VEB rolling bearing factory "Josef Orlopp"

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Rolling bearing factory "Josef Orlopp"
legal form VEB
founding 1937
resolution 1992 (circa)
Reason for dissolution Liquidation after German reunification
Seat Berlin-Lichtenberg
Branch Metal processing

Main entrance of the former roller bearing factory, the gate leaves are decorated with stylized roller bearings

The roller bearing factory "Josef Orlopp" was a large enterprise producing in the GDR in Berlin-Lichtenberg . Its rolling bearings in all sizes and designs were used in numerous domestic products, but they were also exported to many countries . The factory building in what was then Rittergutstraße (from 1961 Josef-Orlopp-Straße) in Lichtenberg was built in the 1930s as a North German ball bearing factory. After the Second World War , the production initially served as a reparation payment for the Soviet Union. Around 1947, the facilities were returned to German ownership, the factory was now called Wälzlagerwerk Lichtenberg , and from 1949 it became publicly owned ( VEB ). Continuous expansion of production took place until the end of the GDR. After privatization by the Treuhandanstalt , rolling bearing production was stopped around 1992. The remaining factory buildings, some of which are listed, are used in small parts by various service providers.

history

Production facility for the North German ball bearing factory

The increasing development and use of vehicles of all kinds and new machines led to the establishment of the North German ball bearing factory Brandt & Co. KG (NKF) in the 1930s . The likely company founders are the machinist Gerhardt Brandt, the businessman Richard Brandt, the engineer Franz Heindl and the master toolmaker Willy Schulze.

Around 1935, the investors acquired the premises of Deutsche Marmor- und Alabasterwerke GmbH as a building site in what was then the Lichtenberg district , on which their own factory for the manufacture of ball bearings was to be built. The Charlottenburg architect Adolf Meyer-Luyken (1886–1960) designed a building complex with a production hall, warehouse, expedition, kitchen and administrative building on behalf of the NKF. In 1938/39, the plans were implemented by the construction company Karl Eisenrieth und Co. GmbH from Berlin-Friedenau . During the construction period, the terracing company Rittergut Lichtenberg bought the neighboring property (number 44). In what was then Rittergutstrasse 44–46 (since 1961 Josef-Orlopp-Strasse 92–96), a factory ensemble made of reinforced concrete with a clinker look was built by 1938 . The production of ball bearings started in 1939.

In the Second World War , the ball bearings belonged to the "war-important products", which is why forced laborers - sometimes from the age of 14 - were also used to secure production in the early 1940s because of the skilled workers drafted into the Wehrmacht .

After 1945 to 1990

The Soviet Union as victors of World War II knew the importance of ball bearings production and confiscated the work. All ball bearings went to Soviet industry as reparations from June 1945 .

From 1947 onwards, the workers were again producing urgently needed rolling bearings for the German market, mainly on repaired individual units or units assembled from spare parts, such as grinding machines or lathes. The accuracy was checked by means of manual measuring devices, the assembly of the bearings was largely done by hand. In later years, the plant also had its own craftsmen such as electricians and locksmiths in addition to the production facilities in the large brick halls. There was a plant fire brigade and a company kindergarten (Bornitzstrasse 101).

The rapidly increasing demand for roller bearings, as the ball bearings were soon called, led to the establishment of branches in other districts of the GDR. In 1957 the Luckenwalde "Willy Sägebrecht" rolling bearing factory was established and produced a sub-range of the Berlin factory. Further rolling bearing factories were added later in Leipzig Böhlitz-Ehrenberg, Fraureuth and Ronneburg. All production facilities were combined in the VEB Combine Rolling Bearings and Standard Parts (headquarters in Karl-Marx-Stadt) in the 1970s .

In 1961, together with the renaming of the street, the Berlin parent plant was given the honorary name of the union official Josef Orlopp .

Working meeting in the roller bearing factory in Berlin, among other things to prepare for the use of a fully automatic assembly line; 1959.
Photo: Ulrich Kohls

Over the years, the production facilities have been continuously developed and brought up to the latest technical standards. High-precision machines and measuring equipment were available, as well as NC machines in the 1980s . Finally, from the 1960s onwards, a complete automatic assembly line was used.

The roller bearings were installed in almost all industrial machines, in the vehicle industry, in household appliances and many other everyday products. The wide range of production was agreed and coordinated within the framework of the Comecon so that the other socialist states could also obtain and use the rolling bearings from Berlin.

The roller bearing factory served both for apprenticeship training and as a place for the day of instruction in production for pupils of the Lichtenberg schools. From the 1960s onwards, Vietnamese contract workers were also trained to operate the machines.

“Off” for the production and subsequent use of the building

Due to the lack of supplier parts from other former GDR factories, "only a fraction of the usual product quantity" was manufactured in 1990. The workers used the time to maintain and repair the existing machines. It is not exactly known whether there was a new owner in 1991, unconfirmed reports from former employees name FAG (Kugelfischer AG) (merged into the Schaeffler Group in 2011 ) from Schweinfurt. After the customer base had been secured and the contractually agreed continuation of production had been achieved, the management level decided to close the location on Josef-Orlopp-Straße. (The branch in Luckenwalde was also privatized and, under the name of Dr. Schiller Walz- und Werkzeugtechnik GmbH, produces its own rolling bearings or parts thereof as well as gear parts and sliding sleeves using the cold rolling process.)

What remained in East Berlin is a rolling bearing factory Lichtenberg Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH directly in the administration building of the factory on Josef-Orlopp-Straße.

Some machines from Berlin could be conveyed to production companies, the larger rest was sold to a foreign honorary consul as scrap metal. In 1992 a disused poultry fattening facility was discovered by chance in Trebbin , which served as a storage facility for almost all of the machines and equipment in the Berlin rolling bearing plant.

Parts of the factory premises were sold or leased on a long-term basis. The area of ​​the former industrial railway tracks on the factory premises was sold to a petrol station after it was shut down and the track system was dismantled. The large production halls obtained are used as warehouses for other large products.

The economic department of the Lichtenberg district office has designated the entire area in the development plan procedure as an industrial area under project number XVII-28 (as of 2008).

Location and description of the rolling bearing factory

Site plan of the former rolling bearing plant with house numbers drawn on OpenStreetMap , status 2010

The factory initially comprised the area behind the house numbers (old 44–46), on which a machine hall took up most of the space. A north-west three-story head building with a small inner courtyard was used for administration purposes. A smaller warehouse was connected to the south of the machine hall. The delivery of the raw material and the removal of the finished products took place via the industrial railway , which had been laid out by the former terrestrial company for the purpose of increasing the settlement of factories parallel to the entire Rittergutstraße. The operating area was around 36,500 m².

In the foreground is a building of the roller bearing plant added in the 1970s with the typical factory roofs.

After expansions in the 1970 / 1980s, an area of ​​around 51,200 m² belonged to the factory premises, which is bordered to the north by Josef-Orlopp-Straße, east by Siegfriedstraße and south by Bornitzstraße. Mainly in the area of ​​Siegfriedstrasse and Bornitzstrasse, the management initiated the construction of further production and storage halls.

Some products

  • Thrust bearings
  • "Population needs"
  • Deep groove ball bearing type 6305
  • Angular contact ball bearings
  • Cylindrical roller bearings

Literature and further materials

Web links

Commons : Wälzlagerfabrik Berlin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monument ensemble of the North German ball bearing factory, Josef-Orlopp-Straße 92–96
  2. ↑ Brandt, Gerhardt . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1935, part 1, p. 269. "Machine locksmith".
  3. ↑ Brandt, Richard . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1935, part 1, p. 271. “Kaufmann” (residing at Rittergutstrasse 44 in Lichtenberg).
  4. ↑ Heindl, Franz . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1935, part 1, p. 914. “Engineer” (residing at Rittergutstrasse 43 in Lichtenberg).
  5. ↑ Rittergutstrasse 45/46 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1936, part 4, p. 2157 (reference to the founders of the NKF).
  6. ↑ Rittergutstrasse 45/46 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1935, part 4, p. 2103.
  7. ^ Meyer-Luyken, Adolf . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1939, part 1, p. 1909. “Architect, residing at Olympische Strasse 20, Charlottenburg”.
  8. ↑ Rittergutstrasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1943, part 4, p. 2289. “No. 44, 45, 46 ‚Norddeutsche Kugellagerfbrk. GmbH'".
  9. ↑ Note from the Berlin monument database. (Note 44 penguins: the architect's name is misspelled. )
  10. ↑ Directory of companies that are mentioned in archive sources in connection with foreign and forced labor 1939–1945 (PDF; 10 kB)
  11. ↑ Anna Blume: Marzahn resting place. The first forced camp for Sinti and Roma was set up 70 years ago . (Scroll down to "Forced Labor")
  12. ↑ Gerhard Schulz: History in the Age of Globalization. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-11-017826-5 , reading sample p. 456 books.google.de
  13. ↑ Situation of the volunteer fire brigades in Lichtenberg in 1983 and 1985 ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 4.9 MB) on fw-chronik.de
  14. ↑ Conversion of the day-care center of the roller bearing plant ( memento of December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on publicata.de, accessed on July 16, 2012
  15. ↑ a b Chronicle of the Luckenwalde rolling bearing plant ( Memento from September 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: It wasn't all bad . ) In: Jungle World , November 3, 1999; Enumeration of factories and products from the GDR; Retrieved July 15, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / jungle-world.com
  17. ↑ Klaus Dieter Baumgarten: Thoughts during a walk around the Fennpfuhl with a brief reminiscence of the Josef Orlopp rolling bearing factory ( memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ l4k.de An article in New Germany from January 10, 1973; no longer available online
  19. ↑ It already crashes in February . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1990 ( online ). Quote: "Foreign suppliers stop the supply of raw materials, companies from the GDR no longer send preliminary products, the state crisis management has stopped working - the East German economy is on the verge of total collapse, confidential expertise predicts an imminent collapse."
  20. ↑ History of the former rolling bearing plant in Luckenwalde after 1992 ( memento from November 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ Wälzlagerwerk Lichtenberg Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH , number in the commercial register: HRB 34741
  22. ↑ Address and location of Waelzlagerwerk Lichtenberg Vermoegensverwaltungs-GmbH on pointoo.de, accessed July 15, 2012
  23. ↑ Klaus Dieter Baumgarten: Thoughts on a walk / What happened to the equipment in the rolling bearing factory? ; Retrieved on July 15, 2012 ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ Commercial area XVII-28 eh. Rolling bearing plant in Josef-Orlopp-Straße. ( Memento of February 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; p. 4), newly accessed on February 7, 2016.
  25. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: information about a new production hall in the Josef Orlopp rolling bearing plant 1975–1988, financed by the State Bank of the GDR ) (in the Federal Archives).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / startext.net-build.de
  26. ↑ Information on the former roller bearing plant on OpenStreetMap; 2010.
  27. ^ The roller bearing, ... 1961 and 1962

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '20 "  N , 13 ° 29' 50.1"  E