Timeline in the history of the Salzgitter plant
In the service of the National Socialist regime (1937 – 1945)
1937 | The state-owned Reichswerke AG für Erzbergbau und Eisenhütten “Hermann Göring“ was founded for the purposes of building and operating an iron and steel works in the Salzgitter region to exploit domestic ore deposits |
1939 | Pig iron production began at the Salzgitter smelting plant |
1940 | The steelworks was commissioned |
1942 | Following the outbreak of war in 1939, conscripts, prisoners of war and forced laborers from abroad were compelled to work at the plant, where from 1942 onwards they were joined by concentration camp prisoners who were employed mainly in munition production. |
1945 | The plant was occupied by Allied troops and production cease |
An uncertain future (1946 – 1953)
1946 | Work began to dismantle the iron and steel works, followed from 1947 by the systematic demolition and destruction of plant and equipment |
1949 | One blast furnace was recommissioned, even as dismantling continued |
1951 | Dismantling ceased, by which time 75 % of the blast furnaces, 100 % of the steelworks and rolling mills, one coking oven and numerous auxiliary plants had been removed or destroyed |
1953 | Transfer of the steelworks to Hüttenwerk Salzgitter AG. It is a newly founded subsidiary of AG für Berg- und Hüttenbetriebe, which is owned by the Federal Republic of Germany as the successor to the German part of the former Reichswerke Group |
Reconstruction and cooperation (1954 – 1970)
1954 | A new heavy and medium plate mill was commissioned, marking the first time in nine years since the end of the War that Salzgitter was capable of end-to-end production from pig iron to plate |
1964 | The company was renamed Salzgitter Hüttenwerk AG, following the change of name of the parent AG für Berg- und Hüttenbetriebe in 1961 to Salzgitter AG |
1970 | As part of an increase in capital the Steel Division of Salzgitter AG, comprised mainly of the steelworks in Salzgitter, was merged with Aktiengesellschaft Ilseder Hütte, in return for which Salzgitter AG acquired a majority stake in Ilseder Hütte; the new undertaking was renamed Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter AG |
Difficult decades (1971 – 1997)
1977/78 | Administration of Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter AG was centralized in Salzgitter, in the enlarged building housing the offices of group parent company Salzgitter AG |
1989/90 | The previously state-owned Salzgitter AG and thus also its subsidiary Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter AG were privatized with the sale of the business to Preussag AG |
1992 | Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter AG was renamed Preussag Stahl AG |
1994 | A memorial to the satellite Concentration Camp Drütte was opened on the site of the Salzgitter plant |
A new beginning and new development (from 1998)
1998 | Preussag Stahl AG was spun off from the Preussag Group as an independent unit that was renamed Salzgitter AG and floated on the stock market |
2001 | Introduction of a new Group structure: Salzgitter AG became a management holding company with independent subsidiary operating companies arranged in divisions; as part of the process the Salzgitter plant was folded into the newly formed Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH |
