Blankenberg paper mill
The Blankenberg paper mill is now a museum in Blankenberg with the name Alte Papierfabrik Blankenberg . The address is Issigauer Strasse 22. Until December 1993, the paper mill was used for production. At that time, the factory was part of the Rosenthal pulp and paper factory in Blankenstein. From 2001 to November 2008 the museum was in private hands and then became the property of the municipality.
History 1371-1893
A mill was mentioned in a document at this location as early as 1371. When Emperor Charles IV and his son Wenzel bought the Blankenberg fortress from the bailiffs of Gera on March 23, the mill was expressly highlighted among other things. This is the water mill, which is still marked on a map from 1757, but no longer exists today. On the mentioned map there is also a paper mill which was owned by the paper merchant Johann Wolfgang Rahm from 1784 onwards. According to unconfirmed information, this should have existed around 1700 as a grinding mill and shortly after 1730 as a paper mill. Around 1787 the paper miller Adam Erdmann Flinsch leased it and shortly afterwards he bought the paper mill. Ferdinand Traugott Flinsch introduced machine paper production in Blankenberg in 1843 .
Takeover by the Wiede family from 1894–1900
The Flinsch brothers were the owners until 1894. On December 6, 1894, the plant was sold to Gotthelf Anton Wiede , the owner of the Wiedes paper mill in Rosenthal in neighboring Blankenstein . The purchase consisted of a paper factory with accessories, forest, meadows and fields and the old Katzenhammer hammer mill together with the residential house and stable buildings and the village house no. 102. The manor house with garden and an 80 hectare forest on the Bavarian side was added. In 1899 the Wolfstein was added with its own hunting rights.
Since the paper mill had no rail connection and the transport of dishes to Marxgrün via Issigau was very costly, a field railway was moved along the Saale to the main Rosenthal plant in Blankenstein. The road to Blankenberg had to be tunnelled and a bridge built over the Saale. The truck carts for the delivery of pulp, ground wood, kaolin, glue, alum, coal and other materials to the Blankenberg paper factory and the return of the finished paper to the main Rosenthal factory in Blankenstein were pulled by horses. This is why this route is called the “horse-drawn railway”.
The whole of 1895 passed with the expansion of the Blankenberg paper mill. The existing paper machine with a working width of 1.50 m, imported from England in 1841, was made more efficient by adding several drying cylinders and expanding the wire section . The paper machine was driven by a steam engine. The Katzenhammer accessory was expanded in such a way that from this time on, photographic cardboard boxes were produced on a cardboard machine with round sieves. The freight volumes increased enormously.
On July 14, 1897, Blankenstein received a standard-gauge railway connection from Triptis via Lobenstein . In 1901 this line was connected to the Marxgrün train station through the Höllental , so that from now on goods could be loaded directly to the south and north without transporting crockery. The horse tram Blankenstein-Blankenberg continued to be operated with horses.
In April 1899 the youngest son of the owner, Dr. Fritz Wiede, from Munich to Rosenthal and in 1901 moved into the manor house of the Blankenberg paper mill. From then on, he took care of the technology of production - especially in the chemical field. From this time onwards, base paper was produced in the Blankenberg paper factory and coated with colors made of glossy white, Blancefixe, kaolin and other substances in the coating shop. Casein (cheese made from milk) and limolin ( potato starch ) served as binding agents . The end product was colored coated paper, which was then smoothed on a calender .
The new paper machine 1900–1945
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To meet the demand for the paper was at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 a paper machine of Maschinenfabrik H. Füllner from Warmbrunn buy / Silesia and, up to 1909 at the present site. The new machine consisted of a sand trap, three slowly rotating cylinder molds to trap knots, a headbox, a wire section with register rollers, a suction cup and five flat suction cups and a suction roller. The endless wire was 2.25 meters wide and 25 meters long. The screen material consisted of phosphor bronze. The machine also consisted of three wet presses, one of which was a reversing press. A dryer section with four dryer groups, a dampening machine, an after-dryer, a cooling cylinder, a calendering unit (calender) and a reeling device completed the machine. In order to achieve stepless control of the entire machine, it was driven by a direct current motor. All machines were driven by transmissions, flat belts and a steel belt. A steam engine with a generator generated the electricity required. From 1939/40 onwards, the electricity was supplied via a Blankenstein power grid. The steam engine then only served as an emergency supply. The emergency power for the lighting was generated by a water turbine in the underwater trench. Up to the end of the Second World War, around 130 men and women were employed in this factory.
New beginning after 1945
After the end of the war, the arduous new beginning began, the owner Wiede was expropriated. The factory was restarted in 1947 as a state-owned company . The paper mill escaped dismantling by the Soviet occupying forces because the technical equipment was considered obsolete. Post-war production began with writing and printing paper, natural art printing and packing paper. This branch of production was discontinued after eight years. Then the manufacture of parchment base paper began. This was the basic material for real parchment, which was manufactured in the main Rosental plant. This served in the GDR as sandwich and margarine wrapping paper.
End of paper production
Daily production increased to around 30 tons by 1993. New types of pulp with high tensile strength were used, and the sorting and processing of the material were also changed. After the initial expansion of the products, only parchment base paper and printing paper were produced until the closure in 1993.
Monument protection and conservation
After the shutdown, partial demolition began. The former papermaker Werner Langheinrich, Blankenstein , tried to keep this factory. Ultimately, appeals worked. The demolition was stopped and the factory was listed on September 16, 1994, only to be handed over to TLG Treuhand Liegenschafts GmbH on October 8, 1997. In 1998, this commissioned the Industrial Archeology Association, which took over the conservation of the paper machine until 2001.
completion
Treuhand Liegenschafts GmbH was now looking for an operator and found it after a long search. Hans-Joachim Landsberg and his two sons Cornelius Landsberg and Markus Meltzer, together with an operator for the hydropower plant who submitted the complete purchase price, took over the old Blankenberg paper mill in December 1999. In September 2000, they founded the Association of Association of Independent Craftsmen e. V. and transferred to this association, which took over the maintenance of the listed old paper mill Blankenberg and was supposed to set up a functional exhibition for "touching and participating" in the field of paper production, craft and industry. In 2000 and 2001 the factory was open to the public again. Since the beginning of 2005, the paper machine can be viewed on request.
Handmade paper production from 2006
In November 2006 members of the IGUH e. V. first attempts to make paper again. Since the beginning of 2007, handmade paper and the so-called Blankenberg hearts have been continuously produced in small editions.
Monument status
In the summer of 2006, the remaining monument status of the historically valuable and well worth preserving Fourdrinier paper machine and the so-called Gotha tax rate were revoked.
Takeover by the municipality of Blankenberg
With the revocation of the monument status, real estate tax for the years 2000–2008 is now to be paid retrospectively by the property owner for the entire property. Neither the owner nor the association can raise this considerable burden. Therefore, a notarial contract for the takeover of the old paper mill Blankenberg is concluded between the community of Blankenberg and the Landsberg / Meltzer family. Both sides agree that the historical paper machine and the historical tax rate will be preserved for posterity. So the years of struggle of the Landsberg / Meltzer family and the IGUH eV to keep this fourdrinier paper machine, which incidentally will be 100 years old in 2009, ultimately led to success in a roundabout way.
demolition
Since the end of production after the fall of the Wall, there was no sustainable use concept for the factory site. Urgent maintenance measures were not carried out. This led to an increasing deterioration of the building fabric. Large parts of the building ensemble, including the painting, could not be preserved. Since March 2009, the ailing parts of the building have been torn down and the remaining parts have been repaired by the Blankenberg community.
Web links
- Markus Meltzer: History of the Blankenberg paper mill ( Memento from October 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 50 ° 23 ′ 57.3 " N , 11 ° 42 ′ 58.7" E