Annahütte steelworks
The Annahütte steelworks in Hammerau near Ainring in the Berchtesgadener Land district is a steel processing company.
overview
The former iron factory was in 1537 by Salzburg sovereign Prince Archbishop Matthäus Lang released for creation and is now part of the Max Aicher Group . The Annahütte employs around 400 people and has a production capacity of more than 240,000 tons of steel per year. In the Annahütte, 6 m long raw billets are heated with the help of a walking beam furnace and later rolled into steel bars, threaded steel and reinforcing steel and processed further. The bar steel is supplied to the automotive , chain and tool industries . In addition to prestressing and reinforcement technology, thread and prestressing steel is used worldwide in anchor , formwork and geotechnical engineering .
history
Prince Archbishopric of Salzburg
On October 2, 1537, the clerical sovereign Prince Archbishop Matthäus Lang (1448–1540) granted the documentary permission for the mining and processing of iron ore. This is considered to be the hour of birth of ore mining in Salzburg and workshops were set up in Achthal, Neukirchen, Röhrenbach and Hammerau. A few years after the founding of the iron union, there were lively trade relations with Munich and Augsburg. Based on calculations from the extensive industry Archives of iron union, which in today Bavarian State Archives is held in Munich, can be seen that in the mid-16th century already the production was started of sheet metal and among other weapons, nails, screws and wire production were. From 1600 iron mining and processing was observed with satisfaction and great interest by the clerical rulers in Salzburg . In view of the growing danger of war in Central Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, war material was increasingly produced in the workshops. In December 1800 French troops marched in, which also left clear traces in Hammerau. With the secularization of 1803 the secular rule of the prince archbishopric ended. From 1803 to 1810 the affiliation changed several times.
Bavaria (since 1810)
In 1810 the Rupertiwinkel came to the Kingdom of Bavaria . On July 25, 1837, the plenary assembly decided on an extensive festive program for the three hundredth anniversary, which took place on the eve of September 26 with fireworks. In the second half of the 19th century, the industrial revolution ensured technical and economic advancement in the field of iron extraction and processing. The workshops of the iron union were modernized and expanded. In 1866 a new sheet rolling mill was built in Hammerau . A larger rolling mill, a turbine and a cast welding furnace to be heated with peat followed just eleven years later.
With the crisis situation in the German economy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the ironworks in Hammerau also had to struggle with sales difficulties. In order to be able to remain competitive, a foundry was established as a subsidiary operation in Käferheim (formerly Käferham ) in Austria . In this way it was hoped that the Austrian state, which generally only entrusted domestic companies with orders, would participate in the expansion of the local railway network. However, weather damage and a lack of government assistance ultimately made a sale of the works in Hammerau and Käferham inevitable.
Hohenzollersche Hüttenverwaltung and Alfred Zeller
With the signing of the purchase contract on August 1, 1906, the operating facilities became the property of the Princely Hohenzollern Hüttenverwaltung Laucherthal- Sigmaringen. In the First World War it was an armaments factory.
After the end of the inflationary period , the plant in Hammerau was taken over by Alfred Zeller. The company on the verge of collapse was now called "Annahütte" and had to file for bankruptcy due to the global economic crisis at the end of the 1920s. In 1932, after no buyer had been found, Alfred Zeller was able to take over the “Annahütte” again. During the Second World War, the plant was again converted into an armaments factory. In 1940 Hammerau had 2,000 employees. Alfred Zeller died before Germany surrendered in 1945. His son Kurt Zeller initiated the reconstruction with the installation of a Siemens-Martin blast furnace . After his death in 1957, his brother Walter Zeller took over the plant. In the mid-1970s, the “Annahütte” had almost 400 employees. The global recession in the steel industry and failed modernization measures led to another bankruptcy.
Max Aicher
In November 1975 Max Aicher acquired the entire plant and renamed it "Stahlwerk Annahütte Max Aicher GmbH & Co. KG". Accompanied by extensive rationalization measures , operation of the rolling mill was resumed in 1976 with the production of reinforcing steel. Welded wire mesh production was added as a further field of production. The construction of a works railway and several roads on the premises in 1977 ensured an improved infrastructure. The modernization of almost the entire rolling mill including a new walking beam furnace with a technical capacity of 45 t per hour was completed in 1982. In 1983 the iron bending shop went into operation.
The product range was expanded in 1984 to include thread and prestressing steels. Reinforcing steel production was shut down. Two stretching systems were put into operation and the first finishing operations for anchor and prestressing steels were established. A 200-ton Schenck - shredding machine for dynamic tests was installed. In the course of 1986 patents for prestressing steel production (water-quenched and tempered, stretched and tempered) were registered and thread formats with a diameter of 40 and 50 mm were produced for the first time.
In 1993 a fully continuous fine iron rolling mill was commissioned. In 1996 the production of accessories for thread and prestressing steels was set up and in 1997 the mesh production was outsourced to the Austrian sister plant in Parndorf . The operation of the rolling mill was converted to the two-shift system. In 2000 a finishing line for reinforcement technology products was built. In 2002 a first own sales location was established in the USA (SAS Stressteel Inc., Fairfield , New Jersey ). In 2003, the existing quality management system QS 9000 / VDA 6.1 was replaced by the new ISO TS 16949: 2002.
In 2007, sales in the USA were expanded through the acquisition of AVAR Construction Inc. in California and the completion of the extension hall for bright steel operations, as well as the commissioning of a further crack detection system with additional ultrasonic testing. The production volume in the rolling mill exceeded the 200,000 ton mark for the first time. In 2008, the market presence in the thread steel sector was strengthened through the acquisition of the company SAS Unetra Systems, SL, in Spain and participation in the newly founded company Accessoires de Construction SAS (ADC) in France . In Slovakia a permanent establishment was opened for accessories production.
literature
- Thomas Döring: The working and living conditions of factory workers in south-eastern Bavaria in the 19th century - illustrated using the example of the Royal Saline Reichenhall and the private iron trade union Achthal-Hammerau. Dissertation, Berlin 2005.
- Max Wieser: Festschrift 450 years of iron works. Annahütte steelworks, Berchtesgaden 1987.
- Eberhard Zorn: The Achthal-Hammerau Iron Union 1537-1919. In: The salt barrel. Local history journal of the historical Rupertiwinkel association , 23rd year, 1989 / issue 1, pp. 1–56.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 47 ′ 39.8 " N , 12 ° 57 ′ 6.1" E