Waggon construction Dessau
| Waggonbau Dessau GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | March 4, 1895 |
| resolution | July 1, 1995 |
| Seat | Dessau , Germany |
| Number of employees |
|
| Branch | Rail vehicle construction |
The wagon Dessau was one of the largest manufacturers of railway cars in the East and one of the largest manufacturers of refrigerated trucks in the world.
Company history
From the foundation to 1947
German gas railway company
Together with the Gas Traction Companie Ltd. London founded the German Continental Gas Company from Dessau with other founding members on March 4, 1895, the Deutsche Gasbahngesellschaft . The shareholders also included Mr. Oechelhäuser . The share capital was 1.35 million marks .
Dessau wagon factory
On April 22, 1900, the company was changed to Dessauer Waggonfabrik GmbH (DWF) by changing the partnership agreement. On March 10, 1904, this company was dissolved and the company expanded anyway. On November 27, 1905, the company resolved to dissolve it;
In 1921 the Dessauer Waggonfabrik became a member of the Eisenbahnwagen Liefergemeinschaft GmbH (EISLIEG) in Düsseldorf together with the wagon construction company H. Fuchs Waggonfabrik AG, Heidelberg , Düsseldorfer Eisenbahnbedarf, vorm. Carl Weyer & Co. , Siegener Eisenbahnbedarf AG, Waggon-Fabrik AG Uerdingen and Wegmann & Co., Kassel . With an annual production capacity of 18,000-20,000 vehicles, this wagon construction group represented the strongest and most efficient group within the German wagon construction industry.
The independence ended in 1930: “The acquisition of the majority of the Dessau wagon factory by Orenstein & Koppel. As the O&K A.-G. announces in Berlin that the company has acquired around 75% of the share capital of 2 million marks. O&K hopes to significantly promote the production of the Dessau company through appropriate financing. ”(Anhalter Anzeiger, March 17, 1930). O&K also acquired the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in 1930 . The companies remained and were continued as branch plants, there was cooperation in overlapping areas. There were also common reference lists.
Maschinenbau- und Bahnbedarf AG
In 1940, in the course of Aryanization, the majority of the shares in the O & K group were transferred to Hoesch AG and the company changed to Maschinenbau- und Bahnbedarf AG.
After the air raid on Dessau on March 7, 1945, in which 85% of the city was destroyed, mainly car repairs were carried out. On October 26, 1945, the DWF was placed under a sequester by Order No. 124 of the Soviet Military Administration , and on July 2, 1946, by Order No. 154, it was converted into a Soviet joint-stock company. In 1947 a major fire destroyed a considerable part of the factory buildings and machines.
History of the VEB
The railway wagon factory as SAG was released from Soviet supervision and management and "taken over" by a resolution of the GDR government on June 16, 1952 in public ownership . The new company name was: VEB LOWA Waggonbau Dessau , the address was: Albrechtstraße 48 (later Joliot-Curie-Straße), later only VEB WBD Waggonbau Dessau .
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1990 until liquidation
After the People's Chamber of the GDR decided in May 1990 to convert all state-owned companies into corporations, it was entered in the commercial register as Waggonbau Dessau GmbH on July 24, 1990 . Like most of the members of the rail vehicle construction combine in the GDR, the Dessau operations also remained in the network of the combine successor organization, the Deutsche Waggonbau Aktiengesellschaft (DWA). At the end of 1994, it was decided to sell DWA to the American investment company Advent International from Boston.
On July 1, 1995 Waggonbau Dessau GmbH was closed. Vehicle technology Dessau GmbH (today Molinari Rail Systems GmbH ), an industrial park and a qualification company were established on the site as successor institutions .
production
Freight wagons were produced as early as 1897, to which gas tram motor vehicles , gas locomotives and draisines were added by 1899 . In 1911 a contract was signed with the Sino-German Railway Company . In 1924 the company received an order from the Dessau-Wörlitzer Eisenbahn to build benzene-powered mechanical combustion railcars . Tram cars for the Magdeburg trams were also built here . In 1926, the construction of three-ton delivery vans (trucks) and buses with 28 seats for Dessau began. In 1928, the construction of double-decker buses and the production of coal dust trucks for the Deutsche Reichsbahn followed .
While only 355 freight and passenger cars were built in 1905, production rose to 831 by 1918.
In 1925, the Dessauer Waggonfabrik supplied 40 of the 200 type 22 multiple units for the Great Leipzig Tram , which were popularly nicknamed Pullman cars because of the typical roof hoods that were pulled over the entry areas .
In 1930 the company received the order to build four-axle subway cars for Berlin as well as various transport systems as steel structures. In 1933, the company Orenstein & Koppel, to which the Dessauer Waggonfabrik belonged, was commissioned by Siemens to build four-axle electric cars for the CDE subway project in Buenos Aires , with O & K Berlin the railcars and Dessau the Manufactured control car. In 1941 mainly container cars and railcars were produced for the Berlin S-Bahn (until 1944) and in 1942/43 15 railcars for the Peenemünder Schnellbahnzüge were produced for the electric S-Bahn of the Peenemünde Army Research Center. On June 7, 1945, the American occupying forces granted permission to repair cars.
In 1948 the company received an order to produce a welded all-steel car body as a refrigerated car. The production of refrigerated trucks was the main task until the company was converted in 1990 and the company closed in 1995. In addition to the production of rail vehicles, consumer goods were also manufactured, including a. Handcarts, bicycle trailers, windows and doors made of wood, various wooden articles and "handicraft" objects.
Employees
In 1904 300 workers and 20 salaried employees were employed in the company. In 1914 a third of the workforce was drafted into military service, leaving 370 production workers. Therefore, during the war, Russian and French prisoners of war were also used to work. In 1918 the workforce comprised 750 employees. After the global economic crisis , the number of employees had dropped to 100. Only with the job creation program of the Nazi government did the number of employees rise again. At the end of 1933 540 people were employed again. By the early 1940s, the workforce had grown to 1,115.
education
The company vocational school (BBS) of the Waggonfabrik was opened on November 17, 1949. It was the first BBS in Dessau and trained over 4,420 skilled workers and 711 skilled workers with a high school diploma until it was closed in 1990.
literature
- Franz Brückner: The prehistory of VEB Waggonbau Dessau from 1895 to 1945 . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1962, DNB 572540019 .
- Waggonbau Dessau (Ed.): Coupling. Company newspaper for the workforce of Waggonbau Dessau GmbH . DNB 940111160 ( bi-weekly magazine, 44 volumes up to 1993).
- Waggonbau Dessau (ed.): Innovation from tradition. Festschrift of "Waggonbau Dessau GmbH" for the 100th anniversary of Waggonfabrik Dessau . Dessau 1995.
- Philipp Hessinger u. a .: focus and balance. Establishment and growth of industrial networks. Using the example of VW / Zwickau, Jenoptik / Jena and rail vehicle construction / Saxony-Anhalt . Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2000, DNB 1020231653 .
- Hitchhikers scoreboard . March 17, 1930.
- Dipl.-Ing. F. Kuntze, Railway Department of the SSW: The new subway in Buenos Aires . In: Siemens magazine . July 1934, p. 244-249 .
Web links
- Matthias Palmer: Wagon construction in Dessau. In: www.kuehlwaggon.de. Retrieved October 24, 2012 .
- Relatives overseas: the subway cars of the CDE lines for Buenos Aires from 1934/38
- The company records "Waggonfabrik Dessau AG", "SAG für Transportmittelbau Dessau" and "VEB Waggonbau Dessau" can be found in the Dessau department of the Saxony-Anhalt State Archives under [1] , [2] , [3]
Individual evidence
- ^ The German railway system of the present. Hobbing Verlag Berlin, edition 1923, p. 480 ff.
- ↑ Rolf Löttgers: The narrow-gauge railcars of the railway car factory Dessau . In: The Museum Railway . No. 3 , 2019, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 21 .
- ↑ Brückner, 1962
- ^ A b Franz Brückner: The history of VEB Waggonbau Dessau from 1895 to 1945 . In: Yearbook for Economic History . tape 1962 , no. 1 . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1962, DNB 572540019 , p. 132 .