Theodorshütte
The Theodor hut was a mining company in Bredelar (now part of the town Marsberg ). The hut was established in 1826/1828 in the buildings of the former Bredelar monastery . It experienced an upswing in the following years. However, this stalled due to the poor geographical location . It was not up to the competition with the companies from the Ruhr area . The smelting was stopped and the business was converted into an iron foundry in the 1870s / 1880s. As such, the company existed until the Great Depression of the early 1930s.
history
prehistory
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The basis of iron production in the region was iron ore, mostly in the form of red iron . The surrounding forests provided the necessary charcoal . The rivers and streams provided hydropower. The development of the assembly industry goes back to at least the Middle Ages in the narrower region . It experienced a first boom between the 10th and 13th centuries. At first the smelting furnace method prevailed . After times of less intensive or even idle operation, the industry experienced a significant boom in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the valleys there were numerous hammer mills and the smelters as pig iron producers. In 1629 there were nine hammer mills and five smelters on the Hoppecke alone . In Bredelar itself there was a hut and a hammer mill.
At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, Anton Ludwig Ulrich from Brilon acquired the smelters and ore mines in the valley of the Hoppecke and around Giershagen, as well as shares in mines across the border in Waldeck . At the beginning of the 19th century the coal and steel industry experienced a deep crisis for political reasons, but also because of the bad roads and the rise in the price of charcoal. In the end, only the hut in Hoppecke and the hut in Bredelar were still in operation.
Foundation and upswing
The old Bredelarer hut belonging to Ulrich and the Hoppecker hut were in operation all year round until 1823. In the following years it was only profitable to keep it in operation for about 25 weeks. Anton Ulrich planned to build a new hut in 1825. He received the concession on condition that the old Bredelarer hut and the Hoppecker hut be shut down.
The new hut was set up in the buildings of the former Bredelar monastery. This was secularized in 1804 and converted into an estate. Most of the buildings date from the 18th century and were in good condition. Anton and his son Theodor Ulrich had the blast furnace built in the nave of the former monastery church.
In 1828 the plant with a blast furnace went into operation. The prerequisites were relatively favorable because the new company was meanwhile the only hut in the immediate vicinity. Initially, the economic situation was not yet satisfactory, so that until 1832 the hut was only operated 32–37 weeks a year. The situation improved. Theodor Ulrich continued the concentration and modernization process of his father Anton. The blast furnace was now mostly in operation all year round. It was a then modern cupola furnace with a cylinder fan. The first blast furnace was built in the monastery church, as the roof there was high enough for a blast furnace. In 1836 a second and in 1851 a third blast furnace was blown. The latter also worked with steam power. The operational safety of the ovens was problematic. Usually at least one was out of order for repairs.
The hut was still operated exclusively with charcoal. During the concession, Ulrich was able to prove supply contracts for wood to be charred for around 15,450 cubic meters of wood annually . The catchment area covered an area of 150 km.
Employees
With 90 employees, the company was the largest in the northeast of the Sauerland in 1838. In 1840 there were 96 workers. Up to 1843 the number of employees was able to hold onto this level at 88 people, only to drop sharply in the two following years to 29 and 42 respectively. This temporary crisis was overcome again in 1846 with 89 employees. It should be noted that these figures refer to the permanently employed skilled workers. In 1840 about 36 molders were employed. There are also day laborers and other temporary employees. Their number was about three to four times as high as that of the permanent employees. In 1843, an additional 290 day laborers on average were temporarily employed. In addition to mining, the hut was of great importance for the population of the surrounding villages. There, in the course of the 19th century, the importance of full-time agricultural workers declined in favor of the working class. This had home ownership and mostly an agricultural sideline.
Crisis years
In 1855 the smelter produced 25,857 quintals of pig iron and 9,220 quintals of cast goods with a total value of 85,015 thalers. The bad traffic routes were problematic. This changed only around the 1830s with the construction of art roads . Nevertheless, the still poor geographical location has severely hampered industrial development. Of the two blast furnaces, only one worked regularly around 1865. The hut generated the necessary energy with water power and had a cylinder fan. There was already a steam engine, but it was rarely used. There was also a slag episode. The district administrator of the Brilon district ruled that the sales ratio for raw and broken iron was very unfavorable. In some cases, the products even had to be sold below cost. The production of cast goods was already of a certain importance.
Conversion into an iron foundry
After the death of Theodor Ulrich, the hut and its pits were transferred to Dortmunder Union AG in 1871 . A railway connection with the Ruhr - Diemel -Bahn ( Dortmund - Schwerte - Arnsberg - Brilon-Wald - Marsberg - Warburg ) was only opened in 1873. The consequences were ambiguous: iron ore mining benefited from this for a number of years. Large amounts of ore went to the Ruhr area for smelting . But ore mining turned out to be unsustainable. In the long run, the transport costs turned out to be too high. Since 1896 at the latest, the production fell sharply and by 1903 almost all pits were closed. In the field of iron smelting, the competition from the Ruhr area with its modern and inexpensive production facilities turned out to be too strong. Smelting was stopped in 1877. Instead, the company was converted into a pure iron foundry. But this step also turned out to be problematic. Now the company was burdened by double transport costs. On the one hand, coke and pig iron had to be brought in from the Ruhr area and, on the other hand, the products had to be transported to the industrial regions. After a major fire broke out in 1884, the Dortmund Union sold the hut to the former head climber Carl Reinke. In 1891 the company Maschinenbau AG from Kassel acquired the company. The hut made stoves, stove plates and similar products. Only with this change was the acute crisis over. As an iron foundry, the company survived until the Great Depression. The problems are reflected in the development of the workforce. At the beginning of the 1870s, the number of employees was only around 40 to 50. In the 1880s there were only 30 men. In 1889 the low point was reached with twelve men. After the sale to the Kassel-based company, the situation stabilized and the company had around 100 employees in the first half of the 1890s. The iron foundry remained in operation until 1931.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d e f g Hans-Hubert Walter: The structural change of the Northeast Sauerland mining and metal industry in the 19th century . In: Geographical Commission for Westphalia (Hrsg.): Income from geographical and regional research in Westphalia (= Westphalian geographic studies ). tape 42 , 1986, ISSN 0943-1721 , DNB 870356356 , p. 269–289 (commemorative publication 50 years of the Geographical Commission for Westphalia).
- ↑ Dirk Strohmann: From the monastery to the industrial enterprise . Structural changes from 1804 until today. In: Förderverein Kloster Bredelar e. V. (Ed.): Bredelar Monastery / Theodorshütte . From the baroque monastery to the ironworks. Past and future. Marsberg February 2005, p. 14–25 ( cistopedia.org [PDF; 3.1 MB ; accessed on March 29, 2013]).
- ^ Jens Hahnwald: Day laborers, workers and labor movement in the Cologne Sauerland of the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Harm Klueting (Ed.): The Duchy of Westphalia . The former Electoral Cologne Duchy of Westphalia in the area of today's districts of Hochsauerland, Olpe, Soest and Märkischer Kreis (19th and 20th centuries). tape 2 , volume 1. Aschendorff, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12862-6 , p. 539-590 .
- ^ Ludwig Hermann Wilhelm Jacobi: The mining, metallurgy and trade in the administrative district Arnsberg in statistical representation . Julius Bädeker, Iserlohn 1857, p. 192–209 ( digitized version [accessed March 29, 2013]).
- ^ Caspar Maximilian Droste zu Vischering-Padberg: The statistical relationships of the Brilon district . Edited from official sources. Friedländer, Brilon 1865, p. 126 .
literature
- Hans-Hubert Walter: The structural change in the Northeast Sauerland mining and metal industry in the 19th century . In: Geographical Commission for Westphalia (Hrsg.): Income from geographical and regional research in Westphalia (= Westphalian geographic studies ). tape 42 , 1986, ISSN 0943-1721 , DNB 870356356 , p. 269–289 (commemorative publication 50 years of the Geographical Commission for Westphalia).
- Hans-Hubert Walter: Iron ore mining and metalworking in the north-eastern Sauerland in the 19th century. In: Westphalia Regional. Geographical Commission for Westphalia, 2007, accessed on March 29, 2013 .
- Friends of the Bredelar Monastery e. V. (Ed.): Bredelar Monastery / Theodorshütte . From the baroque monastery to the ironworks. Past and future. Marsberg February 2005 ( cistopedia.org [PDF; 3.1 MB ; accessed on March 29, 2013]).
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ′ 4.7 ″ N , 8 ° 46 ′ 20 ″ E