Recovery chemistry

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The Gesellschaft mbH for the recovery of chemical products (abbreviated: Verwertchemie ) was a subsidiary of Dynamit AG (DAG) , which acted as the operating company for a number of explosives factories during the National Socialist era . It played an important role in the camouflaged armament of the Wehrmacht and the associated secret state influence on the armaments industry in the German Reich (see coal and steel scheme ).

history

On February 7, 1934, the Gesellschaft mbH for the recovery of chemical products was founded with its headquarters in Berlin . The company's first shareholders were Karl Pfeiffer, Director of Heydt Kontor GmbH in Berlin, and Dipl.-Ing. Ernst Wodicka, Berlin-Lichterfelde with a share capital of 100,000 RM each. On April 17, 1935, Dynamit AG, Troisdorf , took over recycling chemistry as the sole shareholder. The company's headquarters were relocated to Cologne at the end of 1936 .

In accordance with the partnership agreement, the company's object was the construction of chemical-technical plants and the production of chemical products of all kinds, as well as trading in them . In fact, as a 100% subsidiary, Verwertchemie was the operator of the explosives factories built by the DAG on behalf of the Army High Command (OKH) . As owner and developer of these works but not the Verwertchemie itself occurred, but on the appliance and apparatus-Handelsgesellschaft mbH ( Gerap ) from Heereswaffenamt controlled development company for coal and steel industries GmbH . The latter leased the respective factories to the recycling chemical industry, which in turn delivered the explosives produced and the ammunition cases filled with them to the OKH.

From the point of view of DAG and thus its subsidiary Verwertchemie, this approach had the advantage that the high investment costs for the explosives factories - caused by military considerations such as the selection of remote locations, camouflage measures, loosened and partially bunkered construction methods - were borne by the state, which was also sole Was the buyer of their products.

WASAG , which is controlled by the IG Farben Group (like DAG) , founded Deutsche Sprengchemie GmbH ( DSC ) , initially together with DAG, which performed the same role within WASAG as recycling chemistry for DAG and also operated a number of them acted by explosives factories. In some cases, the Verwertchemie and DSC plants were also in the immediate vicinity (e.g. in the case of Aschau / Kraiburg and Torgelow / Ueckermünde ).

The recycling chemistry continued to exist in the area of ​​what would later become the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945 and, from 1957 onwards, again produced explosives for military use by the Bundeswehr . For the period from 1957 to 1978 the seat of the GmbH was in Liebenau near Nienburg / Weser and from 1978 in Troisdorf . In 1990 it was merged with another subsidiary of Dynamit Nobel AG, Dynamit Nobel Explosivstoff- und Systemtechnik GmbH . The plants located on the territory of the later German Democratic Republic and in the eastern areas of the German Reich were expropriated and dismantled after 1945. In the post-war period, the locations in western Germany were mostly used for the settlement of refugees and civil industrial companies (see Expellees City ).

Establishments

Locations, buildings and workers

When choosing the location and building the explosives plants operated by the recycling chemistry (analogous to the DSC), strategic military reasons were decisive. The locations were spread between the Oder and the Rhine, with a focus on central Germany . For camouflage, the factories were mainly built in forest areas. The construction of the facilities and buildings was largely standardized. These were concrete frame buildings with steel reinforcement with thick roofs that were covered with earth and planted. The walls between the concrete pillars, on the other hand, were built rather lightly from alluvial stones in order to relieve the load-bearing elements in the event of an explosion inside. Production buildings were also surrounded by an earth wall, which was intended to deflect the pressure wave upwards from the neighboring buildings in the event of an explosion and at the same time offered protection from gunfire in the event of air raids. The roof structures were designed against incendiary bombs . Air raid shelters were available for the personnel , often inside the earth walls.

The explosives trinitrotoluene (TNT), picric acid (TNP), nitropenta (PETN), hexogen and dinitrobenzene (DNB) as well as the precursors and propellant powder nitrocellulose (NC), NC powder and POL powder were manufactured in the recycling chemical plants . The ammunition cases (bombs, grenades, etc.) supplied by other armaments companies were then filled in the company's own ammunition filling stations. The ammunition was then sent on to the armed forces' own ammunition factories for actual loading and storage .

The explosives factories had their own waterworks and a connection to the railway network. The wastewater mostly ended up in the neighboring rivers and caused great environmental damage here. All companies had their own labor camps and housing estates for skilled workers and managers in the vicinity of the plant. In the beginning, the labor demand could still be covered by workers from the region, especially since the locations were all in rural structurally weak areas. With the worsening of the Second World War , however, German conscripts, foreign forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were increasingly drawn to work. As of December 31, 1944, a total of 152,000 people were working in the entire German explosives industry (i.e. not only in the chemical industry), of which only 77,000 were Germans, but 29,000 so-called Eastern workers , 42,000 other foreigners and (also Jewish) prisoners and 3,000 prisoners of war.

List of plants operated by recycling chemistry

plant Cover name Location (today's place name) Coordinates Products Quantity (t) total Employees December 31, 1944
Allendorf Barbara I Stadtallendorf 50 ° 48 ′ 47 "  N , 8 ° 59 ′ 24"  E TNT 125.131 4,982
Aschau Spruce I Aschau am Inn 48 ° 11 ′ 11 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 5 ″  E NC 42,836 995
Bobingen pheasant Bobingen 48 ° 15 ′ 47 "  N , 10 ° 58 ′ 40"  E Hexogen 6,651 432
Bromberg peat Łęgnowo 53 ° 5 ′ 2 "  N , 18 ° 5 ′ 52"  E POL powder, NC, DNB 29,300 7,766
Christianstadt elm Krzystkowice 51 ° 49 ′ 21 ″  N , 15 ° 12 ′ 3 ″  E Hexogen, NC 64,480 5,151
Clausthal-Zellerfeld fir Clausthal-Zellerfeld 51 ° 48 ′ 10 ″  N , 10 ° 22 ′ 16 ″  E TNT 105.357 2.173
Doberitz Doberitz 52 ° 31 ′ 36 "  N , 12 ° 24 ′ 17"  E Hexogen 13,304 438
Doemitz Reuter Doemitz 53 ° 7 ′ 45 "  N , 11 ° 16 ′ 42"  E TNT, TNP 88,693 2,094
Ebenhausen Ebenhausen factory 48 ° 41 ′ 27 "  N , 11 ° 28 ′ 31"  E NC, NC powder 25,057 2,170
Güsen Meadow Güsen 52 ° 19 ′ 37 "  N , 11 ° 58 ′ 20"  E NC, NC powder, TNT 141,374 2,905
Hessian Lichtenau Friedland Hirschhagen 51 ° 13 '29 "  N , 9 ° 41' 58"  E TNT, TNP 124,299 4,472
Hohensaaten Hohensaaten 52 ° 52 ′ 46 "  N , 14 ° 6 ′ 31"  E NC 61,085 1,342
Kaufbeuren Neugablonz 47 ° 54 ′ 45 "  N , 10 ° 38 ′ 6"  E NC powder 2,947 1,369
Malchow ammunition and explosives factory Albion Malchow 53 ° 28 ′ 23 "  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 40"  E PETN 10,831 5,299
Ueckermünde See I Ueckermünde 53 ° 42 ′ 34 "  N , 14 ° 5 ′ 24"  E Hexogen, NC 68,740 1,201
Wolfratshausen Valley I. Garden mountain 47 ° 52 ′ 33 "  N , 11 ° 28 ′ 18"  E PETN, hexogen 12,653 2,648

literature

  • Wolfram König, Ulrich Schneider: Explosives from Hirschhagen. Past and present of a munitions factory. Kassel 1985.
  • History workshop Hessisch Lichtenau / Hirschhagen (ed.): 700 years of Hessisch Lichtenau - A supplementary contribution to local history. Arms production in "Friedland". The Hessisch Lichtenau factory for the utilization of chemical products GmbH Hessisch Lichtenau 1989.
  • Hans-Jürgen Wolf: The Allendorfer Sprengstoffwerke DAG and WASAG. Marburg 1989.
  • Project group Hirschhagen Comprehensive University Kassel (ed.): Hirschhagen. Explosives production in the "Third Reich". A guide to exploring the grounds of a former explosives factory. Kassel 1991.
  • City of Malchow (ed.): The ammunition and explosives factory in Malchow 1938–1945. Malchow 2000.
  • Dieter Materna: Cover name lake. A report about two former plants for powder and explosives production in the Ueckermünde district. Milow 2001.
  • Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Rural Areas and Consumer Protection / HIM GmbH area remediation of contaminated sites (ed.): Soil well done. The renovation of the old armaments site in Stadtallendorf. Stadtallendorf 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. Quotation n .: Materna: Cover name See , p. 10.
  2. Materna: Cover name See , p. 12f.
  3. HIM, Soil Well Made , p. 27.
  4. Commercial register information
  5. HIM, Soil Well Made , p. 38.
  6. HIM, Soil Well Made , p. 42.
  7. Information on production and personnel from: HIM, Boden gut made, p. 31f