Hohenau sugar factory

The Hohenau sugar factory

The Hohenau sugar factory in Hohenau an der March ( Lower Austria ) was a traditional business enterprise for the industrial production of beet sugar that existed from 1867 to 2006 .

history

In 1867 six brothers of the Strakosch family founded a beet sugar processing company in Hohenau an der March, which soon assumed a leading position in the Austrian half of the Danube Monarchy. After the end of the First World War , however, large parts of the beet-growing area fell to Czechoslovakia , and the company was hit hard by the agricultural crisis of the 1930s. Siegfried Strakosch (1867–1933) nevertheless tried to maintain private Austrian sugar production. In 1938 Aryanization took place . Georg Strakosch-Feldringen, who had been managing director of the sugar factory since 1933, committed suicide on July 7, 1938, and in 1939 the refinery burned down . After 1945 parts of the factory had to be rebuilt due to severe war damage.

In 1945 the factory was taken over by Oskar Strakosch , who had returned from emigration to England . A family company was created through participation in other plants. From 1988, however, the Strakosch family began to gradually withdraw from sugar production. The Raiffeisen Group ( Agrana ) gained decisive influence over all sugar factories in Austria. After the entry of the German Südzucker , the sugar factory became part of a supranational group.

The Hohenau site was initially expanded into one of the most modern Austrian sugar factories, but automation sank the number of employees from around 1200 to around a tenth of that.

In 2003 the remaining shares of the Strakosch family were sold to Agrana . Further rationalization pressure resulted in the fact that of the three almost equally modern factories in Tulln , Leopoldsdorf and Hohenau, where 136 employees were ultimately still employed, the latter was closed in 2006.

Ecological consequences of the closure

The landing basins that the sugar factory created for the beet sludge and the cooling pond , which was up to 30 degrees warm , were important winter resting places for numerous waterfowl and Limikolen . The cooling ponds were ice-free due to the beet campaign lasting from September to the end of the year . The cooperation between the Auring Association and the company has created optimal living conditions for rare bird species. With the closure of the company, these conditions were lost. Efforts by the association to keep the state of Lower Austria or the Ministry of Life in these places came to nothing. It was only through cooperation with a private company that farms fish in the ponds that the efforts could be continued.