Salzgitter AG

In the 1930s it was known that vast deposits of iron were present around Salzgitter in the German federal state of Lower Saxony. Their potential capacity was estimated at 1.5 billion tons from exploratory boring carried out in the 1920s. The disadvantage with this ore, however, was that it contained a high proportion of silicic acid. It was only with the development of new metallurgical engineering processes that this acidic ore could be smelted successfully. Projects such as smelting the ore deposits in the Salzgitter region were given priority in the Four Year Plan embarked upon by fascist Germany in 1936 with the aim of creating a self-sufficient economy, and making possible German industrial self-reliance, even in the case of war. Together with the ironore deposits, the site of Salzgitter as a location for iron works was favored because of its central position; the relatively rapid and economical connections that could be made with existing transport routes such as the railway, inland canals, and motorways; and the infrastructure already in place in the region. The National Socialist economic planning also relied on the premise that the steel companies of the Ruhr River basin would support the project and participate in its operation. However, negotiations between Hermann Göring and the representatives of the steel industry failed, as the latter regarded this enterprise as a competitor. Finally the state took on the building of the works and the Reichswerke AG für Bergund Hüttenbetriebe Hermann Göring (the Hermann Göring Imperial Iron and Steel Works) were founded in 1937. Other installations were built in quick succession, and by April 1945 six coke furnace batteries, ten blast-furnaces, three blenders, six converters, three Siemens-Martin tilting furnaces, and two electric arc furnaces were in operation. Total raw steel capacity amounted to 1.8 million tons a year. At the same time as the building up of Reichswerke, as it was known, housing for workers was constructed on a massive scale. In 1942, the town of Salzgitter was enlarged by the incorporation of 29 surrounding parishes and the special building of housing for the workers. Before the start of World War II, the work force was partly recruited and partly, compulsorily enlisted by the state to work in Salzgitter. During the war, the German work force was increasingly replaced by workers forcibly recruited from the German-occupied countries, especially those in Eastern Europe. Eventually prisoners of war as well as prisoners from concentration camps were forced to work and live in inhuman conditions at Reichswerke. The state used criminal methods to control this work force. The number of victims was very high. This chapter in Salzgitter's history was brought to an abrupt end with the occupation of the iron and steel works by Allied forces on April 10, 1945. The structure of the economy of the Salzgitter industrial region was geared to one line of production, due to the presence of Reichswerke. The closing down of the iron and steel works, Reichswerke's main pillar, created deep conflicts of a social and political nature. In the mid-1950s, unemployment in Salzgitter lay at 35%, in Lower Saxony at 19.8%, and in West Germany as a whole at 12.2%. Under such conditions, the inhabitants of this industrial region and the Reichswerke work force fought against the dismantling of the Reichswerke and for the preservation of their jobs. The clashes with the police and with the occupying British forces came to a head in March 1950. Workers who remained gathered at the plants that were to be blown up. Drilling machinery was destroyed and explosive devices torn out of the boreholes; workers ripped out the fuses or sat down on foundations, prepared to be blown up. The ending of the dismantling of German industrial capacities in the respective Western-occupied zones of what was now West Germany was accelerated by the general changing conditions in postwar Germany. In Reichswerke