Sophienhütte (Wetzlar)

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The Sophienhütte was a steelworks in Wetzlar in the Wetzlar district in Hesse . In 1981 she stopped making iron .

Buderus'sche Sophienhütte near Wetzlar around 1873

history

The Sophienhütte was built by Buderussche Eisenwerke AG between 1870 and 1872 as a blast furnace in Wetzlar. The first blast furnace was blown on as early as August 1, 1872 . Wilhelm Buderus managed the plant until his death on May 20, 1888.

Initially, foundry pig iron was produced, and from 1899 also cement , which was to be profitably used as a by-product from the slag of iron production. The company's goal was to further process the iron produced in-house in order to become more independent from the fluctuating pig iron price. Therefore, from 1901 cast-iron pipes were produced in a new foundry in Wetzlar, and from 1902 electric motor housings were also produced in a foundry for special castings.

In 1915 a steel foundry for the production of cast steel grenades was built. In 1917/18 two Röchling-Rodenhauser electric ovens were built and put into operation. In 1927 a centrifugal pipe foundry was built.

In 1929, when the Georgshütte was closed, pig iron production was concentrated in Wetzlar and the Sophienhütte blast furnace was completely renewed and optimized. The three blast furnaces now delivered up to 275,000 tons of pig iron annually. Also in the same year, the outdated power plant of the Main-Weser-Hütte was closed and the electricity plant was completely relocated to the Sophienhütte.

In 1930 the power plants were improved and a new dry gas cleaning plant was put into operation. As in many German companies, prisoners of war were employed during the Second World War . On March 29, 1945, American troops occupied Wetzlar and, together with the Sophienhütte, the company's headquarters and main production site. The blast furnace operation was idle until March 5, 1946, when pipe production started again. Due to the geological peculiarities of the Lahn-Dill area , from which the Sophienhütte mainly obtained its ores, 22 different ore types with different compositions were merged. In addition to a few other mines, the United Constanze iron ore mine in Haiger - Langenaubach supplied ores.

As the last ore mine of the Buderus Group, the Falkenstein mine near Oberscheld in the Dill district was closed in 1973 . The last blast furnace was blown out in Wetzlar in October 1981 and the era of pig iron production at Buderus ended.

present

Even today, the Sophienhütte site does not stand still. Many companies, especially Buderus Group plants, continue to produce (e.g. Duktus (stainless steel)).

See also

literature

  • Hans Schubert, Josef Ferfer, Georg Schache: From the origin and development of the Buderus'schen Eisenwerke Wetzlar . 2 volumes. Munich 1938.
  • Hans Pohl: Buderus 1932–1995 . Wetzlar 2001, ISBN 3-00-007455-4 .
  • Buderus'sche Eisenwerke (Ed.): Buderus-Lollar Handbook . Lollar 1965.
  • Rainer Haus, Hans Sarkowicz: Fire and Iron. 275 years of warmth from Buderus . Piper, 2006, ISBN 3-492-04947-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Buderussche Eisenwerke AG - company history. Retrieved May 15, 2017 .