Steel works Bochum

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Company logo of the Bochum steel works around 1950
Access to TKS Elektro and SWB 2009

The Stahlwerke Bochum AG (SWB) go back to the rope factory Vennemann from the early 19th century and are next to the former Bochum club 's largest steel plant in Bochum with mill and Stahlgießanlagen. After several changes of ownership, ThyssenKrupp and Stahlwerke Bochum GmbH are now producing at the Castroper Strasse location as the successor company.

history

Ascent

Klönne water tank, demolished in August 2012

Around 1820 Johann Hermann Vennemann (1798–1845) founded a rope factory on Castroper Straße in Bochum , which his sons later relocated to Essener Chaussee (today Alleestraße 79, directly opposite the Bochumer Verein ) and which was responsible for the prosperous mining industry, among other things has been manufacturing (wire) hoisting ropes since 1830 . Heinrich Grimberg took over the factory of his wife Wilhelmine's family in the company H. Grimberg & Christian Hilgerd in 1880 . In 1907, the rope factory and the Heinrich Grimberg company , which manufactured pit lamps and other mining articles, moved to the present-day site on the "Großer Vöde" on Karl-Lange-Straße. Six years later the product range was switched to steel structures and machines, in 1918 the company became Securitas-Werke AG , which in turn was renamed Maschinenbau AG Elsass in mid-1921 . The Bochum steelworks also cast church bells as part of their post-war production. An example of this is the production of a ringing of three steel bells (1429 kg, tone: D; 1036 kg, tone: F; 650.5 kg, tone: G) in 1922 for the Evangelical Lutheran village church of Spremberg in Upper Lusatia. The previous bronze bell there, made by Johann Gotthelf Große , was melted down at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The Bochum bells are still in use today in the Neusalza-Spremberg parish. The Bergbau AG "Lorraine" , was one of its shareholders Grimberg, then initiated the construction of a steel, rolled and forged work that from the coal mines in the district Gerthe with coke oven gas could be supplied and electricity. Due to a reorientation, the company was renamed Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG in 1926 , the number of workers rose from 1,034 to over 2,300.

In 1936 Otto Wolff KG acquired a majority of the shares in Bergbau AG "Lothringen" , which was in dire straits during the global economic crisis.

As with the Bochumer Verein, forced laborers were also used at the Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG and, in the last years of the war, concentration camp prisoners from the Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG concentration camp external command were used for production.

Since the production facilities on Castroper Strasse were neither badly damaged in the Second World War nor dismantled after the end of the war, operations continued in 1945 almost unchanged. In 1947 the company was re-established as Stahlwerke Bochum AG (SWB), which eventually employed 4,000 workers in 1953. The wire rope mill, which marked the start of the steel business in the 19th century, was not shut down until July 30, 1951. In 1960 an agreement was made with the Bochumer Verein for the delivery of pig iron from its blast furnaces by rail.

Decline

After the maximum number of over 5,700 workers in 1961 and the commissioning of a cold wide strip mill and a new electric furnace, the decline of what was once the second largest employer in Bochum began: In the steel crisis in 1964, the Siemens-Martin steel mill , which was sold to the Edelstahlwerke (Krefeld), was shut down. was sold, in 1966 the sale of the block rolling mill, which was only modernized in the previous year, to the Buderus-Werke (Wetzlar). In 1967, therefore, only about 3,700 workers and employees were employed by the SWB. After the hammer mill was shut down in 1968, there were finally 3,300 jobs when the Thyssen Group took over the majority of the site, which now specializes in sheet metal and cast steel.

In 1970, the Thyssen Group took over the Bochum plant completely, which geared the rolling mill to the production of electrical steel . The Neviges location, where a rolling mill was last in operation, was finally up for grabs in 1976. In 1989 the Bochum location was combined with the Gelsenkirchen plant in the EBG Gesellschaft für Elektromagnetische Werkstoffe GmbH .

present

Aerial view of the factory premises

In 2002, the electrical sheet activities of ThyssenKruppSteel, which had now been created, were merged into ThyssenKrupp Electrical Steel GmbH , but in September 2004 the foundry became an independent GmbH due to the concentration of TKS as a management buyout , which was again given the traditional name "Stahlwerke Bochum". The turnover of Stahlwerke Bochum in the 2010/11 financial year amounted to € 31.4 million, in the previous year 2009/10 to € 26.8 million, the export share is around 71%. As of September 2011, 131 people were employed.

The water tower of the Klönne type , which was built in 1927, is a listed building , but was torn down on August 24, 2012. The striking gasometer with the logo of the Bochum steel works was torn down. The halls of the Siemens-Martin steelworks were also closed in December 1981.

Since March 2014 the company has been listed in the Route of Industrial Culture , Themed Route Bochum .

literature

  • Work on steel . Stahlwerke Bochum AG, Bochum 1953
  • Summary in the 6th Bochum Heimatbuch 1954
  • Industrial educational trail online at bochum.de
  • Contemporary history collection (especially the newspaper articles of the Bochumer Zeitung of March 1, 1959 and Ruhr-Nachrichten of October 13, 1966) in the Bochum city archive, signature ZA IX A1

Web links

Commons : Stahlwerke Bochum  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Management report 2010/11 of Stahlwerke Bochum GmbH in the annual financial statements for the business year from October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011 in the Federal Gazette

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 19.9 ″  N , 7 ° 14 ′ 52.9 ″  E