Saline Kötzschau
The Kötzschau saltworks was a saltworks in what is now the Kötzschau part of the city of Leuna in the Saale district (Saxony-Anhalt). It ran over the area of today's Bahnhofsstraße and the Gasthaus Zur Mühle in the east to the fairground in the forest.
history
Salty springs were mentioned in Kötzschau in 1333 and a salt works in 1347, which was burned down in a war between the Meissnian margrave Friedrich the Serious and the Magdeburg archbishop Otto .
In 1579, the Elector of Saxony ordered the construction of the raft ditch to float firewood for the salt works from the Elster Mountains . Around 1590 the Kötzschau saltworks was connected to the moat. In 1592 the rulers held a third of the whole in their hand as a trade union. In 1599 Mathias Meth built the first "leak houses" (graduation houses). The grading must initially have been done on straw. Such a straw graduation house is said to have stood east of today's fairground in the "Witches' Grove". By 1616, the Saxon Elector Johann Georg I had a brine shaft, trenches and buildings built in Kötzschau. He spent 5,675 guilders , 1 groschen and ½ pfennig on it.
Destruction and renewal
In the course of the Thirty Years War , Kötzschau and its saltworks were destroyed. This probably happened at the Battle of Lützen in 1632. After the reconstruction, production was resumed in August 1696. Almost all of the salt pans in Saxony were awarded by the mining office in Freiberg in 1697. In 1698 Adam Friedrich von Pfuhl, until then owner of the salt works, sold his rights to the Leipzig merchants David Hommel and Gottfried Ernst as well as Gottfried Werner for 1,800 thalers. On January 22nd, 1702 David Hommel received a privilege from Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony for the union of the two salt pans in Teuditz and Kötzschau. This was the beginning of the sole trade union operation, it existed until the demise of the two salt pans. By 1741, both salt pans were producing between 15,000 and 17,000 pieces of 128 pound salt. The Kötzschauer and Teuditz saltworks were the first two saltworks in the Electorate of Saxony , which were able to cover part of the salt needs in the Electorate. In February 1785, a new brine source was opened in Kötzschau. It was only 34 cubits deep. In 1795, the partners in the Kötzschau saltworks made a net profit of 3,000 thalers.
On August 23, 1796, a big salt celebration took place in both union salt pans in Teuditz and Kötzschau. The occasion was the hundred years of undisturbed salt boiling since the Thirty Years War. At that time the following were active in Kötzschau:
- 1 art climber, 4 boiling masters, 5 sturgeons, 1 salt collector, 2 graduation attendants, 9 graders, one of whom also works as a salt messenger. There were also 1 night watchman, 1 pan smith, 2 log carters and 2 charcoal carters. There were a total of 27 employees.
In the 18th century, the annual salt production was 1,000 tons. On March 21, 1808 the "Constitution of the union of the Teuditz and Kötzschau saltworks" was founded. Both were now divided into 8 Kuxe (shares) and were subordinate to the Freiberg Mining Authority. 420,000 bushels of salt were produced from 1747 to 1808 . From 1811 the Saxon King Friedrich August I promoted the union. The saltworks union then had a gold commemorative medal minted especially for the king. The original piece is now in the Saxon Coin Cabinet in Dresden , a replica in the permanent exhibition of the Heimatstube in Kötzschau. The two facing portraits August II and Friedrich August I are shown on the front. The reverse shows a basket of salt standing on salt crystals and two crossed fists with a burning torch. A rod of Mercury , the symbol of free trade, can also be recognized. Obverse is the inscription AVGVSTVS SECVNDVS 1702. FRIDERICVS AVGVSTVS 1811., reverse CORBIBVS EXTRVCTVM SAL MULTIPLICATE SALINAE and SALINAR. TEUDIZ./ET KOETZSCHAU./SOCEITAS.
On May 15, 1815, Kötzschau and the saltworks fell from Saxony to Prussia as part of the Congress of Vienna , which threatened to bankrupt the saltworks in Teuditz and Kötzschau . Thereupon the Prussian state government made emergency purchases of the sharply sunk kuxe to ensure the continued existence and to win over the newly arrived subjects .
In the Kingdom of Saxony, King Anton granted 75 thalers on October 5, 1827 for the production of a wind machine model for the Kötzschau saltworks by the Halsbrücke mechanical engineering workshop . The model shows in detail the technology with which the brine was lifted using wind power. It was preserved and is in the exhibition of the Bergakademie in Freiberg.
1846 to 1858
Around 1846, the saltworks comprised the following buildings:
- 1 brine well; 2 water wheels; 2 great wind arts; 3 graduation houses with a total length of 1,105 feet and a (one-sided) graduation area of 31,900 square feet; 1 gyro wheel for filling the boiling pans, a steam engine was available in 1797; 2 larger and 2 smaller pans. The well shaft was 16 meters deep. A borehole 266 meters deep ran from its bottom . There were also houses for 12 working-class families on the saltworks site. In addition there was the house of the salt administrator and the so-called Kotschenke, an inn.
The steam engine is said to have been the first in the Electorate of Saxony. In 1846 there was again a commemorative celebration on the occasion of 150 years of undisturbed salt boiling. The boiling pans used to be fired with rafted wood from the Elster Mountains. Later they switched to coal firing. The lignite could be obtained cheaply from 1857 from the mine of the Saxon-Thuringian lignite utilization company in Rampitz .
The saltworks was also always considered to be an independent parish parish after Kötzschau with its own jurisdiction. In times of war and emergency, it was also a place of refuge for the population.
During the Swedish occupation of Electoral Saxony 1706–1707, Marlborough stayed here as a guest. Louis XIV had sent him to the political intentions of the Swedish king Charles XII. at his headquarters in Altranstädter Schloss in connection with the War of the Spanish Succession .
The saltworks helped the place become a train station. When the construction of the Leipzig – Großkorbetha railway began in 1855, a train station was built on the Rampitzer Flur because of it. Because the saltworks was the cause of its construction, it was given the station name Kötschau. Written as a curiosity without a z, which, by the way, officially remained that way until 1933.
Shutdown
Since the Prussian state, under Minister von der Haydt, pushed the closure of the smaller salt works from 1859 onwards , the tax authorities bought up all the remaining Kuxe of the Kötzschau salt works. The community of Kötzschau then sent a petition to the Prussian Prince Regent and later Emperor Wilhelm I. It was rejected, but resulted in transitional arrangements. In 1861 the Kötzschau saltworks was finally closed. The community received 9 acres from the northern part of the salt pan area. Everything else, such as the salt administrator's apartment, the Steigerhaus and the hydropower of the raft ditch, was bought by the Kötzschau manor under Julius III. Count von Zech-Burkersroda. Later all the buildings were demolished. The former drinking water basin was still there in the 1920s, as can be seen from early aerial photographs. The old Aschenberg was leveled in 1948. It was not until 1951 that the former ice cellar was filled in. In the 1950s, the local sculptor Ottomar Schmidt made a wall relief of the salt works on his property wall, which is now very weathered. The chronicle written by Pastor Franz Oskar Pfeil in 1883/84 still contains site plans. In the Heimatstube Kötzschau a 1873 by H. Fintzsch created is watercolor with the view of Saline, however, it was drawn from memory in 1871 and is not with the cadastral official match floor plans.
In addition to the model of the graduation tower, the Bergakademie Freiberg is also showing a model of the brine shaft and some tools from the Kötzschau salt works. The old location of the saltworks has changed significantly due to the later landfill. Today the Kötzschauer Heimatfest takes place every year on part of the former saltworks area.
Web links
- Measuring table sheet 2680: Kötzschau, 1872
- Website Leuna
- Germany informative
- Map in the state archive of Saxony-Anhalt
Coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 36.7 ″ N , 12 ° 7 ′ 34.5 ″ E