmbH (BES) and Hennigsdorfer Elektrostahlwerke GmbH (HES) were sold to the Italian Riva Group in May 1992 by the Treuhandanstalt in Berlin following a public bidding process .

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