Weetzen sugar factory

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Locked gate entrance to the factory premises of the sugar factory in Weetzen , 2012
Demolition work, 2019

The Weetzen sugar factory was a production facility for white sugar built in Weetzen in the 19th century and the location of the first silo for sugar production in Germany.

History and description

The founding of the "Actien-Zuckerfabrik Weetzen" was decided on July 30, 1882. The start of the first campaign was on November 8, 1883. Similar to other sugar factories, founded in the second half of the 19th century in the former district of Hannover and the sugar factory in Weetzen of been farmers of the area as a public limited company (AG) with registered shares launched . With this, the producers of the raw material sugar beet largely initiated the industrialization of the rural area they had shaped . On the other hand, the shareholders not only managed their own factory, but were also able to fill positions in the German sugar industry in responsible positions.

The farmers, as shareholders of the AG, had the first sugar silo in Germany built in Weetzen . The plant, in which up to 3000 tonnes of sugar beet per day (tato) were processed during "the campaign", which took place at the time of the beet harvest in autumn, was at times one of the most modern operations in the country.

30 employees were permanently active in the company. In addition, a large number of seasonal workers were needed in autumn , some of whom came from the structurally weak Eichsfeld , but mainly from the Warthegau and the Upper Silesian industrial area. Around 60 Polish forced laborers were present during the Nazi era . They lived on the premises of the sugar factory in a "workers' camp - sugar factory barracks". Some of them had already come to Weetzen in 1940. They were among the 400,000 Polish soldiers who were taken prisoner of war after the German attack on Poland in 1939 and whom Germany refused to protect under international law . At first they lived in a camp on Hauptstrasse. In addition, a few hundred foreigners came in each month of the beet campaign, in addition to so-called foreign workers also civilian forced laborers who came from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union as well as from Poland , Hungary , Belgium and the Netherlands .

The high-yield sugar beet cultivation brought the farmers to prosperity. The old hall houses , which no longer met the needs, were demolished and replaced by so-called turnip castles : three-sided courtyards in which the residential building, stables and storage facility each occupied a building. The entire complex was surrounded by a natural stone or brick wall.

Similar to other sugar factories in what will later be the Hanover region, the Weetz factory has its own power plant, which produces the process steam required for production . Even before it was used in direct sugar production, the steam was initially sent via turbo generators , with which the farmers not only became self-sufficient with the electricity they needed during the campaign , but were also able to feed electricity into the public grid.

The site of the former sugar factory on the tracks of the S-Bahn line from Hanover to Altenbeken and Paderborn

The so-called “ drying ” on the factory premises was a technical system through which the sugar beet “schnitzel” remaining after leaching could still be used as high-quality cattle feed by removing water .

The wastewater generated during the campaign was first mechanically cleaned in a large sewage treatment plant and then biologically treated so that it was then discharged into a receiving water .

Since 1969 the plant in what will later be the Ronnenberg district of Weetzen has been one of the two plants of the Hannoversche Zucker AG Rethen-Weetzen based in Laatzen, alongside the Rethen sugar factory . 1986 came the merger with Lehrte . The last beet campaign took place in Weetzen that autumn. The decommissioned Weetzen sugar factory then formed an industrial wasteland for more than three decades until it was demolished in 2019 .

literature

  • Hannoversche Zucker-Aktiengesellschaft Rethen-Weetzen. 100 years of the Rethen sugar factory 1876–1976 , Rethen / Leine: Hannoversche Zucker AG Rethen-Weetzen, 1976
  • Sugar from Weetzen. A publication for the 100th anniversary of the sugar factory. 1882–1982 , published by Hannoversche Zucker-Aktiengesellschaft, Wunstorf, 1982
  • Peter Hertel et al. (Ed.): Ronnenberg. Seven Traditions - One City , Ronnenberg 2010. ISBN 978-3-00-030253-4

Web links

Commons : Zuckerfabrik Weetzen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Albert Gieseler: Aktien-Zuckerfabrik Weetzen on the page albert-gieseler.de on the use of the early power and steam engines
  2. ^ A b c d e f g o. V .: The sugar industry in the district of Hanover , in Edfried Bühler, Herbert Droste, Hans Georg Gmelin, Hans-Günter Peters, Horst Rode , Waldemar R. Röhrbein , Diedrich Saalfeld: Heimatchronik des Landkreis Hannover (= Home chronicles of the cities and districts of the federal territory , volume 49, 1st edition), Cologne: Archive for German home care GmbH, 1980, pp. 408–412
  3. ↑ a b c Heinz Lauenroth (Ed.): Weetzen Sugar Factory , in ders .: Hanover. Face of a lively city , Hanover; Berlin: Verlag Dr. Buhrbanck & Co. KG, 1955, pp. 218, 228
  4. ^ Hans-Hermann Fricke: Sugar production in Weetzen, in: Peter Hertel et al. (Ed.): Ronnenberg. Seven Traditions - One City . Ronnenberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-030253-4 , pp. 117 .
  5. ^ Hans-Hermann Fricke: Sugar production in Weetzen, in: Peter Hertel et al. (Ed.): Ronnenberg. Seven Traditions - One City . Ronnenberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-030253-4 , pp. 118 .
  6. ↑ Peter Hertel: Blowing Traces - The Liberation of Weetzens and his forced laborers . Ed .: Friends of the Remembrance Association Ronnenberg. Ronnenberg 2019, p. 12 f .
  7. ↑ Peter Simon: Weetzen, in: Peter Hertel et al. (Ed.): Ronnenberg. Seven Traditions - One City . Ronnenberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-030253-4 , pp. 351 .
  8. ^ Hans-Hermann Fricke: Sugar production in Weetzen, in: Peter Hertel et al. (Ed.): Ronnenberg. Seven Traditions - One City . Ronnenberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-030253-4 , pp. 121 .
  9. ↑ Stephan Hartung: What will happen to the old sugar factory? ... , article on the page of the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from August 20, 2016, last accessed on April 3, 2019

Coordinates: 52 ° 17 ′ 33.7 "  N , 9 ° 38 ′ 2.5"  E