Dusseldorf slaughterhouse and cattle yard
The slaughterhouse and cattle yard on Rather Strasse in Düsseldorf was in operation from May 2, 1899 until the operator went bankrupt in 2002. During the National Socialist era, the slaughterhouse was used as a collection point for Jewish people before they were deported. Part of the complex, namely the horse slaughterhouse and a market hall, has been preserved and is a listed building . The new campus of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences was built on the site, including the preserved historical buildings .
investment
The "Städtische Schlachthalle", which had been operating on Golzheimer Insel since 1876 , at the address Schäferstrasse 28 in Pempelfort , soon turned out to be too small, so that from 1890 the city administration of Düsseldorf began to work on a new building. The entire system was planned by Georg Osthoff , City Planning Officer in Berlin; However, some of the buildings and extensions were designed by the building department of the city of Düsseldorf under the direction of the city building councilor Carl Peiffhoven. The buildings still preserved no longer show their original state.
The slaughterhouse and cattle yard was built in the years 1896 to 1899 on a 9.4 hectare area in the north of the city between Rather Strasse and the Düsseldorf- Duisburg railway line . In its original dimensions, it was designed for a city with around 250,000 inhabitants, but expansion options of 75 to 100% were planned from the outset. The property cost 396,087 marks, the cost of the first phase of expansion, which was carried out until 1899, in which 16,270 square meters were built on, totaled - including the price of the property - 3,423,798 marks. The system was lit electrically. In the early days, 500 incandescent lamps and 53 arc lamps were used.
All company buildings showed yellow facing bricks with red stripes. The buildings that were grouped around the forecourt were decorated with profiled stone and sandstone. The property of the slaughterhouse and cattle yard was demarcated from the street by a wall of facing stones, from the railroad by a picket fence with iron posts. The streets of the facility were initially paved with cobblestones with asphalt joint grouting . Only the routes that were exposed to particular pollution were covered with rammed asphalt.
The slaughterhouse and cattle yard was connected to the railway network via the Derendorf freight yard. The double-track connection was on the east side of the slaughterhouse site; Branches for the fertilizer removal and the coal supply were connected by means of a turntable track .
The actual cattle yard was parallel to the delivery tracks. Animals delivered by rail were driven over ramps into 28 counting pens where the first veterinary examination took place. Sick animals were driven straight to the medical facility via a switch, the others ended up in the market halls behind the counting pens. There was a separate market hall for large cattle, small cattle and pigs. To the west was the actual slaughterhouse, which was separated from the cattle yard by a 2.24 meter high fence.
Building of the cattle yard
Market halls
The market hall for cattle was 38.52 meters long and 31.52 meters wide, had three aisles and was about 10.20 meters high at the highest point. The floor was bricked; the roof covered with wood cement over a formwork and wooden rafters that rested on trusses made of wrought iron. The hall was divided into a sales and a stable section by a partition. Above the stable section there was a feed floor on a false ceiling made of concrete. The entry passages were 2.50 meters wide, the feeding passages 1 to 1.50 meters. The cattle stalls in the sales and stable departments had concrete feeders and were designed for a total of 144 large cattle.
The market hall for large cattle, planned by Osthoff, was extended to the south in 1930 with an extension. Both the old and the younger part of the building still exist.
The market hall for small cattle was structurally the same as the large cattle market hall. It contained a sales hall for 500 calves, which could be tied to bars, as well as for 75 head of small animals, which could be kept in six pens, and a stable section for "overhangs". With 18 bays, this offered space for 250 small animals. The fences were bricked up to a height of 60 cm and plastered with cement; above that there were another 60 cm high grille partitions. A feed floor was also set up above the stable section in the small cattle market hall.
The market hall for pigs was 60.30 meters long and 38.52 meters wide and of the same design as the other two market halls, but had a roof with roofing felt over a 4 cm thick cement skin on four iron double trusses. 1600 pigs could be housed in 96 pens. The gangways were 1.20 meters wide and blocked off with convertible doors . The floor was covered with mastic asphalt on a concrete base.
Building of the slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouses
In the slaughterhouse for large cattle, 200 head of cattle could be slaughtered per day. It was 44.05 meters long, 23.02 meters wide and 6.60 meters high. Structurally, it was similar to the corresponding market hall, but had a floor made of hammered granite slabs. On the west gable side there was a blood room, two weighing rooms and other side rooms; the actual hall was equipped with two rows of slaughterhouses. These were arranged next to a 5 meter wide central aisle and were 8.50 meters deep and 2.60 meters wide. The slaughtered animals were transported on by means of 28 winches and a suspension track.
The slaughterhouse for small animals was designed for slaughtering 820 small animals per day. It was 44.18 meters long and 38.04 meters wide and, in addition to the actual slaughterhouse, also contained slaughterhouses for around 500 animals, as well as ancillary rooms, which included a bath room with nine showers. The slaughterhouse for small cattle also had an overhead conveyor to transport the slaughtered animals.
The pig slaughterhouse was designed to slaughter 540 pigs per day. In addition to the slaughter room and stables for 250 pigs, which were divided into 29 pens, it contained rooms for tripe washing , racking , scalding and slaughtering. A wall separated the scalding department from the canning room so that no fumes could get into the fresh meat. The slaughterhouse was directly connected to the five killing bays in the tapping room. Five slewing cranes made it possible to transport the animals from the killing bays first to the five brewing tubs and later to the dehairing tables. The pork tripe was located next to the slaughterhouse. The pig slaughterhouse was also provided with a suspension railway connection.
The horse slaughterhouse was in the southwest corner of the slaughterhouse. It was 17.50 meters long and 9.50 meters wide and was set up in a similar way to the cattle slaughterhouse.
Slaughterhouses
To the south of the slaughterhouses there were four slaughterhouses for large cattle, in which 284 head of cattle could be accommodated. Three of these buildings were 36.80 meters long and 11.12 meters high, the fourth, in which a cop section was located, the same length as the others but 25.05 meters wide. Fat and skin stores as well as office space were also housed in these structures. The horse slaughterhouse was at the horse slaughterhouse. There was space for 15 horses.
Medical facility
Sick and suspicious cattle came to the medical facility at the northeast end of the property. This consisted of a stable building for sick cattle, in which there was space for 40 large cattle, small cattle and pigs. The slaughterhouse for sick cattle, 25 meters long, 10.02 meters wide and 6 meters high, was equipped similarly to the normal slaughterhouses. The sewage treatment plant of the slaughterhouse and cattle yard was also located in the sanitary yard. The wastewater first got into street gullies and then via sound pipes into this sewage treatment plant and from there into the city sewer. The sewage treatment plant worked mechanically according to the Friedrich & Glass system.
Other buildings and facilities
In the entrance area of the slaughterhouse on Rather Strasse there was a forecourt and to the north of it there was an unwinding yard for suppliers who came by cart. The Ausspannhof had a double passage and was lined with two horse stables with 32 and 18 places respectively. There was also a wagon shed with 18 compartments and a dog stable with 51 boxes. An area of 85 by 148 cm was available for each draft dog.
At the head of the forecourt stood the double house for the two board officials; the director had a seven-room apartment, the second executive officer a six-room apartment, each with numerous ancillary rooms and a garden. To the south of the forecourt was the three-wing administrative, commercial and residential building, in which the inn and guest rooms, offices and official apartments for the machine and forage supervisor as well as the porter and the supervisor were housed.
In the entrance area there were also two porter's houses, one of which contained a room for the night watchman.
To the south of a large connecting hall in the slaughterhouse was the tripe for large and small cattle, in which there were 34 tripe washing vessels with degreasing tables, four Wampen brewing vats and scraping tables. It was 25.03 meters long and 16.02 meters wide and had a floor made of mastic asphalt.
The manure house, in which the stomachs of the slaughtered animals were emptied, was connected to this tripe to the south. The contents of the stomach were conveyed through funnels in the floor of the room into the wagons below and driven away on the fertilizer track or the fertilizer road. Rinsing troughs for further cleaning of the stomachs were located on the south side of the 16.02 meter long and 13.77 meter wide fertilizer house.
The meat show office was located between the northern end of the connecting hall and Rather Strasse. Among other things, it contained a free bank for the sale of inferior meat, which was accessible from Rather Strasse.
The cold store and its ancillary buildings were located south of the meat show office and on the western long side of the connecting hall, insulated with glass blocks, cork inlay, etc. In total, this complex was about 94 meters long and 37 meters wide. In the pre-cooling room, the meat was cooled to a temperature of about 8 ° C. The pre-cooling room was connected to the slaughterhouses by overhead conveyors. He had a floor made of 80 cm cinder block under 20 cm gravel concrete and cement fine layer and a ceiling made of porous perforated stones under 15 cm cinder block with cement fine layer and above another 20 cm wood charcoal for insulation. There was a separate cold room for the pigs, which was equipped similar to the pre-cold room and was directly connected to the actual cold store via a staircase. This was designed to be two-story, although initially only the lower part was used. There was also a separate cold room for horse meat, but this was separated from the rest of the cold store by a wall. The cold store's cold rooms were about four square meters each; there were 247 normal and 17 horse meat cold rooms. The meat stayed there for about six weeks.
South of the pre-cooling room was a two-story equipment room in which four air cooling devices were housed. A water tower that could hold 200 cubic meters of water rose above part of this structure. This was drawn from a well with steam pumps. In the water tower there were also storage rooms and rooms for the accumulators of the lighting system.
A covered passage led from the equipment room to the machine house. This 25.50 meter long and 17.50 meter wide structure contained two steam engines with 300 and 175 HP, compressors for generating the cold air, condensers and another steam engine with 75 HP that powered the dynamo machines for the electrical lighting. The pumps for service and cooling water were located in the attached well house. The cooling device based on the Linde system kept the temperature in the pre-cooling room at 8 ° C and in the actual cold store at a maximum of 3 ° C. In the 20.50 meter long and 17.50 meter wide boiler house there were initially three steam boilers, two injectors and workshops. The coal deposit was connected to the boiler house.
To the west of the pre-cooling room was an ice cream factory 18.04 meters long and 7.01 meters wide . It delivered 1,000 kilograms of ice per hour.
Use of the slaughterhouse and stockyard during National Socialism
During the time of National Socialism , Jews were detained on their way to the deportation in the Düsseldorf slaughterhouse and transported from the nearby freight station. The normal slaughterhouse operations continued. The slaughterhouse and cattle yard served not only as a meeting place for Jews from Düsseldorf who were to be deported, but also for Jews from the entire Düsseldorf administrative district, i.e. the catchment area of the Düsseldorf state police headquarters . The deportations from Derendorf took place between the 26./27. October 1941 and January 1945. At least 6,000 Jewish citizens from all over the region were deported from Düsseldorf, for example to the ghettos of Lodz / Litzmannstadt, Minsik, Riga and Izbica near Lublin as well as to Theresienstadt and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The police officer Paul Salitter wrote a detailed report on a deportation .
Place of remembrance of the old slaughterhouse
Today the campus of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences is located on the grounds of the slaughterhouse . Only the cattle hall and the horse slaughterhouse are reminiscent of their earlier function, both of which have been a listed building since 1999. The IT campus and the university library of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences are located in the cattle hall. The memorial site of the old slaughterhouse is located in the entrance area of the library, where the cattle used to be driven down to the basement of the hall . The opening took place in February 2016.
- There is an information desk in front of the main entrance.
- Individual people are presented in two galleries; Deportees and murdered people, helpers of the persecuted, but also perpetrators and profiteers.
- A digital archive continuously collects biographical information about the persecuted, murdered, perpetrators and their helpers.
- Interviews with survivors are presented in a media station.
- Inside the university library there are still some stone troughs , the former cattle troughs. The Holocaust survivor Hilde Sherman-Zander describes in her book Between Day and Dark. Girls years in the ghetto that these troughs were used by the Jews who were deported here as a shelf for the children and babies.
"Babies and toddlers lay in the stone troughs of the slaughterhouse and cried all night, probably from the cold."
literature
- Building Journal , Volume 51 (1901), p. 382
- Ferdinand Wessing: The slaughterhouse and cattle yard. In: Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, pp. 269-279.
- Michael Zimmermann : The deportation of the Jews from Essen and the administrative district of Düsseldorf. In: Ulrich Borsdorf / Mathilde Jamin (ed.): About life in war. War experiences in an industrial region 1939–1945. Reinbek 1989, pp. 126-142.
- Jörg AE Heimeshoff : Listed houses in Düsseldorf, with garden and ground monuments. Nobel, Essen 2001, pp. 209f.
- Michael Zimmermann: The Gestapo and the regional organization of the deportation of Jews. The example of the Stapo control center in Düsseldorf. In: Gerhard Paul , Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo - Myth and Reality. Darmstadt 2003, pp. 357-372.
- Angela Genger , Hildegard Jakobs (Ed.): Düsseldorf / Getto Litzmannstadt. 1941. Essen 2010.
- Joachim Schröder: The old slaughterhouse memorial site on the new campus of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. No. 185 (3/2017), pp. 22–31
Web links
- Entry in the monument list of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation
- Website of the old slaughterhouse memorial site of the University of Düsseldorf
- Place of remembrance on the Derendorf campus
- Film opening of the old slaughterhouse memorial site
Individual evidence
- ^ Jörg Heimeshoff, Listed Houses in Düsseldorf. With garden and ground monuments , Essen 2001, ISBN 3-922785-68-9 , p. 209
- ↑ http://www.duesseldorf.de/planung/wettbew/schlachthof/index.shtml
- ^ Schlachthof Düsseldorf , website in the portal albert-gieseler.de , accessed on May 20, 2016
- ^ The urban battle and Viehof, p. 17 , in Düsseldorf in 1898; Festschrift for the participants in the 70th meeting of German naturalists and physicians, presented by the city of Düsseldorf. August Bagel, 1898
- ↑ http://www.lipinski.de/schlachthof/index.php
Coordinates: 51 ° 14 ′ 59.6 " N , 6 ° 47 ′ 23.4" E