Heinrich-Robert colliery

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Heinrich-Robert colliery
General information about the mine
Aerial coal mine Heinrich-Robert Hamm Germany.jpg
Heinrich-Robert colliery from the air (2014)
other names De Wendel
Mining technology Underground mining
Information about the mining company
Start of operation May 8, 1901
End of operation November 10, 1997
Successor use Transferred to the Ost mine - closed in 2010
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Hard coal
Geographical location
Coordinates 51 ° 39 '4.5 "  N , 7 ° 45' 40.9"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 39 '4.5 "  N , 7 ° 45' 40.9"  E
Heinrich-Robert Colliery (Ruhr Regional Association)
Heinrich-Robert colliery
Location Heinrich-Robert colliery
Location Herringen
local community Hamm
Independent city ( NUTS3 ) Hamm
country State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
District Ruhr area

The Zeche Heinrich-Robert was the last promotional coal - mine in Hamm and later belonged to the group mine east . The shafts Henry and Robert were 1,901 drilled , Schacht Franz 1,923th

history

prehistory

Aerial photo of Heinrich-Robert colliery 2020.jpg

The year 1874 marked the beginning of mining activities for the villages of Herringen and Pelkum . Heinrich Grimberg undertook the first exploratory drilling in this area and came across coal . But it was only 1894/99 he received some of the mining concessions by the Prussian State awarded . In 1900 he sold seven fields with the name Prinz Schönaich and another field with the name Robert Hundhausen I to the Lorraine smelting company Les petit Files de Francais des Wendel & Cie . The fields had a total area of ​​18 km².

De Wendel

The owners of the buying company were the two brothers Henri and Robert de Wendel. These had the fields consolidated and combined into a single field, which was named De Wendel after their family name . The owners founded the De Wendel colliery in this area with the aim of extracting the non-existent fat coal for their own smelting works in Lorraine. The beginning of the devil for shaft I, which was baptized Heinrich after Henri de Wendel , took place on May 8, 1901. On June 1, work also began on shaft II; this was named Robert after the second brother of the de Wendel family .

In the Heinrich shaft the carbon was reached in 1902 at 562 m; until 1903 it reached a depth of 759 m and set at 662 m, the first sole one. Also in 1903 the daytime facilities required for operation were tackled. After three years of preparation, succeeded then in 1904 to the first coal promote . It came from the seam Katharina , which lies at 603 m (−535 m above sea level). Initially, the funding was only used to cover personal needs. In 1905, when the Radbod colliery started operations in neighboring Bockum-Hövel , the oldest of the Hammer pits already had 406 employees and extracted 3,511 tons of coal. It was not until 1906 that regular production operations began. This year the mine had 606 employees who generated an annual output of 31,084 t. This year, coal from the new mine could also be sold for the first time. The daytime facilities were then expanded. The coal processing was particularly new . In 1908 the coking plant was built, which was able to produce the first batch of coke in the following year. At the same time as the coking plant, the colliery railway was built , which connected the mine with the Hamm – Osterfeld railway line . It enabled coal and coke to be shipped to the iron and steel works in Lorraine shortly thereafter. The Robert shaft reached a depth of 870 m in 1908.

A look at the employment figures confirms the rapid development of this branch of industry, which is so new for the Hamm area. While there were only 406 miners in 1905, five years later there were 1,735 men who generated an annual production of 375,141 t. This development is accompanied by the growth of the villages of Herringen and Pelkum, which now quickly increased in population and developed from rural villages to the urban districts of the city of Hamm today.

However, the First World War initially brought the German administration over the mine, as its owners, who were both French, were now anti-war owners. After the end of the war, the facility returned to the De Wendels' ownership. Regardless of this turmoil, the facility continued to grow and was expanded to include its own port basin on the Datteln-Hamm Canal , which is now filled. The basin was not completed until 1925 so that it could be used for loading the coal. Despite the difficult post-war situation in Germany, construction of a third shaft began in 1922. It had become necessary in preparation for coal mining in the northern half of the field. The new shaft III was named Franz and was located 2 km from the main plant. It was planned as an independent funding location, but never received the necessary facilities. The Franz shaft reached the Carboniferous at 610 m and three years later its final depth at 1010 m. The dismantling in the north field was carried out according to plan from 1926.

Franz shaft, blown up in 2003

The first accident on the colliery occurred - relatively late in comparison to the other collieries in the Hammer area - on November 27, 1926. A firedamp explosion killed eleven miners . On the following March 1st, there was a second firedamp explosion, which again killed four friends. As a consequence, it was decided to dig a further shaft between the Franz shaft and the two main production shafts Heinrich and Robert in order to improve ventilation. This weather shaft was named Humbert; construction began in 1927. The Humbert mine reached carbon two years later (1929), and yet another fatal accident occurred. On August 4, 1929, four other miners were killed; the Humbert weather shaft, which was only completed in 1930 to the point that it could fulfill its function, came a year too late for these miners. In 1930 there were already 4,334 workers; the output was 1,070,554 tons of hard coal. The mine gases , which were extracted through the ventilation shafts, could be fed into the Ruhrgas AG network from 1931 . Between 1929 and 1934, operations on the Humbert and Franz pits were temporarily suspended because the global economic crisis affected work here too.

The company in the Third Reich and a new name

The seizure of power by the NSDAP and Hitler brought with it numerous changes for Germany, also with regard to the Hammer pits in general and De Wendel in particular. Thanks to the changed economic policy, the operation of all shafts could be resumed. Coal was in greater demand than ever, which is also due to the ongoing preparations for war. To avoid reprisals by the National Socialists, for whom the French-sounding name was a thorn in the side, the de Wendel family renamed the operating company of the De Wendel colliery; on April 26, 1937 it was christened Aktiengesellschaft Steinkohlenbergwerk Heinrich Robert . From now on the mine was called Heinrich-Robert  - after the first names of the founders. The colliery was provided with equity and a supervisory board was set up. This consisted mainly of members of the De Wendel family, which also held 100% of the shares. When the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 led to the declaration of war by France and the United Kingdom on September 3, the mine was again under German administration. Despite the war, further expansion measures were carried out in 1942. The colliery's power plant received a larger power generator and was connected to the Gerstein plant in Stockum via an overhead line so that the additional electricity produced could be fed into the public grid. The first indirect consequence of the start of the war was a decline in the workforce. In 1941 only 3,442 miners were employed on the mine. Despite the smaller workforce, a conveying capacity of 1,197,879 tons was achieved. In the further course of the war, however, more and more miners were drafted into the Wehrmacht , so that the number of employees and the output continued to decline. At the end of the war, the mine only employed 2,955 miners; the conveying capacity had fallen to 531,492 tons. The daytime facilities largely escaped the direct impact of the bombing war that was also waged against the mines and the city of Hamm with its large industrial facilities . After the occupation by the Allies, the mine was able to continue operations without any major clean-up work.

post war period

View from the Kissinger Höhe to the colliery and Hamm

Regardless of the fact that the mine was not originally owned by Germany, but was owned by a French family, the mine was initially confiscated after the end of the war. The Rhine Coal Control , which was also responsible for the temporary confiscation of all other mines in the Ruhr area, took over the administration. On May 25, 1950, the pre-war owners were finally able to enforce their claims; the mine was again owned by the de Wendel family. At the same time, the conveyance in Schacht Robert was switched to a different technology, the so-called skip vessel conveyance , which enabled a payload of seven tons. The number of employees had meanwhile increased significantly again. 5,592 miners generated a record production of 1,355,766 t of hard coal. But already on January 17, 1952, a mining accident interrupted the post-war upswing. 17 miners died in a firedamp explosion - the worst accident to date on Heinrich-Robert. In the 1960s, the former Robert weather shaft was converted into the main production shaft. In order to achieve this goal, a hammerhead tower was built as early as 1955 in regularly structured steel framework, which still characterizes the townscape today. In this way, the existing conveyor system was expanded. The skip conveyance could now hold eleven tons of payload per container.

By 1960, the number of employees had sunk to just under 5,000 workers and employees. However, thanks to the new systems, these kept production at a very high level and were able to increase the output to 1,447,677 t. In 1968 the Robert shaft was expanded again and a second skip conveyor system was added.

The Ruhrkohle AG

In 1969, the De Wendel Group finally sold the mine to Ruhrkohle AG . For the mine, this meant the elimination of the previous production restriction to 1.5 million tons. For the first time, the colliery was able to expand beyond its own narrow mine field, which was only approx. 18 km² in size. A late development, as the pit fields of the neighboring Saxony colliery had already reached an area of ​​approx. 100 km² in 1954. In 1973 the Monopol III mine field , located in the Lerche and Sandbochum area, was opened. On November 11, 1973, two pits in the greater Hamm area were merged for the first time. The breakthrough between Heinrich-Robert and its partner mine, the Werne colliery , took place in 1974 in the area of ​​the Wilhelm seam . At about the same time, the company's own power plant was shut down because electricity could be purchased more cheaply. After the power station buildings were demolished, a coal equalization bunker and a mountain bunker were built on the site. The Werne colliery started its last production shift on January 31, 1975. Parts of its workforce switched to the Heinrich-Robert mine, which also took over the Werne fields and continues to operate the Werne 4 weather shaft in Werne- Stockum. In the same year, a breakthrough took place on the 4th level to the 1,025-meter level of the Radbod colliery by means of a die , but no larger association with this mine was decided. At the same time, the large community of Pelkum, on whose territory the Heinrich Robert colliery was located, was incorporated into the newly created city of Hamm and divided into the districts of Herringen and Pelkum . The number of employees continued to decrease (4,629 men), but the output was increased to 2,546,124 t. On January 1, 1978 Heinrich-Robert took over the weather shaft 7 of the Königsborn colliery in Bönen and the Monopoly III field. Heinrich-Robert and the Königsborn colliery have had a joint plant management team since then. A year later, construction of another weather shaft began in Sandbochum, which was brought into operation in 1981 to a final depth of 1,221 m. In the same year the Koenigsborn colliery closed; most of their workforce moved to the pit Heinrich Robert, shaft Königsborn 4 was used for the dewatering kept open. The days of the Werne 4 shaft were also numbered; it was no longer needed and was therefore subsequently backfilled . On June 21, 1985 the factory management reported to Heinrich-Robert that the one hundred millionth ton of coal had been extracted since the colliery was founded.

Access to the east mine

Two years later, on March 31, 1987, the last coke was pressed in the coking plant. The decision to decommission was made by RAG on December 3, 1986. In total, around 28 million tons of coke were produced in the coking plant and employed 270 people, with tar, benzene, sulfur and gas as by-products. The demolition of the coking plant began in the autumn of 1987 and continued until spring 1988.

At this point in time, the closure of another mine in the eastern Ruhr area was already being discussed, even if it was not yet clear which mine would hit. Ultimately , the choice fell on the Radbod colliery , which, despite the planned north migration to the Donar field, stopped mining in 1990. At this point in time, work had already begun on two other shafts in the Donarfeld (Radbod 6 and 7) in the border area between Bockum-Hövel , Ascheberg and Drensteinfurt . However, this was no longer used for its originally planned purpose. The remnants of Radbod were taken over by the plant management at the Zeche Westfalen , which has been managing the plants in Bockum-Hövel and Ahlen since 1989 . Parts of the workforce moved to Heinrich-Robert, which this time did not go without problems, especially since Rabod only had a main operating plan for the business interruption and the miners had put their hopes on the north migration that had begun. A hope that has now been dispelled by the extensive demolition of the facilities. The Winkhaus (Radbod 5) shafts on the colliery site and Donar (6) in Ascheberg-Herbern (Nordick farming community) were spared the closure in order to keep the option of a later north migration open.

Heinrich-Roberts Grubenfeld had now reached a size of 37 km²; the workforce consisted of 5,326 men and produced 3,336,924 tons per year. This record number was followed in 1994 by the RAG limiting the daily output to 9,000 t, which resulted in the closure of the daily facilities at the Franz shaft. In the following two years, the Königsborn mine field was abandoned and the breakthrough at 890 m was dammed with a high-pressure water dam. In the mine field of the Königsborn colliery, which was closed in 1981, dewatering was abandoned in order to let it drown . The previously open shaft Königsborn 4 was filled.

Donar and the east mine

On November 10, 1997, the public was presented with the plans for the Ost Verbundbergwerk : Heinrich-Robert was supposed to join forces with the Haus Aden / Monopol mine in Bergkamen; Heinrich-Robert was intended as the production site. The joint conveying capacity should drop from around 10,000 t in each case to a total of 15,000 t. It was also decided to gradually reduce the workforce. Heinrich-Robert had already reduced the workforce to 3,217 employees in advance, together the two mines had around 6,800 employees, of which only 3,500 were to remain by the year 2000. The plan provided for only seven of the 17 shafts to be retained; the rest should be dismantled.

The plan was ultimately implemented unchanged. Only the Heinrich, Robert, Sandbochum and Lerche shafts remained from the Hammer facility, as well as the Grillo 1 and Grimberg 2 shafts from Haus Aden / Monopol and Haus Aden 2.

At the Lerche shaft, which served as the main material shaft and weather shaft, the largest central weather cooling system in Europe was built to cool the weather in the mountain from approx. 60 ° C to 29 ° C.

The east mine had almost 60 million tons of fatty coal reserves. The decision for a north migration option could be postponed by the merger for another ten years. The Donar field intended for this purpose was considered to be the future of German hard coal. Recent plans for a new, subsidy-free mine were interrupted in favor of profitability studies and in autumn the plans were finally abandoned because no investors could be found. If the planning had been implemented, the Donar mine would most likely have emerged as an independent colliery facility, as production at the Ost mine was discontinued on September 30, 2010 and the 109-year history of the Heinrich-Robert colliery, formerly De Wendel, ended. Since then, mining in the eastern Ruhr area has also been idle.

Current condition

After the last production shift on the east mine was carried out on September 30, 2010, the underground systems and machines were dismantled , which was completed on September 30, 2011. The main shaft of the Heinrich-Robert colliery between the districts of Wiescherhöfen and Herringen an der Kamener Straße is still completely in place today, and a decision is currently being made on the future of the entire area. A feasibility study is required for this, which should be available in mid-2012 (status: November 2011). The Heinrich and Robert shafts are also kept open, as they are needed for drainage . At the beginning of August 2011, the coal washing plant at the Heinrich-Robert colliery was sold to the Chinese company Pingdingshan Coal Mine Machinery , and in the same month work began on dismantling the entire processing plant. Around 50 Chinese dismantled 75 core machines, 60 conveyor systems, 24 pumps and various small parts in just three and a half months, all of which were stowed in containers and transported to China . There the processing machines, some of which are more than 40 years old, were set up at various mining sites and put back into operation. After the dismantling, only the 30 meter high outer wall of the coal washing plant on the main Heinrich Robert mine was left.

The daytime facilities of the Lerche shaft and the Sandbochum shaft are also completely in place . While Lerche has been backfilled since August 2011, the Sandbochum shaft, together with the Heinrich and Robert shafts, was still open for dewatering. The Sandbochum shaft was backfilled in spring 2013 and the Heinrich and Robert shafts in late summer 2013. By the end of 2018, some of the buildings in the main Heinrich / Robert mine were demolished. The RAG Mining Solutions GmbH made an effort parts of the mine Lark ( Carrier to sell, headframe and three chillers). However, the shaft system is to be demolished at the end of 2022 and the headframe in 2020, as there is no subsequent use available.

Apart from a Protego cover over the shaft, which was filled in 2002, nothing remains of the Franz mine . On December 19, 2003, the headframe of Schacht Franz, which had shaped the Herring townscape for decades, was blown up despite its high monument value. Likewise, there are no more traces of mining left of the Humbert shaft, which was backfilled in 2001; there is now an overburden dump from the east mine on the site .

Recreational opportunities

The Heinrich-Robert colliery belongs - like other areas of the Ost mine or the neighboring Kissinger Höhe dump  - to the route of industrial culture . The dump is now accessible as a recreational area.

literature

  • Stefan Klönne: Radbod. Hammer mines through the ages. Maximilian, Heinrich-Robert, Saxony. Historical outline of the factory history and subsequent use of the fallow land. Hamm, [approx. 2000]. Zugl .: Münster (Westf.), Univ., Examensarb.
  • Hermann, Wilhelm and Gertrude: The old mines on the Ruhr . Past and future of a key technology. With a catalog of the "life stories" of 477 mines. 6th edition, expanded by an excursus according to p. 216 and updated in energy policy parts, the 5th, completely revised and expanded edition 2003, post-processing 2002: Christiane Syré, final editing 2007 Hans-Curt Köster (=  The Blue Books ). Langewiesche publishing house, Königstein i. Ts. 2008, ISBN 978-3-7845-6994-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Klönne: Radbod. Hammer mines through the ages. Maximilian, Heinrich-Robert, Saxony. Historical outline of the factory history and subsequent use of the fallow land. Hamm, [approx. 2000]. P. 37.
  2. Der Hammer Bergbau und seine Altlasten wa.de of August 9, 2013 , accessed on August 22, 2018
  3. Sandbochum weather shaft is filled, wa.de from March 7, 2013 , accessed on August 22, 2018
  4. ^ Mine East: Backfilling the Heinrich and Robert shafts, wa.de from August 7, 2018 (photo gallery) , accessed on August 22, 2018
  5. Stefan Gehre: Dangerous vandalism: sprayers climb the winding tower and leave smears. In: www.wa.de. March 27, 20 .

Web links

Commons : Zeche Heinrich-Robert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files