Plasta Erkner

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The VEB Plasta Erkner was an industrial company of the GDR with headquarters in Erkner near Berlin. The company produced high-strength, fiber-reinforced molding compounds and technical phenolic resins , both of which were used in the body parts of the Trabant . VEB Plasta was one of the largest companies in Erkner and employed up to around 500 people. The first industrial production of plastics worldwide took place at the plant.

history

Foundation and pre-war history

Listed production and administration building of Bakelite GmbH at Flakenstrasse 28–31 in Erkner

In 1907 Leo Baekeland applied for a US patent for a manufacturing process for the synthetic resin Bakelite , and in 1908 he received the patent in Germany. In 1909 the Rütgerswerke acquired a license and in 1910 began the world's first industrial production of plastics in Erkner. This production began in a shed on the premises of the Rütgerswerke in Erkner. Production was carried out by Bakelite GmbH , in which Baekeland held a minority stake. The main shareholder was Julius Rütgers . The precursor phenol required for the production of Bakelite was already a waste product in the hard coal distillation of the Rütgerswerke.

The Bakelite plant's first own location was in Flakenstrasse, on the eastern side of the Flakenfließ. There, the built Rutgers AG from 1913 the first Bakelite factory in Erkner, which from 1916 bakelite production resumed. In 1921 full capacity was reached. The Bakelite GmbH in Erkner put plastic parts here that were used mainly in the electrical industry as housing and security. Bakelite is a good electrical insulator and is heat resistant. The main customers were the fast-growing companies in the electrical industry such as Siemens and AEG , which were based in Berlin.

In 1927, Baekelands' patents expired and numerous competitors began production. In 1936 the plant moved to Berliner Straße, southeast of the railway line and the train station .

Nationalization and operation in the GDR

After the end of the Second World War , most of the factories were dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union as reparations . The Bakelite factory and the neighboring coal tar refinery - both owned by the Rütgerswerke - were expropriated without compensation. The VEB Plasta resin and Preßmassenfabrik Erkner emerged in 1948 through new foundation on the former location Erkner of Bakelite AG . Production was ramped up again by 1953. The Bakelite GmbH moved its headquarters to Iserlohn , where a Bakelite factory was built from 1950 to 1952.

In 1957, Rolf Weichert (Head of Research and Development at the plant) developed a plastic material made from phenol , aniline and formaldehyde that was flexible enough to be molded and yet remained stable enough to bear the loads of a car body. The P 70 was planked with this material . Thus the P 70 was the first plastic passenger car in the world. In 1958 the Trabant P 50 followed with a fiber-reinforced duroplastic body. The composite material for the body parts of the Trabant was manufactured in Erkner until 1991, i.e. for the P 60 , P 601 models and the last Trabant 1.1 . The material used was a self-hardening phenol resol, from the late 1970s the plastoresin 223/3. For satellite production, 5000 tons of phenol resol were produced annually in Erkner. In Zwickau, layers of cotton tiles were sprinkled with phenolic resin powder from Erkner on a production line, compacted and roughly cut. This composite material hardened under pressure in heated hydraulic presses to form thermoset molded parts. A Trabant body consisted of ten of these molded parts.

In 1977 a research center for thermosets was opened. The factory was not modernized. This led to strong odor and groundwater pollution.

Before the peaceful revolution in 1989, more than 500 people worked in the company. Around 40,000 tons of plastics were produced annually, including phenolic resins for the Trabant body, circuit boards, molding compounds and prepregs reinforced with polyester fiberglass . After 1989 the production volume collapsed and was only 650 tons. Most of the employees were laid off. In 1991 Trabant production ended, and with it the demand for the phenol resol from Erkner.

privatization

In 1991 the investors Klaus Zenkner and the bowling alley manufacturer Karl Funk acquired the synthetic resin factory Plasta Erkner from the trust . The Funk & Zenkner management company founded for this purpose had to pay a purchase price of DM 25 million. During the implementation of the treaty, there were disputes over the question of who was responsible for the removal of environmental pollution. According to an expert opinion, the renovation of the 140,000 square meter company premises would cost around DM 87 million. The site was ultimately redeveloped and pollutant emissions were drastically reduced.

Prefere Resins was formed in 2000 from the merger of factories that previously belonged to Neste and Perstorp . In 2002 the Finnish Dynea Oy acquired the company and continued to produce phenolic resins there. 2014 sold Dynea Oy , the Dynea Erkner GmbH to the German private equity company Capiton AG . In 2018, Capiton sold the now renamed Prefere Resins Holding GmbH , headquartered in Erkner, to the holding company Silverfleet Capital . In 2019, the plant still employed 122 people and trainees.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Urban: Material Science and Material Technology . Springer, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-662-46236-2 , pp. 119f.
  2. ↑ Frank Retzlaff: As “Dr. B. “Trusted Max Weger , Part IV. In: Märkische Oderzeitung , October 29, 2009.
  3. ↑ Gerhard Koßmehl: How Bakelite conquered the world , Part V. In: Märkische Oderzeitung , November 5, 2009.
  4. ↑ Markus Weber, Guido Deussing: 111 years of Bakelite . K Online , September 2018.
  5. ^ Dietrich Braun: Brief history of plastics . Hanser, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-43685-5 , pp. 148f.
  6. ^ Eli Rubin: Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2009, ISBN 978-0-8078-3238-7 , p. 26.
  7. ↑ a b Gerhard Koßmehl: Phenoplast for the legendary racing cardboard , part VI. In: Märkische Oderzeitung , November 13, 2009.
  8. ↑ Dynea Erkner , accessed February 17, 2020.
  9. ↑ Only with reservation . In: Der Spiegel , No. 46/1993 (November 15, 1993), pp. 118f.
  10. ↑ Press release: Change of ownership at Prefere Resins , May 11, 2018.
  11. ↑ Annette Herold: A piece of Erkner in every car . In: Märkische Oderzeitung , February 23, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 46 ″  N , 13 ° 44 ′ 46 ″  E