Association of chemical factories in Mannheim
| Association of chemical factories in Mannheim | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Group of companies |
| founding | 1854 |
| resolution | 1920 |
| Reason for dissolution | fusion |
| Seat | Mannheim |
The chemical factories association in Mannheim was a German chemical company that had branch plants in Mannheim , Neuschloss near Lampertheim , Heilbronn and Luisenthal an der Saar (today a district of Völklingen ).
history
The chemical factories association in Mannheim was created in 1854 through the merger of the "Chemische Fabrik Mannheim und Heilbronn" with the "Chemische Fabrik Neuschloss" near Lampertheim. The company quickly developed into one of the leading chemical factories in Germany and in the third quarter of the 19th century was the largest German producer of soda , which was then used for glass and soap production. In 1867 and 1873 the company took part in the world exhibitions in Paris and Vienna .
The company made a name for itself when, in 1865, an intrigue prevented BASF from settling in Mannheim. After the newly founded BASF had found a suitable site for them in Mannheim, the “Verein Chemischer Fabriken” also showed interest in the property and made a higher bid. The city of Mannheim then decided to have the building site publicly auctioned. However, BASF acquired a property in Ludwigshafen am Rhein . Not a single bidder appeared at the auction of the originally selected site.
After several soda factories had settled in the immediate vicinity and the Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay had invented a new process for producing soda, the company, which had had another branch in Luisenthal in Saarland since 1870, ran into economic difficulties in the 1880s. After a phase of consolidation, the company picked up again at the beginning of the last decade of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the group had a total of 1,500 employees in its four factories. During this time, the company was heavily involved in research and, among other things, was involved in the development of a contact process for the production of sulfuric acid . A muffle furnace designed by the company's chemists for the production of sulphates and hydrochloric acid is still known today as the “Mannheim furnace” in specialist circles.
After the end of the First World War, the company again struggled with economic problems and merged with the Rhenania Group in Aachen in 1920 . In 1928 the group of companies finally merged into "Kali-Chemie AG" . The branch factories in Neuschloss and Luisenthal were shut down at the end of the 1920s. The plant in Mannheim followed in 1966. As the last company of the former “Verein Chemischer Fabriken in Mannheim”, the plant in Heilbronn ceased production at the beginning of the 1990s.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Wolfgang von Hippel: On the way to the global company , in: Werner Abelshauser (ed.), Die BASF - Eine Unternehmensgeschichte, Munich 2002, p. 29f.
literature
- Hintz, Ernst: Becoming and working of the chemical factories association in Mannheim. A review, occasionally of the 50th anniversary, is provided on behalf of the Supervisory Board. (Leipzig), (JJ Weber), 1904.
- Hans-Gert Parzer / Sebastian Parzer: From the “sulfuric acid factory Gebrüder Giulini” to “Kali-Chemie AG” - the checkered history of the first Mannheim chemical company , in: Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter 21/2011, pp. 43–52.