Gützkow starch factory
The Gützkow starch factory is located 1.2 km south of Gützkow on the Swinowbach, which flows into the Peene here .
Although there were 18 important goods in the Greifswald district around 1900 , there were no corresponding processing plants for agricultural products. All were outside the circle ( Jarmen - sugar factory and mill, Anklam - sugar factory, Loitz - starch factory, Stralsund , etc.). The district's goods had grown potatoes as an essential product and had to open up sales areas. Therefore a number of landowners decided to build a starch factory in Gützkow. The main purpose of the factory was the production of potato starch and potato flakes as animal feed.
history
The names of the shareholders of this potato flake and starch factory are not listed in full in the documents. The following were involved in the establishment:
- Oberamtmann Friedrich Wilhelm Mau - Klein Schönwalde
- Landlord Wilhelm Ginola - Thurow
- Estate leaseholder Werner Ruge - Ranzin
- Landlord Christoph Ziehmann - Neu Negentin
- Landlord of Vahl - Klein Zastrow
- Mayor Bierhals - Gützkow
- Manor owner of Voss - Wolfradt - Lüssow (Gützkow)
- Fideikomiss owner Graf von Behr - Bandelin
- Rittergutlieter Hermann Ulrich - Stresow
- Cattle dealer Wilhelm Wilke - Gützkow
In addition, until 1915:
- Landlord Peters - Quilow
- Manor owner von Behr - Fritzow
- Landlord Appel - Neuendorf (Gützkow)
- Landlord Werner-Strellin
- Landlord Homann - Neuendorf (Gützkow)
In 1928 the following were also named:
- Manor owner Karl Fabricius - Passow
- Manor owner General Landschaftsrat Baron Friedrich Wilhelm v. Lefort - Papendorf
The building was decided in 1906 by the founding committee and began soon afterwards after a short planning phase. The building was completed in 1907. The exact date of inauguration in July 1907 cannot be determined. The basic value of the starch factory with all buildings and equipment in 1911 totaled 152,000 gold marks .
Transport connection of the starch factory
The transport of the potatoes from the production areas played an important role in the choice of location. So already in 1906 in the design considered the factory of the waterway (Peene) and light railways in the district and surrounding countryside. When considering profitability, around 150,000 quintals of potatoes had to be processed in a campaign. A transport volume of at least 230,000 quintals had to be expected. In addition, considerable quantities of coal were brought in for the steam boilers and steam engines .
Most of the district's goods were touched by the Kleinbahn , in particular the Greifswald-Jarmener Kleinbahn (GJK) . In addition, many goods had light railways installed to the transport points. At the starch factory there was a stopping point and loading platform for the small train, from where a siding led to the factory's storage cellar.
In 1908 the canal construction from the Peene to the starch factory was completed. The large peat dig east of the Swinowbach was used for the canal. The mouth of the Swinow into the Peene was widened to 16 m as a canal entrance. The remainder of the peat cut was dredged up to the factory in a length of 460 m by a width of 10 m. A concrete quay, also known as a bulwark , was built at the factory , where the potatoes, the fuels and supplies as well as the finished goods were loaded. This canal was navigable until 1924 and then again from 1928. According to the documents, the channel represented a value of 12,000 RM . In 1924 the barge traffic on the canal had to be stopped because it was completely silted up and muddy. At the request of the starch factory, the city of Gützkow leased the left-hand path from the starch factory to the canal entrance to the factory for 50 years so that a light railway could be laid there. The field railway took over the transport of the goods from the landing stage of the barges at the canal entrance to the factory and back. This reloading work naturally reduced the effectiveness, so that in 1928 the starch factory submitted an application to make the canal navigable again. The canal was re-dredged with a dredger in 1928 over a length of 150 m and 10 m wide . As early as 1932, the canal was silted up again and thus no longer navigable because the town and the landowner von Wieck refused to build barrages or weirs in the Swinow. During this time, the Prussian Hydraulic Engineering Office East, based in Stralsund , demanded the narrowing of the canal entrance to 8 m and the construction of a movable towpath over the mouth. In the winter of 1932/33 fascine walls were rammed in and the canal opening was filled up to 7 to 8 m (today's width). The possibility of loading onto barges now only existed via the bulwark on the Gützkower ferry . From then on, however, the Kleinbahn only operated directly until 1926.
Production in the starch factory
The production in the starch factory had three processing lines. Those were:
- Wet potato starch
- Potato flakes
- Pulp : dry and wet pulp
The wet potato starch is obtained from cleaned and chopped potatoes through cooking, filtering and steaming processes. The starch stays wet and had to be dried and packaged in further processing. This drying system cost approx. 50,000 RM. The cooperative could not make up its mind to buy. The non-storable wet starch had to be filled into barrels or sacks immediately and sold to other processing companies. In this case, the buyers of the processing department then dictated the prices for the purchase.
With this only a profit of 9 RM per 100 cent. Potatoes was made. With dry starch, a profit of 83 RM per 100 cent. Potatoes would have been achieved. With an annual profit of an additional 80,000 RM, the system would have paid for itself in just one year, especially since dry starch can be kept indefinitely, so the pricing would also have an impact on the market. The entrepreneurs turned out to be very narrow-minded and risk-free.
Potato flakes are cleaned and chopped potatoes that are dried after steaming. They have an unlimited shelf life and can be used immediately as feed for all types of livestock. The production of the potato flakes was initially carried out on the account of the potato producers (goods and farmers), that is, the suppliers of potatoes received the corresponding amount of potato flakes and only paid the processing price.
The pulp is a by-product of the production of starch and flakes. This waste occurs during the cleaning process and as residues during starch release. The pulp (wet or dry) was not durable and was given away for immediate consumption as feed for pigs.
Another waste product was the amniotic fluid that occurs during steaming, drying and starch production. This amniotic fluid was given free of charge to the city and the surrounding farmers, who trickled it into the fields and meadows around the factory as fertilizer. In doing so, however, the sewer pipes had to be laid and operated at the expense of the magistrate, which could deliver the amniotic fluid to the owners of the adjacent properties at their discretion. In addition, the incineration slag from the furnaces was sold to those interested in building roads. 1928 z. B. were sold:
- 8,169 ct. Strength
- 1,844 ct. Flakes.
- 1.130 ct. Dry pulp
The total was RM 298,001.79. After deducting prime costs, this resulted in a profit of 2,200 RM per member of the cooperative. In addition, 22,000 RM could be deducted from the liability amount as amortization . A processing volume of 120,000 tons of potatoes is specified.
The 1928/29 campaign ended with a loss of 11,179 RM, in 1929/30 it was already 35,000 RM. After the merger with Anklam-Friedland, things started to improve again in 1934. The 1934/35 campaign ended with a profit for the united Anklam-Friedländer potato starch and flake factory of 246,694 RM. In 1939/40 it was 517,000 RM, of which Gützkow 49,000 RM and in 1940/41 727,000 RM, of which 51,000 RM Gützkow.
Ownership
From 1907 to 1927 the starch factory was owned by the founding cooperative. In 1927/28 the sale to the Loitzer starch and flake factory was carried out only for a campaign, whereby most of the previous members of the cooperative retained their shares in the entire Gützkow-Loitz factory. In 1928 this merger Loitz-Gützkower starch factory went bankrupt .
In order to keep the jobs, Gützkow had 250 unemployed at the time, the factory was bought by the city after long negotiations for financing. With a purchase price of 45,000 RM and a land charge mortgage of 100,000 RM, the factory became the property of the city. The Gützkower council could not finish the management, went into debt and leased it to the North German potato flour factory in Küstrin-Neustadt in 1929/30. The lease was extended for 1930/31.
Due to the intention to sell and lease, the Gützkow magistrate dismissed the long-time manager Emil Torlé from Gützkow as owner, he was then dismissed on March 31, 1930. Emil Torlé was operations manager from the beginning - 1907 to 1930. In 1931 the city began sales negotiations with the aforementioned Anklam-Friedländer GmbH. The purchase agreement was signed on January 31, 1931 between Mayor Dr. Herbert Jendies Gützkow, the supervisory board chairman of the manor owner General Landschaftsrat Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Lefort zu Papendorf and the managing director of the GmbH Paul Zippmann from the central office in Anklam. The plant and base value of the factory was put at 252,500 RM. The starch factory was sold for 36,000 RM, whereby the land charges (mortgages) were taken over by the buyer. In addition to the direct company premises, this also included 3.88 hectares of meadows and pastures south-east towards the ferry. The United Anklam - Friedländer Potato Starch and Flockenfabrik GmbH belonged to:
- Central Anklam
- Friedland potato flour and glucose factory
- Pasewalk flake factory
- Starch and flake factory in Gützkow
This company was immediately sequestered in 1945 on the orders of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and later expropriated. The starch factory Gützkow became state property of the state of Mecklenburg and later "public property". The starch factory then worked as a VEB until 1947. In 1948 all machines and systems were dismantled and sold to other, larger processing companies for use. Because of the hopeless transport situation, the low demand and the low volume of processing potatoes, production was only maintained for six weeks from 1945 to 1947 and then stopped entirely in 1948.
At that time, the starch factory had 15 employees, who from 1947 onwards carried out forging and locksmith work as a cooperation partner of the carriage factory. These workers were finally accepted into the workforce of the carriage factory in 1949. By 1950, negotiations about the purpose of the starch factory went to the government authority. In 1950, the council of the district, with the support of the higher-level state organs, decided to keep the carriage factory in Gützkow and to move it to the former starch factory at the same time. This ended the history of the starch factory after 40 years of potato processing.
Starch factory workforce
It is known that there was a permanent workforce of 15 workers, including the manager Torlé, an accountant and a deputy manager (foreman). The others were workers to operate, maintain and care for the technical systems, to care for the draft horses, etc. During the season or campaign, 25 to 30 seasonal workers - mostly women and girls - were hired who were given work for about 20 weeks and then were released again. These workers mostly came from the estates and also from the farms, where they had less work as day laborers over the winter.
It is difficult to reconstruct the social situation of workers. From the business books available, it is only possible to roughly estimate what a worker earned. In the 1907 campaign, for example, the monthly wage fund averaged 1,850 marks, which is around 35 to 40 marks per worker with 50 workers. Outside of the campaign, the core workforce received only about 30 marks a month.
Successor companies
These were the carriage factory, the VEB Landmaschinenbau Gützkow and the Gützkower operating part of the VEB repair shop Neubrandenburg . After 1990 only parts of the former factory were still in use and are still not today. Parts were also torn down, such as the 28 m high chimney and the machine hall of the old starch factory.
literature
- Files of the Greifswald State Archives (LAG): Rep. 38 b - files of the Gützkow city administration
- Walter Ewert : Gützkow, the old count town on the Peene. Oehmke printing company, Gützkow 1935.
- Willi Setzepfand: History of the city of Gützkow. Starch factory section prepared in 1968, not published, city archives
- Original business books of the starch factory 1907 to 1930, Gützkow Museum Archive
- Wolf-Dietrich Paulsen, Karl-Eberhard Wisselinck: Gützkow - 875 years. MV-Verlag, Greifswald 2002.
- Wolf-Dietrich Paulsen: Chronicle of the city of Gützkow. 600 p. - digitized in the museum PC - print form from 1996 350 p. In the museum
- Wolf-Dietrich Paulsen: Chronicle of the VEB RWN Gützkow (with historical part Gützkow and the previous operations). Self-published by RWN, Gützkow 1986.
Individual evidence
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 1939
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 548
- ↑ LAG Rep. 38b 169
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 1750
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 231
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 2034
- ↑ LAG-Rep. 38b 1977
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 55 ′ 32.7 " N , 13 ° 24 ′ 44.2" E