Reichsschwefelwerk
The Reichsschwefelwerk , in some documents also called S-Fabrik Neckarzimmern or Es-Fabrik Neckarzimmern , in Haßmersheim , today in the Neckar-Odenwald district in Baden-Württemberg , was built during the First World War to obtain the sulfur required for the regional gypsum deposits to win the war-essential explosives and ammunition industry. Most of the facility, which was largely dismantled after the war, is still the so-called old malt house .
history
prehistory
After Italy acceded to the Entente and Austria-Hungary declared war, Germany was largely cut off from the war-important sulfur imports from Italy and Spain in 1915 . Therefore, as part of the “Raw Material of German Gypsum” project, the Army Command planned the construction of a Reichsschwefelwerk in the vicinity of larger gypsum deposits, where the sulfur urgently needed for ammunition production was to be obtained chemically. In January 1914, BASF acquired the gypsum tunnel in Neckarzimmern to set up ammonium nitrate production . In addition, BASF bought the right to exploit the gypsum deposits under the neighboring Haßmersheim community forest in the direction of Hüffenhardt for 22,000 marks. Another large gypsum deposit was in the neighboring village of Obrigheim . So the choice of location for the construction of the Reichsschwefelwerk fell on Haßmersheim . It should be up and running within six months.
Construction of the facility
There is no known official contract between the Reich Treasury and BASF for the construction and operation of the plant. Nevertheless, there is a paper, possibly a draft, in which BASF is named as the builder and operator. The land was made available by the tax authorities, who also took over the costs of around 60 million marks. It was also regulated that production should be stopped when peace was made. It can also be seen from the paper that BASF will be reimbursed the cost plus 10 percent for operating the plant and that the tax authorities will assume all recourse claims that arise from operating the plant.
In the autumn of 1916, BASF began building a plant designed for a monthly production of 5,000 tons of sulfur on almost 30 hectares and around 1.5 km along the Neckar. a. on the site of today's company Fibro GmbH . The gypsum and anhydrite deposits were to be processed in this sulfur factory. 2500 people managed to build it, according to some sources even more. In addition to German specialists, prisoners of war from France, Belgium and Russia were also used for this purpose. A large barracks settlement was built next to the plant (on the site of today's housing estate north of the Alte Mälzerei) for employees and prisoners of war, who were also used in the gypsum gallery in Neckarzimmern on the other side of the Neckar , which was also operated by BASF from 1914 . The population of Haßmersheim jumped from around 2000 to 4013 people.
Large parts of the plant were designed and built by DEMAG Duisburg , for example the ten blast furnaces and boiler systems. On the river side of the plant, extensive rail shunting systems and a locomotive shed for the shunting locomotive were built. To connect with the tunnel, a railway bridge ("BASF Bridge or Russen Bridge") was built over the Neckar in 1917. At least in part, this bridge consisted of a bridge that had previously been captured and dismantled in Russia . Her left head was directly opposite the Steinbach Valley, which flowed into the other bank, and she ran roughly from south to north; the Neckar, flowing here to the northwest, was spanned at an angle. The new Haßmersheim branch line connected to the main line following the right bank of the Neckar, about 200 m down the valley from the northern bridgehead.
A cable car was to be used to transport raw gypsum from the Karl-Stollen (on the site of today's cement works) to the silo facility (today's old malt house). Another cable car, which appears in old documents as a cable crane , went over the Neckar at the height of today's gypsum works in Neckarzimmern. It is not entirely clear what the task was, but it was probably used to transport the raw plaster of paris extracted in Neckarzimmern and to support the ferry, which was also at about the same height at the time.
After several delays, the plant went into operation about three months before the end of the war and, in addition to sulfur, produced all sorts of undesirable by-products.
According to operations manager Goebel, 300 people should be employed for sulfur production. In peacetime the number of employees should drop to 50 people.
Versailles Peace Treaty
In newspapers from that time on it was always read that according to the Versailles Treaty and under the supervision of the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission, the plant had to be dismantled. In some cases it was also reported that the plant was blown up in 1919/1920 (in the 1920s it was often referred to as a landscape of rubble).
In more recent publications, however, it is sometimes doubted that the dismantling of the plant was in connection with the Versailles treaty. Among other things, this is justified by the fact that although the site was confiscated for war purposes, production was to be stopped immediately at the end of the war, the planning and organization were the responsibility of the War Ministry and the Reich Treasury financed the plant, it was a purely "civil" project. It is also stated that there is no reference to this in the Versailles Peace Treaty. The only known mention of the factory with this contract in the archive material is said to have been due to two generators from the manufacturer Siemens confiscated in Lodz , which were in operation in Haßmersheim until 1918. They were originally owned by Jakob Kestenberg and JK Poznanski AG. After several unsuccessful requests from Poland to return these, a French war indemnity representative appeared. Despite the agreed and paid compensation of 31,174 marks, on March 6, 1921, a request for shipment from Poland was received.
Dismantling and removal
On March 11, 1919, the plant was reported to the Mosbach district office as being closed. The previous authorized signatories, Plant Manager Dr. Goebel, works manager Wolfgang Sturm, Mr. Velle and Mr. Ibsen lost their power of attorney on January 10, 1919 . An expert report by Fritz Haber and Mr. Königsberger, dated June 30, 1919, entitled “Conditions in the Neckarzimmern Sulfur Factory” addressed to the Reich Treasury Department came to the conclusion that sulfur could not be produced without disruption in the intended manner, since it did not succeed to achieve favorable results in a small trial also on a large scale. However, attempts were made to improve the process. A solution was also seen for the resulting slag , it should be used to manufacture cinder blocks according to a method developed by Diehl. As long as these optimization attempts have not been completed, BASF has no interest in producing other chemical products at the site. Operation as a gypsum plant is also not recommended, as there was already an oversupply of gypsum before the war. The facilities are suitable for an ironworks, but since all raw materials have to be delivered, this is viewed as uneconomical. Only the use as a power plant in the overland network was given opportunities.
The entire plant was handed over to DEMAG for recycling on July 30, 1919 by the Reich Ministry of Treasury . For this purpose, DEMAG maintained a department with chief engineer Adolph Frank and Ing.P. Müller, and on the Reich side there was a processing office in Haßmersheim. An account for the dismantling of the blast furnaces dates back to January 16, 1920. Some things were also excluded from the dismantling, such as the barracks. BASF committed itself to leave the things needed for the dismantling on site. There was a dispute about one or more factory locomotives that were “hijacked” to Ludwigshafen. In order to generate steam that was needed for the dismantling, DEMAG received the boiler papers for one of these “hijacked” locomotives. On June 3, 1921, the Reich's settlement center in Haßmersheim was dissolved and the contract concluded between Reich and DEMAG expired on December 1, 1921.
The plant owned by BASF
After both Haßmersheim and Neckarzimmern were interested in the barracks in 1919 to alleviate the housing shortage and BASF bought the administration building for 55,000 marks, removed it and rebuilt it in Ludwigshafen, BASF was also interested in buying the entire facility. There was particular interest in the railway system and engine shed, the cable cars, the Carl Bosch gypsum gallery, the silo construction, the blasting air hall and the electrical equipment. A first offer was increased as early as 1920. On December 10, 1921, the Reich is said to have been ready for sale for 20 million marks, but under the condition that resale was excluded for the next 20 years. According to a newspaper report on March 5, 1922, the sale to BASF is said to have been completed and mining operations resumed, for which 100 workers were hired. An electricity supply contract was signed with Neckar AG on November 17, 1921. In order to be able to generate this electricity, however, three million marks had to be invested beforehand.
On May 7, 1925, newspapers said that the sulfur works would be resumed and that this would create 60-100 jobs. In a correction of this report on November 14, 1925, it was stated that the start of operations was not correct. On April 22, 1926, it was read that the plant was going back into full operation to manufacture valuable chemical products in the remaining facilities and buildings. On request, the mining office in Karlsruhe reported on June 8, 1926 that an area of 23 hectares and the facilities on it would be needed for the operation of the gypsum works in Neckarzimmern. Also in 1926, the municipality of Haßmersheim wanted to bring the plant together in a cadastre, which BASF refused with reference to leased areas. In 1927 there was talk of a demolished facility and in 1929 the district office in Mosbach spoke of a "sulfuric acid factory" due to a request for support from the municipality of Haßmersheim for the intended purchase (at 0.15 marks per square meter) of the area. In 1939 the Wehrmacht finally declared the site to be an alternative area for productions .
In the past few years there has also been interest from various companies in parts of the site. For example the clothing store Levy, Siegelsche Schuhfabrik and others. However, the inquiries with various reasons were always answered negatively.
Second World War
During the Second World War, buildings and the site were used again. The silo and the halls served as material stores. A ball bearing factory from Schweinfurt was moved to the plaster works below the Hornberg, and more barracks for prisoners of war and foreign workers were built on the Haßmersheim site. The Wehrmacht also planned to set up a connecting line between the army ammunition facility in Siegelsbach and the Neckarzimmern ammunition store located in the gypsum tunnels over the existing railway bridge, but the project did not come to fruition. In March 1945 the retreating SS completely destroyed the railway bridge, which had already been bombed at the time, by blowing it up. Towards the end of the war, a high pressure research center was relocated from Ludwigshafen to Haßmersheim. The pressure required for this was generated by a Belgian steam locomotive which, after the railway bridge had been blown up, could no longer be returned.
After the Second World War
As early as 1946, the municipality of Haßmersheim wanted to have the blown railway bridge repaired. However, since the property of IG-Farben , to which BASF also belonged at the time, was confiscated by the Allies , this was not possible. From 1948 there was interest on the part of various companies, including VW , in settling in Haßmersheim. However, no settlement came about because of the defective bridge.
From 1950, BASF is considering selling the site. Reasons for this were the no longer existing connection to the rail network, because of the blown railway bridge and the bad reputation of BASF in the region. According to various letters from BASF between 1951 and 1955, it only wants to sell the area in full. The silo was then sold to the Kwasny malt factory in 1956. At the same time, the remaining area is sold to the community of Haßmersheim for 150,000 DM. Payment was made in three installments, financed with the help of the Baden municipal state bank.
In the 60s of the last century the still existing chimneys of the blast furnaces were removed and the remains of the railway bridge were removed. On July 14, 1962, the two chimneys that the vernacular called Lange Lulatsche von Haßmersheim were blown up . The large chimney had a height of 120 m and a circumference of 28.8 m with a weight of 4500 t, the small one was only 90 m high and weighed 2300 t. In order to set up the Fibro company on a 13 hectare site, further remains were blown up and removed on a large scale. In 1963 Haßmersheim sells further parts of the area to the building cooperative "Mein Heim" in Mosbach and to the industrial company Emil Wagner in Heilbronn . The massive concrete bases of blast furnaces and similar structures, the so-called "Ice Palace", were only removed in 1999/2000 in order to make space for further industrial settlements. Today only a few buildings or remains of buildings can be seen of the former industrial complex next to the old malt house , which was once built as a silo building, and the explosive air hall. Most of the once extensive track systems were also dismantled and some of them filled in.
Karl studs
As early as 1913, BASF began drilling test holes in search of gypsum deposits in Haßmersheim and neighboring Hüffenhardt . The Carl Bosch tunnel was then developed at one of the four deposits found and considered to be worthwhile. A cable car led from this tunnel to the silo (today the old malt house) and was supposed to transport the extracted gypsum to the silo and probably also blasting air from the silo to the tunnel. Since there were problems with water ingress in the tunnel and the cable car was only in operation once for test purposes, it is doubtful whether gypsum was ever removed from the tunnel.
Originally, the Karl-Stollen should be named after Carl Bosch . After he did not agree, the Bosch part of the name was painted over with white paint for the inauguration and called Carl-Stollen. Later he appears as Karl-Stollen.
The tunnel still exists on the site of the cement works in Haßmersheim and served as a source of cooling water until the cement works was shut down.
Terrain procurement
On the basis of the Reich Services Act of 1873, the state was entitled in the event of war to confiscate land, buildings and goods that are important for warfare against interest and reimbursement of the loss of use. At that time Fritz Haber was responsible , who was both director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem and at the same time held a military rank in the Prussian War Ministry . The confiscated areas were very small plots and were predominantly owned by Haßmersheim farmers. Because of their proximity to the Neckar, they were considered to be agriculturally productive areas and the best arable land. Although compensation was promised to those affected in 1916, nothing was paid. Disputes on this topic dragged on for years. It was also pointed out that when purchasing land, BASF, unlike the state, always paid on time. Instead of the originally promised 1.80 Goldmark per m 2 , the state just wanted to 0.20-0.30 dollars per m later 2 pay. From 1919 onwards, people no longer spoke of confiscation, but of expropriation. Finally, the victims were in the inflation period with amounts from 4.20 to 5.20 marks ( paper mark ) per m 2 resigned, practically nothing.
After the inflationary period, Alfred Hanemann , a member of the Reichstag , campaigned for those affected to receive a few hundred marks.
Railway bridge
The IG bridge was popularly called the BASF bridge, the Russenbrücke and the Wilnabrücke, because it is said to have been dismantled at least in parts in Russian Wilna and rebuilt over the Neckar from Neckarzimmern to Haßmersheim. The bridge consisted of 14 segments and 13 pillars and spanned diagonally across the Neckar. The bridge was removed in mid-1918 and opened for rail traffic. It enabled access to the private route network of the gypsum tunnel in Neckarzimmern and access to the public rail network on the Neckarelz- Heilbronn route , on route kilometers 46.6 / 46.7. The bridge was delivered and built by the iron construction and bridge construction company Gollnow & Sohn in Stettin.
BASF also gave permission for the population to share the footpath that was also on the bridge downstream, but always pointed out that the bridge was owned by the Reich.
After the war ended, the bridge was reclaimed by Russia. The Gollnow company made a written statement on January 17, 1920, saying that returning the bridge was out of the question because the parts of the bridge that had previously been used came from within Germany. After the gypsum mining in Neckarzimmern was stopped by BASF in 1929, the municipality of Haßmersheim spoke out in favor of maintaining the bridge with a view to the local coal trade. In 1945 the bridge was blown up by the retreating SS and then hung with the middle part in a V-shape in the Neckar. Rumor has it that it was bombed before. The damaged middle section was later removed because it was an obstacle to river navigation. At the end of the 1960s, the remains that had remained until then were removed.
production method
A precise description of the process used or an operating scheme have not been handed down. Because of the delivery of sandstone , which was also quarried not far from the plant, it is assumed that the silica in the sandstone was used to drive out the sulfuric acid present in the gypsum. At the same time, the calcium in the plaster of paris turned into calcium silicate . Oxygen was then removed from the sulfur oxide that was also present afterwards in the blast furnace process.
Initial tests on this as a laboratory building at BASF -Werk Oppau went critical . Later tests carried out on a larger scale in the Duisburg copper smelter were sobering. In particular, the clogging of the blast furnace with calcium sulfide slag caused problems. The desired efficiency was also very poor. It took 30 tons of gypsum to extract one ton of sulfur.
When two of the ten blast furnaces went into operation about three months before the end of the war, not only were considerable slag heaps produced in this short time, but sulfur vapor, carbon monoxide , hydrogen sulfide , sulfur dioxide and carbon oxide sulfide were also disposed of as gases via one of the chimneys. This not only caused an enormous odor nuisance, but was also highly hazardous to health. The operation of these two blast furnaces is said to have clouded the entire valley.
The slag was drained into railway wagons driven under the blast furnaces and unloaded on the downstream site of today's sewage treatment plant and sports field. On the short drive there, the hot slag made the railroad cars glow. In the 1950s, some of this slag was processed into concrete blocks, but the quality was so poor that some houses built with it later collapsed.
The production results in this short period of time included the following data: At least 30 tons of gypsum, 500 kg of coke for the boiler, 250 kg of coal for the boiler, and 133 kg of sandstone were necessary to extract one ton of sulfur. 60% of the sulfur contained in the gypsum was lost as hydrogen, oxygen and carbon monoxide compounds via the chimneys. Another 20% of the sulfur was lost with the calcium sulfide slag. The original expectations were based on three times more favorable values. The use of materials cost 2.55 marks per kg of sulfur, while imported sulfur only cost 1.30 marks. If one takes into account all costs (plant, personnel, etc.), the costs for the sulfur produced were ten times higher than those for the imported sulfur.
Others
For the Haßmersheimer Werk, the associated settlement and the gypsum gallery in Neckarzimmern, there used to be a joint post office with its own postmark (inscription: Werk Neckarzimmern ).
To this day, there are many speculations and rumors about the use of the work after the First World War.
Long-standing structures
Silo building ("old malt house")
The silo building was erected between April 1917 and December 1918. It has a footprint of around 50 × 12 meters and a height of 39 meters to the top of the roof. A shaft for material feed at the front of the building reached 10.50 meters into the ground. For a purpose-built building used for armaments production, the building with its elaborate facade and roof structure as well as the castle-like cubature with a central tower and corner towers is extremely representative. The loading devices on the back are laid out as arcades, the arches of the arcades are taken up by the arched windows on the lowest level. The side extension of the silo building served as a suspension cable car station. In 1939 the silo was forcibly rented to the company Buyer from Kaiserslautern. In 1956, the malt manufacturer Kwasny acquired the building and installed a malt factory in it, from which the current name Alte Mälzerei comes. The malt factory was run by Hans Uwe Thielecke from 1981 and was abandoned after a fire around 1998, after which a beverage shop was located in the building for a short time. The building has been empty since 2002 and has recently been used sporadically for indoor flea markets. The loading devices and the original plastering of the building have been preserved.
Blasting air hall
The blasting air hall with its high opening slits is the second distinctive preserved building of the facility next to the silo. The hall was still unfinished until the end of the Second World War and was only given its roof after the end of the war. The original purpose of the building is unknown. In 1919 the hall was referred to as an “unfinished facility for oxygen liquefaction”. In 1920 the building was called "Sprenglufthalle". In 1923 there was talk of a "compressed air building". Inside the hall there was a basement trough about five meters deep, in which skins and hides were stored after the Second World War. The hollow was later filled with material from the construction of the Mosbacher Kreuz and the hall served as a warehouse for the malt factory. As an architectural specialty, the explosive air hall has a balustrade with an artistic parapet above the side extension, which is probably intended as a switching station. In Haßmersheim the building is also called Lindebau or Lindnerbau , although no explanation can be found for this designation.
On April 28, 2015, a major fire broke out in the blasting air hall, in which mobile homes, household appliances and tires were stored at the time. The hall was demolished in August 2016.
Trafostation
The system's electricity came from the power station in the Steinbacher Mühle and was fed via the silo construction in Neckarzimmern and the Haßmersheim turbine center to the transformer station next to the silo building. The turbine station had at least four generators with a total output of 10 megawatts. The material used in the transformer building is said to have been of inferior quality. The transformer station is now used as a residential building.
Other preserved buildings
An old warehouse of the Reichsschwefelwerk now serves as a workshop. A similar structure has merged into the buildings of the Fibro company and can no longer be recognized from the outside. On Tannenweg there are two small and low, massive shed buildings, which are locally known as bunkers and whose original function is unknown. There were once three such buildings, the third was demolished before 1925.
Other buildings are only fragmentary, including remnants of the former fencing of the sulfur works or remnants of the cable car head in Neckarzimmern.
The gatehouse of the former railway bridge was dismantled by the Odenwald Club in 1927 and reopened on the nearby Eduardshöhe . Since then it has been used as a club house for events.
Illustrations
One of the two warehouses still preserved today
One of two so-called bunkers, function unknown
Remains of the rope crane head in Neckarzimmern
literature
- Volker Gierth: The Reichsschwefelwerk in Haßmersheim . In: Mosbacher Jahresheft 13 , Mosbach 2004, pp. 146–207.
- Hans Obert: 1200 years of Neckarzimmern , self-published by the Neckarzimmern community in 1973
- Sebastian Parzer: A silo for sulfur production . In: Industriekultur 2.15 , Volume 21, Issue 71, pp. 34–35.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: Railways between Neckar, Tauber and Main . tape 1 : Historical development and railway construction . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-88255-766-4 .
- ^ Heilbronn voice of July 13, 1962
- ↑ Manfred Biedert: Neckarzimmern plant - a forgotten postal agency . In: Our home , Heidelberg 1997, pp. 110–117.
- ↑ http://www.rnz.de/nachrichten/mosbach_artikel,-In-Hassmersheim-stand-die-alte-Sprenglufthalle-in-Flammen-_arid,94072.html
Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 16.9 ″ N , 9 ° 8 ′ 50.1 ″ E