Wilhelm Schmidding

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Wilhelm Schmidding was a company in apparatus, plant and mechanical engineering.

history

The master coppersmith Wilhelm Schmidding († 1928) founded his workshop in Cologne in 1878. Thanks to quality work and adaptability to customer requirements, the workshop quickly gained a national reputation. Since the end of the 19th century she worked in close cooperation with the chemical industry in apparatus engineering. When the 70-year-old foreman ran the company to his son, Wilhelm Schmidding jun. (1887–1952), who had passed his master craftsman's examination as a coppersmith four years earlier, the framework for a craft business had already been blown and the business was converted into a limited partnership. The son moved the company to a larger factory site in Cologne-Mansfeld and put production on a broader, industrial basis.

During the Second World War, the Bodenbach plant manufactured rocket engines that were used in several types of aircraft. The drives were produced in the Schmiedeberg branch , which was founded in the summer of 1943 in the village of Buschvorwerk in the Giant Mountains , Lower Silesia . According to investigations by the Air Defense Intelligence, the secret service of the US Air Force , prisoners from the Laura concentration camp near Lehesten , a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp , were also used to test new rocket fuels .

In Linden, near Fischerhof, there was a partial factory for the manufacture of aircraft and mine shells. The new building in Cologne-Niehl was completed in July 1940.

Administration entrance of the former Schmiddingwerke in Hanover

The engineer Hans Kleiner (1907–1981) was co-owner of Wilhelm Schmidding KG and headed the main committee for aircraft equipment under the Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition Fritz Todt . In Schmiedeberg u. a. the co-development of the Heinkel Julia I (project 1077).

When the Hanover branch was intended to be dismantled by the military government and Franz Kraus (born September 18, 1902) was designated as the denazifier, the 130 employees went on strike for five months in the summer of 1947. Kraus, a longtime board member of DECHEMA and board member of the specialist group for apparatus construction in the VDMA , was transferred to Cologne, where he became technical director in 1952. In the early 1950s, the company turned to processing aluminum and stainless steel. Between 1955 and 1963 Kraus made some inventions for the light metal beer barrel, for which he was able to win the Guinness Brewery in Dublin as the first customer.

In May 1999 the Hanover branch was closed. The company was dissolved from November 2008 to February 2011.

Use of Schmidding drives

  • Henschel Hs 293 : two solid fuel engines Schmidding 109-513
  • Bachem Ba 349 : four starting rockets (ejectable) Schmidding 109-533 (1,200 kp, 11,768 kN) with a burning time of 10 seconds
  • Ruhrstahl X-4 : Schmidding 109-603

literature

  • Wilhelm Schmidding: Apparatus, plant and mechanical engineering; Plants in Cologne and Hanover; founded in 1878; the development and the current status of the company; an overview of the 75th anniversary on October 10, 1953 ; Wilhelm Schmidding (Cologne); 1953

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Reichelt/reichelt27-34.pdf
  2. http://www.igmetall-hannover.de/fileadmin/user/Dokumente/IGM_Hannover/2003_IGM_Geschichten_Hannover.pdf
  3. ^ Chemical Industry: Journal for the German Chemical Industry, Volume 19, P. 40
  4. https://www.online-handelsregister.de/handelsregisterauszug/nw/K%C3%B6ln/S/SCHMIDDING-WERKE+Wilhelm+Schmidding+GmbH+%26+Co.+KG/823716