Wagenmann, Seybel & Co.

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Wagenmann, Seybel & Comp.
legal form Corporation
founding 1828
resolution 1938
Seat Liesing
management Karl Wagenmann, then Emil Seybel
Number of employees 500
Branch chemical industry

The company car man and Seybel (also Wagenmann & Brown or car man, Seybel & Cie.  , Etc.) in the 19th and early 20th century, a large chemical plant in the south of Vienna.

The former factory site is approximately 225,000 m². It is located in Liesing in the 23rd district of Vienna, west of the B 12 Brunner Strasse , north of Siebenhirtenstrasse, south of the “An den Steinfeldern” road and east of the Liesing river .

history

The company was founded in 1828 under the company "Braun und Wagenmann" in what was then the Viennese suburb of Wieden , and on June 6, 1834, the operating license for the company in Liesing was granted (company "Wagenmann und Braun"). Its founder, Carl Christian Wagenmann (* 1787 in Scharnhausen , Württemberg , † 1867 in Vienna) came from Berlin. He was the owner of several patents , for example for the improved production of potassium chlorate , a basic material for the production of matches, fireworks and earlier also explosives. The Wagenmanns company had become one of the largest producers of diving matches in the first quarter of the 19th century . He had so significantly improved the quality and manageability of these lighters, which originally came from France, that he was called their inventor. In Germany, originally in Tübingen , then with a production in Berlin , he had great economic success.

From 1838/39 Emil Seybel (* 1816 in Berlin; † 1882 in Liesing), Wagenmann's stepson, ran the business, in 1845 he became a partner and in 1865 sole owner. The company developed into one of the most important chemical producers in Austria-Hungary . On March 21, 1872, Seybel acquired the “Obere Haid-Mühle”, which was located between Seybelgasse and Liesingbach (also called “Mill below the Servatius Chapel ”, house or upholstered mill ) to expand the plant.

  • Chemical plant Wagenmann & Seybel

  • The factory premises as "Fabrik chem. Products “in the east of Liesing 1872

  • Factory premises in 1898

  • Boiler house 1898

  • Building Seybelgasse 2011

  • Large hall in the eastern part of the factory premises in 2011

Emil Seybel is counted among the founders of the chemical industry in Austria. His family, which also included the writer Georg von Seybel , lived in the Palais Seybel at Reisnerstrasse 50 in Vienna-Landstrasse . The factory was taken over by his sons Otto, Paul and Georg in 1880, and their families were accepted into the nobility in 1912.

In 1898 the factory was expanded to 89,400 m², of which 52,000 m² were built with factory buildings. The installed machines had 240  HP , the steam boiler systems 1680 m² heating surface . Its own railway system with a series of side tracks connected the plant to the southern part of Liesing station and thus to the southern railway . The factory had its own pottery for the production of the ceramic containers for the acid transport , its own gas factory and electrical lighting system. There were houses and a health and benefit fund for the employees and their families. In 1908 the company became a stock corporation, in 1911 it was merged with what was then the " Holzverkohlungsindustrie AG ", the HIAG. This year the factory premises covered 300,000 m², of which 100,000 m² were built-up.

In search of water for the plant's steam boilers, a deep borehole was carried out in 1912 , which actually encountered water in several shifts during the day at 83, 112, 148, 247 and 255 m. However, these water resources were too small and their water too hard to be used as boiler feed water . The drilling continued after geologists became aware of it, but eventually stopped after it reached a depth of over 600 meters. A consultation with Eduard Suess had shown that, in his opinion, the bore was about 3 km away too close to the edge of the mountain (near Kalksburg ) to be able to gain new knowledge about the geology of the area. This meant that the Academy of Sciences in Vienna did not share in the costs of its continuation. Since the borehole essentially only penetrated layers of gravel , sand and tegel , but did not penetrate the rock that lay beneath these layers, it provided evidence that the mountain edge of the Alps in its area sinks very steeply.

With the end of the First World War in 1918, the Wagenmann, Seybel & Co. plant lost most of its raw material sources and sales markets. In 1920 his shares were sold to a company of the Škoda Group ( Skoda-Wetzler ), from 1930 the company name was "Austrian HIAG-Werke". In 1938 it was merged with other companies to form Donau Chemie , which in turn became part of IG Farben . During the Second World War , the factory facilities are badly damaged. After reprivatisation in 1958 (again Donau Chemie ) and partial reconstruction, the production facilities were continued in other locations as part of multiple changes of ownership (shareholders included the companies Rhône-Poulenc , Montana and Creditanstalt ), for example in Pischelsdorf (formerly the Moosbierbaum refinery ), Absam , in the Viennese Lobau , in Brückl and Ried in the Traunkreis . The HIAG, later as a GmbH , remained in Liesing until the 1970s with a limited business area (including vinegar production). A storage and bottling plant of what is now "Donau Chem Austria" also remained on the factory premises in Liesing. In 2001, part of an investment package of around € 2.3 million was invested in storage and filling equipment. In 2011, part of the land was still owned by a company belonging to the Donau-Chemie Group, but the remaining business was relocated to Pischelsdorf and the site was used by various other businesses. Part of the site is owned by the ORF.

In 2011 only small, non-listed remains of the extensive industrial complex of the 19th century were preserved, such as a former administrative building at Seybelgasse 16, which was abandoned to decay, and whose land was intended for widening Seybelgasse in the zoning plan of the City of Vienna. There was also a large hall in the eastern part, a chimney on Siebenhirtenstrasse and remains of the wall in Seybelgasse No. 5 and 5a. In the 20th century, the “ Schleppbahn Liesing ” developed from the railway system, which supplied the industrial area of ​​Liesing until the 1990s.

There are a number of businesses on the former factory site. The central warehouse of the ORF with the radio documentation archive ( QSL collection ) is located in the large hall . The mast of the Liesing station has been standing next to it since 2012 .

production

At the beginning vinegar and brandy were produced, in 1836 wine vinegar , brandy, rosoglio and chemical products were produced. In the following years, production was switched to acids and salts . From 1842 the plant was expanded to become a large producer of sulfuric acid (at that time initially called " vitriol oil ") and other chemicals. That year the first lead chamber plant for sulfuric acid production was put into operation. There are ferrous sulphate , copper sulphate , zinc vitriol , Glauber's salt , Epsom salt , hydrochloric acid , nitric acid produced. The gas water (ammonia water) from the Vienna gas factories, which until then had been channeled into the wastewater during the production of town gas , became the basis for the production of ammonia and ammonia from 1900 . The previously worthless wine yeast from the wine-growing operations in the south of Vienna was used to produce tartaric acid. In 1856, instead of the sulfur from Sicily, which had been used up to now, the sulfur pebbles from our own mines in Pernegg , Bösing and other mines were used, thus achieving the first efficient smelting of this raw material in Austria. The hut in Bösing, founded in 1857, had to be closed again in 1897, as well as a chromium potash plant in Kraubath .

In 1856, the production of water glass was introduced with the first Siemens furnace built in Austria . A Sodaerzeugung after the Leblanc process had after ten years because of high transport costs to be abandoned. Further branches of production, such as the production of alumina hydrate and sulfuric alumina from bauxite , were secured with own patents. In 1902 citric acid was also produced. Superphosphate and other artificial fertilizers , ferrocyanic salts and rhodan preparations were also part of the plant's production.

At the end of the 19th century the factory employed around 500 workers. It produced annually about 150,000 quintals (about 100 kg ), so 15,000 tons of sulfuric acid, 1,200 tons of nitric acid, 200 tons of hydrochloric acid, 5,000 tons of fertilizer, etc. were in 1911 as the main products annually, on average, 1800 (railway) wagons sulfuric acid, 120 wagons Nitric acid, 60 wagons of tartaric acid, 20 wagons of carbonate of ammonia and 90 wagons of ammonia.

The plant was the largest operation of a number of chemical companies in the south of Vienna, to which the coffin-Werke and the layer-Werke (later Unilever ), a branch factory of Dragoco that "Hetzendorfer lacquer, paint and Firniß- Factory O. Fritze “(Fritze-Lacke), Schramm & Wagenmann, Ludwig Marx, Eisenstädter (the latter three later merged into Wildschek & Co.) and their current successor companies belonged or belong.

Contaminated site

Embankment with measuring probe on the accumulation of production residues on Brunner Strasse

The factory premises are contaminated with production residues. In the east of the site there are 170,000 tons of residues from the production of sulfuric acid . The deposited layer of these residues is one to seven meters thick and extends into the groundwater area . As a result of these embankments, the former works area is higher in the eastern part than the surrounding area; its embankment on Brunner Strasse is paved with concrete blocks. The site has been classified as a contaminated site , priority class I, since 1990 . Pollutants are cyanides , hydrocarbons , phenol , sulfates , nitrites and ammonium . Soil sample analyzes in 1963, 1970 and 1972 showed pH values ​​of up to 2 and about 12,000 mg / l sulfate. The contaminated site description by the Federal Environment Agency mentions massive damage to the groundwater. There are groundwater probes through which the development is observed and samples are taken. The groundwater flow runs in a north-east to east direction under the other areas of the industrial and commercial area in Liesing around Brunner Strasse. The course of the Liesing in the west of the area is not affected. The area is registered as contaminated site W8 in the contaminated site register and published in the Federal Law Gazette.

literature

Web links

Commons : Wagenmann & Seybel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Joseph Prechtl (ed.): Yearbooks of the imperial royal polytechnic institute in Vienna (later: Technical University ). Published in conjunction with the professors of the institute. 19th volume. Vienna 1837. page 478. No. 2260. Yearbook TU Wien Volume 19 Vienna 1837 page 478. in the Google book search The house number given there is a conscription number (there were no house numbers (orientation numbers ) in today's sense in 1837 ), the current house numbers of the building would be "Wiedner Hauptstrasse 60, 60a, 60b" on the lots no. 1024 and 1025/2, cadastral municipality 01011 Wieden.
  2. ↑ a b Ferdinand Opll: Liesing. History of the 23rd district of Vienna and its old places. In the series: Viennese local history. Edited by Felix Czeike. Verlag Jugend und Volk Wien-Munich 1982. ISBN 3-7141-6217-8 . Page 179.
  3. ↑ Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstaedt : Bulletin of the latest and most worth knowing from the natural sciences, as well as the arts, manufactories, technical trades, agriculture and middle class housekeeping: for educated readers from all classes. Volume 5. XXXIV. The chemical lighters with matches. Communicated by Herr Doctor Wagenmann. Verlag Karl Friedrich Amelang, Berlin 1810. Pages 155–162. Hermbstaedt, Bulletin 1810, page 155. in the Google book search
  4. ↑ a b c d e The large-scale industry in Austria. Festival ceremony for the glorious 50th anniversary of the reign of His Majesty the Emperor Franz Josef I. Presented by the industrialists of Austria. 1898. Under the high protectorate of his k. and k. Highness of the most serene Archduke Franz Ferdinand . Vienna 1898. Leopold Weiss publisher. Leopold Weiss publishing house. Vienna 1898. Volume V, pages 417-418.
  5. ↑ a b Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950. Volume 12. 56. Delivery 2002. Pages 204-205 .
  6. ↑ Opll, page 169.
  7. ^ A b Rudolf Spitzer: Liesing. Preserving the old, creating the new. Verlag Mohl Vienna 1994. ISBN 3-900272-50-6 . Page 129.
  8. ^ Josef Jahne: Local history of the political district Hietzing area for school and home. On behalf of the k. k. District school council for Hietzing area published. Vienna 1911. Self-published by the k. k. District school council for Hietzing area. Page 124.
  9. ^ Franz Toula : The deep drilling to a depth of 600 m in the area of ​​the chemical products factory, namely the Holzverkohlungs-Industrie-Aktien-Gesellschaft in Liesing near Vienna. In: Nova Acta. Treatises of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists . Volume C No. 3. Hall 1914.
  10. ^ History of Danube Chemistry . Land register district court Liesing, cadastral community 01805 Liesing deposit number 1050. Plots 249/9, 256/4, location see zoning and development plan Vienna .
  11. ↑ Bottling plants for the production of consumer products in Pischelsdorf
  12. ↑ Locations ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of Donau Chemie. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.donau-chemie-group.com
  13. ↑ Land register district court Liesing, cadastral municipality 01805 Liesing deposit number 1451. Plots 249/8, 256/6, location see zoning and development plan Vienna .
  14. ↑ Property No. 249/48, deposit number 878 land register of the cadastral community 01805 Liesing, district court Liesing. Retrieved May 27, 2011.
  15. ↑ Land use plan of the City of Vienna, accessed May 27, 2011.
  16. ^ Documentation archive radio in the central warehouse of the ORF: Vienna 23, An den Steinfeldern 4a. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  17. ↑ Primo Calvi: Representation of the political district Hietzing environment through a comprehensive description of all villages, localities, churches, schools, castles, institutions and noteworthy objects etc. etc. Self-published, Vienna 1901. Pages 41–42.
  18. ↑ Jahne, Heimatkunde, page 125.
  19. ↑ Chronicle of the Wildschek & Co. Company. Accessed May 28, 2011.
  20. ↑ a b Federal Environment Agency: Altlast W8 Siebenhirten .
  21. ↑ Federal Law Gazette II No. 232/2004 : Altlast W8 Siebenhirten.

Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 7.7 ″  N , 16 ° 17 ′ 35.6 ″  E