Waggonbau Graaff

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Waggonbau Graaff GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1914
Seat Elze
Branch vehicle construction
Website www.waggonbau-graaff.de

The wagon Graaff GmbH is a subsidiary of VTG AG , a German manufacturer of freight cars based in Elze . The company used to be a manufacturer of railway and tram cars and buses under the name of Niedersächsische Waggonfabrik Joseph Graaff GmbH .

Company history

Waggonfabrik Heine und Holländer GmbH

Freight train escort car from the Heine und Holländer wagon factory from 1923

In 1914 Abraham Holländer from Zweibrücken and living in Aachen founded a railway wagon repair workshop together with Karl Heine from Hanover. To this end, in 1914 he bought part of the premises of a beet sugar factory and the Neumann and Stutz cotton spinning mill in Fabrikstrasse (now Heinrich-Nagel-Strasse) in Elze. During the First World War , the factory initially acted as a supplier and repair company for the armaments industry. After the war the company was renamed as Waggonfabrik Heine und Holländer GmbH .

His son Walter Holländer (* 1897) joined the wagon factory as an authorized signatory in May 1916.

In 1921, the series production of tank cars for industry began. Holländer and Heine also produced type VBV 501 (Pwg (h) Pr 014) baggage train cars in 1923.

On April 23, 1925, Walter Holländer was appointed managing director. Walter's sister Edith Frank-Holländer married Otto Heinrich Frank in 1925 and they had two daughters, Margot Frank and Anne Frank , who both died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . From 1926 Abraham Holländer and his son Walter Holländer were the sole owners.

After the death of Abraham Holländer in 1927, the heirs (Rosa Holländer, Julius Holländer and Walter Holländer) decided that Joseph Graaff would be appointed as the second managing director alongside Walter Holländer.

Lower Saxony Waggonfabrik Joseph Graaff GmbH

In a letter dated May 3, 1933, Joseph Graaff informed the Elze district court that Walter Holländer's power of attorney had expired. The entire company shares passed on June 18, 1934 during the Nazi era to Joseph Graaff, who had been the company's second managing director since 1927; he changed the name of the company to Niedersächsische Waggonfabrik Joseph Graaff GmbH . Despite the persecution of the Jews, Walter Holländer initially stayed with the company as an authorized signatory. In the November pogroms of 1938 Walter Holländer was arrested and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On December 1, 1938, he was brought to the Zeeburg internment camp near Amsterdam with a special permit . From there he was able to emigrate to the United States on December 16, 1939. Walter Holländer died in the USA on September 19, 1968. Joseph Graaff stated in his denazification file that he had acquired the wagon factory and three workshops in 1934.

From 1936 the company was approved as a supplier by the Deutsche Reichsbahn .

Tram cars were manufactured for Celle , Hanover , Hildesheim , Minden and Pforzheim until the early 1940s .

Due to the events of the war, only 15 two-axle sidecars were manufactured in 1943/1944, which were intended for the Berliner Verkehrs-Betriebe (BVG). Ten of the sidecars manufactured in Elze were presumably sent to ÜSTRA for use on the Hanover tram (Bw 1047-1056), while the remaining five sidecars were used as intended on the Berlin tram (Bw 1601 II -1605 II , 1616 II -1630 II ).

Railcar ET 204 of the Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn in front of the Bückeburg train station

After the Second World War and the rebuilding of the company, a branch for the construction of road vehicles was founded in 1950. Self-supporting city bus superstructures made of light metal were built on the chassis of Büssing AG . a. produced for the Hamburger Hochbahn (HHA). In addition, orders from the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) and industry were taken over. So were freight cars , refrigerated trucks , special tank cars for chemical products and vehicles for combined transport by rail and road construction as well as fire fighting vehicle bodies and tank truck superstructures. In 1950 the ET 204 railcar was delivered to the Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn , the VT 162 and VT 163 diesel railcars built in 1950 and 1953 went to the Bremervörde-Osterholzer Eisenbahn . The first pure car transport wagons were developed here in 1954 and mass-produced as Offs 55 from 1955–59.

In 1950 Carlo Graaff took over his father's company; from 1955 he was an FDP member of the Bundestag and from May 1959 to May 1965 Lower Saxony's Minister for Economics and Transport.

Around 1960 the company was a member of the Association of the Wagon Industry, in which 20 wagon manufacturers have come together.

At the beginning of the 1960s around 600 employees generated an annual turnover of around 20 million DM. Exports went to Australia, India, Mozambique, Turkey and Switzerland, among others.

First bankruptcy and reorganization

The first bankruptcy occurred in 1995, and several collective bargaining agreements were concluded with the IG Metall trade union in order to avert this.

Production halls of Waggonbau Graaff
Administration building of Waggonbau Graaff GmbH in Elze

In 2007 the company employed 220 people and generated sales of 43 million euros.

Second insolvency and takeover by VTG

On March 5, 2008 Waggonbau Graaff GmbH had to file for bankruptcy at the Hildesheim District Court due to unexpected difficulties in processing a major order with Railion AG and the tight liquidity situation. In July 2008, the takeover by the VTG AG group of companies based in Hamburg, 154 employees from the Elze plant were also taken over. The production capacity of the plant was around 300 cars per year in 2008.

In 2012 there were around 172 employees in Elze.

literature

  • Werner Beermann (Ed.): The Elzer Waggon: the history of the factory from Heine and Holländer to Waggonbau Graaff / VTG . 2nd, corrected edition. Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Elze and its districts, Elze January 1, 2012, DNB  1028945582 .

Web links

Commons : Waggonbau Graaff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Schäfer: Jewish citizens in Elze / Mehle. Networked Remembrance - Hildesheim Adult Education Center, 2012, accessed on November 28, 2016 .
  2. ↑ http://www.hege-elze.de/zeitungsarchiv/verkehrstechnik-heft-13-1941- Anzeige-graaff-niedersächsische- waggonfabrik
  3. ^ Siegfried Münzinger: Tram profile. Episode 2 . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Volume 2, 1975, pp. 31 .
  4. ^ Wolfgang H. Gebhardt: Büssing Omnibusse 1904–1971 . Schrader-Motor-Chronik, Schrader-Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-87171-8 , p. 42
  5. ↑ Rolf Löttgers: The narrow-gauge railway time in color . Franckh'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-440-05235-4 , p. 90 f .
  6. ↑ Udo Kandler On rails through the economic wonderland. The early Bundesbahn years , Klartext Verlag, Essen 2018, p. 63, ISBN 978-3-8375-1924-2
  7. ^ Metallzeitung: How the works councils at Waggonbau Graaff in Elze have increased the level of organization. (PDF) (No longer available online.) IG Metall , October 30, 2015, archived from the original on November 29, 2016 ; accessed on November 28, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / netkey40.igmetall.de
  8. ↑ The tank and freight wagon rental company VTG takes over the wagon construction division of the insolvent Graaf Group from Elze. Hamburger Abendblatt , July 30, 2008, accessed on November 28, 2016 .
  9. ↑ VTG takes over wagon builder Graaff. www.eurailpress.de, July 29, 2008, accessed on November 28, 2016 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 7 ′ 3 "  N , 9 ° 44 ′ 35.7"  E