Amelith mirror glassworks
The Spiegelglashütte Amelith was a glassworks founded in 1776 in the densely wooded southern Solling near the Bodenfeld district of Nienover , from which the towns of Amelith and Polier emerged . It was located in what is now the district of Northeim in southern Lower Saxony .
The hut produced what was then a luxury good, mirror glass , which it marketed to wealthy strata of the population across Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, when mainly flat glass was produced, the hut was no longer competitive and closed in 1926. In 1931 the hut building was demolished.
history
Foundation and location
The Amelith glassworks, established in 1776, was created under Georg III. as Elector of Hanover. It provided a foundation for Hanover counter mirror glass factory on the Green Plan in Brunswick Green Plan . In Amelith initially was hollow glass of green glass and sheet glass produced in white glass.
The Amelith hut was built in the valley of the Reiherbach , which is surrounded by wooded heights. It was supposed to replace the hiking huts for forest glass , which had been documented in the administrative area of Nienover since the 15th century , and to bind the glassmakers and their families to their workplace. The hut was built in the densely wooded Solling, whose wood was used to fire the kilns for melting glass. The other raw materials such as potash , sand , lime, clay and saltpeter were also found in the area. The cleared forest areas around the glassworks, which moved from state property to the ownership of the hut, were converted into agricultural areas as fields and meadows. The ironworkers were allocated areas for their own cultivation. Since more land was available than could be used by the workers, an estate with the manor house "Eckhardts Hoff" was built near the glassworks , which later became the "Amelither Gutsverwaltung".
The hut was initially run by Thomas Ziesich from Grünenplan with recruited workers from Bohemia, Hesse and Württemberg. Since he had taken over economically, the hut went bankrupt in 1779 after three years of operation . In addition, the transport of the glass plates with the cart from Amelith to the port in Bodenfelde was difficult and many workpieces did not survive this route unscathed. Under the next tenant, the glassworks became the most important in the area. Glasses and mirrors were exported to Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Great Britain.
Boom under Ernst Jacob Eckhardt
In 1779 the entrepreneur Ernst Jacob Eckhardt leased the hut together with his partner Isaak Caries from Amsterdam. His business idea consisted in the production of what was then a luxury good, mirror glass, for wealthy citizens, aristocrats and the royal houses of Europe. With the use of a huge sum of Eckhardt's private fortune, this led to great success in a very short time. With the construction of the factory, two new villages were created in Solling: Amelith and Polier . In the vicinity of the glassworks in Amelith, Eckhardt had houses built for around 100 workers and their families. The glassmakers at the hut had a comparatively high standard of living, but were heavily dependent on the glassworks owner, as the land and their houses were owned by him. At the beginning of the 19th century, around 400 families were dependent on the glassworks. The glass grinding shop on the Reiherbach, in which the mirror glass panels were ground and polished, formed the nucleus of the village of Polier.
Eckardt wrote about the factory, which did large foreign business:
“I set up this factory, which had never existed in the country before, in a place where there was a desert before. Smelters, grinding mills, three polishing mills, stamping machines, magazines and economic buildings were gradually built. Where there used to be wood and wild bushes, partly surrounded by swamps, you can now see a place that resembles a small patch and increases in size every year. "
Eckhardt not only looked for innovations in glass production, but also carried out experiments in agriculture . So he had some of his fields fertilized with potash , the leached ashes from the potash boilers, and was pleased that the best fruit was now growing on this once almost unusable field .
After the government in Hanover thwarted Eckardt's further expansion plans, he moved to Berlin in 1799. There he was on the condition to invest his money in Prussia , by King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the Baron Eckard Stein ennobled. In order to prevent an outflow of money from the smelter to Prussia, the government in Hanover converted the lease for the factory into an inheritance letter .
19th and 20th centuries
After Eckardt left in 1799, his long-time administrator Johannes Bippart ran the factory. During this time, the property attached to the glassworks expanded considerably and took over lands belonging to the Nienover office . Johannes Bippart had also leased the Spiegelglashütte on the Grünen Plan in Grünenplan since 1803 . In order to avoid competition between the two smelters, the production of mirror glass instead of hollow glass remained. The von Eckardsteins inherited interest remained in Amelith and Polier until 1837 and then sold the inheritance letter to the Bippart family. During the time of the German Empire , the hut had been expanded into an industrial company. The number of workers rose from around 60 at the end of the 19th century to 150 in 1906. The manufacture of mirror glass, which made the smelter famous, was discontinued in 1894 in favor of the manufacture of flat glass . At the beginning of the 20th century, the hut gradually got into financial difficulties due to foreign competition, high energy costs and poor transport links. This led to bankruptcy in 1913. The company was shut down during the First World War . Then production started again in 1919. Despite investment measures, such as the construction of a factory building in 1925, the glassworks was closed in 1926. It was no longer competitive with other glassworks with more powerful machines. For a short time, a glass grinding shop was set up on the smelter site , which closed in 1930. After the closure, the ironworkers were able to purchase their houses and land. In 1929 there was a fire in the buildings of the estate, including the manor house, which led to the conviction of the then glassworks owner Georg Löwenherz and an employee for arson . In 1931 the earlier workers tore down the hut building and used the building material for their own construction projects. In 1934, the hut's 68-meter-high chimney fell. Some outbuildings and farm buildings of the hut as well as the workers' houses have been preserved to this day.
literature
- Otto Bloss: The older glassworks in southern Lower Saxony , pp. 141–142, (= publications by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen. Volume 9). Lax, Hildesheim 1977, ISBN 3-7848-3639-9 .
- Walter Junge: Chronicle of the area Bodenfelde: from the beginning to the present; with contributions to the history of the districts of Wahmbeck, Nienover, Amelith and Polier. Göttingen: Göttinger Tageblatt, 1983.
- Wolfgang Schäfer (Ed.): The huts and the castle. Pictures, reports and documents from the Solling villages of Amelith, Nienover and Polier . Mitzkat Verlag, Holzminden 2000, ISBN 3-931656-26-8 .
- The Amelither Spiegelglashütte. In: Magnificent and practical glass of the 18th century from the Welfen factories. Gifhorn 2010.
- Daniel Althaus : The factory in the forest. Glass and mirrors from Amelith and Polier , dissertation, (= contributions to the history of the Solling and the Weser Valley. Volume 2), Jörg Mitzkat Verlag, Holzminden 2015, ISBN 978-3-940751-46-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Daniel Althaus: Series: Kaufmann Eckardt made Amelith and Foreman known in the world. Luxury from the mirror baron . In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine . (HNA). July 25, 2011.
- ↑ Quoted from: Rudolf Schmidt : Die Herrschaft Eckardstein. Volume 1: Contributions to the development history of Prötzel, Prädikow, Grunow, Reichenow, Sternebeck, Harnecop, Bliesdorf and Vevais (= Oberbarnimer Heimatbücher. Volume 5). ed. from the district committee Oberbarnim, Bad Freienwalde (Oder) 1926, p. 10.
- ↑ Daniel Althaus: Series for the special exhibition: A large estate once belonged to the Amelith mirror factory. Between factory and field. In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine. (HNA). 23 August 2011.
- ↑ Helmut Radday: - and announce our emigration: a contribution to the social history of the Upper Harz in the 19th century using the example of the Koch family association , 2000, p. 19.
- ^ A. Lax: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 4, 1927, p. 54.
- ^ Fire in the mansion In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine. September 19, 2011.
Coordinates: 51 ° 41 ′ 40.5 " N , 9 ° 30 ′ 41.6" E