Spiegelglashütte on the Green Plan
The Spiegelglashütte auf dem Grünen Plan was a glassworks founded in 1744 in Hils , whose workers' settlement developed into the town of Grünenplan . From the Spiegelglashütte emerged with the Deutsche Spiegelglas AG from 1871 (today Schott AG ) the oldest plant of the glass manufacturing industry in Lower Saxony .
history
founding
The Brunswick Duke Charles I had the glassworks built as a Princely Mirror Glassworks on the Green Plan . In some sources it is referred to as the Ducal Mirror Manufactory on Grüner Platz . The establishment of the manufactory took place in the course of the duke's cameralistic economic and population policy and became his prestige project. It originated in the thinly populated and low mountain range of Braunschweig's Weser district on the edge of the Duchy of Braunschweig . Almost at the same time, a glassworks for hollow and sheet glass was built with the Schorborn glass factory on the Solling and a glassworks for bottles in Holzen am Hils with the Holzen glass factory . Forerunners of these glassworks were forest glassworks in Hils, which were relocated after the wood supplies were exhausted. Examples are the Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn and the Waldglashütte on the Glasebach .
The mirror glass works was used for the production of what was then a luxury good, mirror glass, from which mirrors were made for export. The casting and rolling technology, which was still in its infancy, made it possible to produce large mirrors of 3 × 1.5 meters. The advantages of the location of the glassworks, besides quartz sand and water, were the abundance of wood in the lordly forests of the Hils, which were necessary as fuel. Although there was a glassmaking tradition in the Hils that lasted several centuries with forest glassworks, it lacked knowledge of the manufacture of exportable products. Therefore, glassmakers from other regions, such as Bohemia , were recruited for the Spiegelglashütte .
The founding of the Spiegelglashütte was carried out by the ducal forestry and chief hunter Johann Georg von Langen . Under his leadership, a workers' settlement was planned for the employees from 1749. It was called the Holzbergsiedlung and was also known as the "New Annex on the Green Plan". In 1750 Johann Georg von Langen told his Duke:
- Your ducal highness will get a new Orth inhabited with all kinds of skilled artists and craftsmen, who nourish themselves with their hands and help the country build happiness.
The hut was built in the area of a previous facility, which was built in 1670 as the first permanent glassworks in the area. The name on the green plan is based on the location of the hut on a forest meadow of the same name . It was created in the middle of the wooded Hils in the 17th century through deforestation to deliver fuel to another glassworks.
Lease
The company was built according to plan by the state and was initially unprofitable. At the beginning of the 1770s, the Duchy of Braunschweig leased the mirror glass works on the Green Plan to the Hanoverian merchant Amelung. In 1785 the hut had 107 workers. When the tenant got into financial difficulties, the lease was ended in 1789. The new leaseholder in 1792 was the operator of the competing mirror glass works Amelith , which was located in the Hanoverian area near Bodenfelde . He dismantled the Grünenplaner Hütte as a former competitor, so that it got into an economic crisis. After the Duchy of Braunschweig terminated the tenant prematurely in 1800, the merchant Johannes Bippart began a long-term renovation of the business as the new tenant in 1803 . He was already head of the Amelith mirror glass factory. In 1825, Bippart handed over the management of the glassworks to his son-in-law Friedrich Carl Ludwig Koch (1799-1852), who until then had been a smelter in Clausthal in the Hanoverian civil service.
privatization
At the beginning of the 19th century the hut experienced a steady upswing. This was due to foreign sales and the product change to blown window and mirror glass. In 1830, the Brunswick state privatized the former ducal mirror manufacturer and sold it to the two previous operators, Friedrich Carl Ludwig Koch and Johannes Bippart. After Bippart's death, Koch became the sole heir of the company and ran it until his death in 1852. His son Friedrich Koch, who was 16 at the time, took over the glassworks in 1859 after completing his studies. His brother Ferdinand Koch was later involved in the glassworks , so that the company was called Gebrüder Koch'sche Glasfabrik .
In the middle of the 19th century, around 50 percent of production was exported to America. From 1861, the glassworks gained increasing importance through the manufacture of spectacle lenses .
Founding period
In the 1860s, as a co-owner of the Gebrüder Koch'schen Glasfabrik , Friedrich Koch made the decision to manufacture flat glass as cast mirror glass. There was strong demand for the product due to construction activities in the expanding cities at the beginning of the early days . Since his capital was insufficient to set up a cast glass factory, Friedrich Koch founded Deutsche Spiegelglas AG in Berlin in 1871 as a stock corporation , in which the Koch brothers' glass factory was merged into Grünenplan. While a cast glass factory for industrial glass production was built in Freden (Leine) , the plant in Grünenplan remained as an important pillar for optical and special glass .
20th century
As a result of the majority of shares in Schott AG , which has existed since 1930, the Glashütte in Grünenplan is now part of the Schott Group. It is the most important employer in the region. In 1965, the glassworks employed over 1,500 people, while the community of Grünenplan had 3,200 inhabitants. In 2008, almost a third of the approximately 2,600 inhabitants with 870 workers belonged to the glassworks.
The glassworks in Grünenplan is one of the few large companies in the Delligsen area that has not been closed down. Although it was in an unfavorable traffic situation from the beginning, it managed to become a successful company to this day. Initially, this was due to the proximity of the raw materials of wood, water and quartz sand. Later, the specialization in optical glass and high-quality glass products ensured the company's success.
Today (2017) the plant as a competence center for thin glass production has 450 employees.
literature
- Gabriele Wohlauf: The mirror glass manufacturer Grünenplan in the 18th century , Hamburg, 1981 (dissertation 1980)
- Johannes Laufer: Deutsche Spiegelglas AG 1871-1975 , Göttingen, 1994
- Johannes Laufer: From glass manufacture to industrial enterprise (= contributions to economic and social history. 75). Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-07045-1 , pp. 265-267 (dissertation University of Göttingen 1995).
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg , Institute for Urban and Cultural Research, Dept. Cultural Geography: Spiegelglashütte Grünenplan in: Industrial culture in the Leinebergland region. Project report. , P. 31 ( online , pdf)
Web links
- Michael Funk: Glass from the Weser - yesterday, today and tomorrow Sketches for a regional branch history with mention of the Spiegelglashütte p. 409–410 (pdf)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "A new place, inhabited with lots of skilled artists and craftsmen"
- ^ Deutsche Spiegelglas-Aktien-Gesellschaft
- ↑ Schott in Grünenplan, Germany, competence center for thin glass production, coating & finishing
Coordinates: 51 ° 57 ′ 16 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 18.1" E