VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg

In VEB Elektrokohle 1984

The VEB electrical coal Lichtenberg (EKL) was an industrial operation of the DDR . The headquarters were at Herzbergstrasse 128-139 in Berlin-Lichtenberg . The company was the only manufacturer of graphite products in the GDR and at times employed over 3,000 people.

After the fall of the Wall, many old production buildings and chimneys were demolished on the extensive site and the contaminated floor was renovated. Medium-sized companies have successfully settled here. Part of the southern operating area (approx. 88,000 m²) was converted into an Asian cultural and commercial center in five wholesale market halls with the name “ Dong Xuan Center ” (named after the Chợ Đồng Xuân , Hanoi's largest market hall ). Medium-sized companies have found accommodation in the former administration building. The site of the company stands next to the administration building, which is managed as a separate monument, as a complete ensemble in the Berlin State Monument List.

timeline

From 1872 to 1945

Historic administration building

The history of the company Elektrokohle Lichtenberg begins in 1872, when on the premises in the former town Lichtenberg Siemens & Halske a partial production facility for the production of alcohol -Messapparaturen built under the name Gebr. Siemens & Co. led. After 1880, carbon for lighting and carbon brush products became the focus of production, and in 1904 the production of silicon carbide heating rods was added. During the First World War , Siemens & Co. became an armaments company important to the war effort and manufactured large-scale coal products that were important for many branches of industry. In 1928 the company was merged with the Rütgers Group and was named Siemens-Plania AG .

During the Second World War , coal products essential to the war effort were also made. In the last years before 1945, the group management also used forced labor from more than eight nations and children between 9 and 14 years of age in the production area. Most of these foreign workers lived in barracks in what is now the area of the Fennpfuhl Park .

From June 1945 to 1990

Main entrance of the former EKL

After the end of the war, the company was initially a Soviet stock corporation (SAG) and managed in trust . On January 1, 1954, the transfer to the GDR took place, now Siemens-Plania was a state-owned company with the new name VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg . For the year 1966 a twenty-fold increase in the production output compared to the year 1947 is given, the absolute value put at “more than 100 million marks per year”.

In 1969 EKL came to VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld .

From 1991 until the almost complete end of production

Were in 1992 and 1997 to 1999 were done on behalf of the Lichtenberger district administration detailed studies on the impact of land with various pollutants found, for example, 15 to 55 mg PAH per kilogram TS throughout the filler layer, on faces and chromium (23 g / kg), copper (3.6 g / kg) and phenols (up to 7.3 g / kg). A groundwater hazard could not be determined.

In 1993 a 200 meter high chimney, which was the third tallest technical structure in what was once East Berlin (after the Berlin television tower and the Köpenick transmission mast), was removed with the help of a special excavator. On December 23, 1996 the US- American group UCAR International took over the large coal production area. This takeover was linked to the promise to keep the 90 jobs and to continue production at least until the end of 2001. The Ucar electrodes GmbH did not survive at this location, however, in 1999 the branch of Ucar was closed for economic reasons.

In 1997, the small coal division went to the SGL Carbon Group.

From 1997 the other production on the Lichtenberg site was stopped, the buildings cleared and chimneys blown up.

The medium-sized company PanTrac GmbH successfully continues the production of industrial coal products in some of the rear parts of the building. However, this is a final production, the raw material of which is obtained from SGL Carbon GmbH in Bonn.

Asia center Dong Xuan

Main entrance

In the Dong Xuan Center , among other things, you can buy Asian food specialties.

The Dong Xuan Center (in German Blooming Meadow ) as an Asian trade, business and shopping center has been on cleared areas since 2006, after the ground was partially removed and contaminated areas sealed in 2004.

This Asiatown or Chinatown along Herzbergstrasse is being developed by Dong Xuan GmbH , which was founded by the Vietnamese Nguyen Van Hien. Small shops have been established in three lightweight construction halls, the historic buildings of the previous plant are used for gastronomic offers, commercial agencies and service providers. Continuous further development such as housing, hotels and other market halls for Asian goods are planned (as of 2015). There is great demand from interested parties, but no specific dates are known.

With an area of 160,000 square meters, it is the largest shopping center of its kind in Western Europe.

Since May 2015 the laboratory building on Herzbergstrasse has been converted into a guest house.

Products manufactured in the EKL (selection)

The production range of VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg included a variety of products made of coal and graphite :

Carbon brushes (large) for motors and generators and carbon brushes (small) for household and do-it-yourself devices,

Charcoal pencils,

Arc light carbon for cinema projectors , spotlights, medical devices and other arc lamps ,

Molded parts made of carbon or natural graphite (pipes, sleeves, plates, current collectors ),

Carbon electrodes for the production of silicon carbide ,

Products based on silicon carbide with extremely high hardness (electrical resistances, heating elements),

Carbon electrodes and furnace linings made of carbon, completely processed for blast furnaces , ferrosilicon furnaces , phosphor furnaces ,

Graphite electrodes for electric arc steel furnaces (largest share of EKL production by value and volume),

Anode bricks for aluminum production.

Around 30 percent of production was exported to more than 30 countries. The largest customer was Soviet industry.

Before the industrialization of the entire Herzbergstrasse, a terrestrial company had laid an industrial line that had a connection to the Lichtenberg freight station for the transport of the products on the extensive factory premises and the delivery to external customers .

As part of the production of consumer goods , a pottery was set up in the EKL in the mid-1980s . Several skilled workers made fine ceramics here, from dishes to planters. Originally, the ceramic products were supposed to be burned in the kilns used for coal production. The firing methods for industrial production proved to be unsuitable, which is why the pottery was given its own large kiln.

Culture center, training and company housing construction

Cultural conference in the VEB EKL cultural center in 1960

Ruin of the former cultural center in 2007

From 1949 to 2002

The EKL company had a two-story culture house built on Herzbergstrasse, for which the GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl laid the foundation stone on March 27, 1950 together with a worker. The upper rooms served as a vocational school for training commercial clerks. - The workers' housing association Elektrokohle , which the EKL founded to improve the living conditions of its employees, is well known. The long-awaited ceremonial handover of the apartment keys to the new tenants often took place in the Kulturhaus. It was also used for other events such as schooling, youth consecration or conferences. On December 21, 1989 the West Berlin band Einstürzende Neubauten performed for the first time in the Kulturhaus Elektrokohle in the eastern part of Berlin. This concert is documented in the motion picture Elektrokohle (because of) by the director Uli M. Schueppel .

Perspective of the cultural center since 2003

The new owners of the site did not take over the cultural center at first, so a usage concept was only worked out afterwards. But the building gradually fell into disrepair or was the target of vandals by the end of 2016. In 2012, the center management planned a comprehensive renovation of the building and the conversion as a multicultural event center and presented it on the Internet. According to their own statements, the development plan should already have been submitted in the winter of 2013/2014 - but by March 2015 nothing had changed on the outside. Only a site fence around the building protected passers-by from falling parts. The long-announced renovation work began in January 2017, first of all the flat middle section of the building was removed.

Next to the entrance to the Kulturhaus there was an art object by Doris Pollatschek entitled Earth globe , which was protected from further deterioration in a wooden case around 2010. Its whereabouts are unclear; the district administration has sold it to the owner.

In 2019, construction progress was noticeable on the remaining parts of the building: they will be gutted step by step . The completely demolished middle section, in which the event hall was located, is being rebuilt in a different shape and higher. All components should form a new cultural center after completion.

Web links

Commons : Elektrokohle Lichtenberg - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Some photos by Michale Winkler from the everyday life of the Elektroköhler

Commons : Dong Xuan Center - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List (administration building)

↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List (entire ensemble)

^ Advertising card for products from Siemens & Co., 1923, on a private homepage

^ Gerhard Flügge: Berliner ABC - Elektrokohle Lichtenberg in the Berliner Zeitung from May 1967

↑ Reference list of reinforced concrete chimneys

↑ Part of Elektrokohle threatens to end , Der Tagesspiegel , 1998, accessed on April 7, 2020.

↑ PanTrac in the Federal Register Company

^ ^A ^b Peter Badel, Holger Herschel, Karl Karau: From Siemens-Plania to Dong Xuan: Exhibition on an industrial location with a theater history in Berlin-Lichtenberg . Ed .: Jana Froebel. Berlin: Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940737-57-1 .

↑ Request to the Berlin Senate regarding the establishment of the Asia Center from 2004 (Online; PDF, 124 kB) ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )