Schichau-Werke

The Schichau-Werke was a former German engineering works based in Elbing, formerly part of the German Empire, and which is today the town of Elbląg in northern Poland.

Early Years

Ferdinand Schichau had studied engineering in Berlin, the Rheinland and Great Britain. In 1837 he founded the engineering institution, later known as "F. Schichau GmbH, Maschinen- und Lokfabrik, Elbing" (F. Schichau engineering and locomotive factory, Elbing). It started with the production of hydraulic presses and diggers; in 1854 it began to make small ships like the "Borussia" and in 1860 the first locomotives for the Prussian Eastern Railway. From 1867 locomotive construction began in earnest and, three years later, the factory was connected to the railway network. In the early 1900s the firm was one of several that delivered the Prussian P 8, the most numerous passenger train steam locomotive of its day.

hipyards

In 1872 Schichau built the shipyard at Elbing, known as the "Elbinger Dampfschiffs-Reederei F. Schichau" ('Elbing Steamship Shipping Company F. Schichau'). In 1890 the construction of a second shipyard began in Danzig, which later produced warships as well as freighters and passenger ships. In 1889 Schichau built another shipyard in Pillau (present-day Baltijsk) near Königsberg (Prussia) (today Kaliningrad). Schichau's son-in-law, Carl Heinz Ziese, worked at Schichau-Werke and continued to run the business after Schichau's death until 1917.

Inter-War Years

When Ziese died in 1917 the management of the company when to the husband of his only daughter, Hildegard, the Swede, Carl Carlson. After his death, Hildegard Carlson ran the firm.

Following the separation of East Prussia from Germany after the First World War the Schichau works, together with the Union-Giesserei in Königsberg (that they later took over), was encouraged to focus on locomotive building with the aid of eastern European aid ("Ostlandhilfe"). During the Second World War, the firm of Borsig placed several contracts with the Schichau-Werke in Elbing, that continued production until January 1945.

U-boat Production

F. Schichau-Werke built 94 U-boats for the German Navy at its Danzig shipyard. The yard in Elbing produced engines and submarines of the "Seehund" class. In addition to the manufacture of Type VII C submarines, the shipyard in Danzig also built the new Class XXI U-boats. Up to 1944, 62 Type VII C U-boats (and two Type VII C/41s) were built, before production was switched to the Type XXI. A total of 30 submarines of this latter class were built and launched at Danzig by the end of the war.

Locomotive Production

Up to the end of the war in 1945, the Schichau-Werke had supplied about 4,300 locomotives of several classes to customers that included the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Polish State Railways. These included the DRG and DRB standard steam locomotive ("Einheitsdampflokomotive") classes 23, 41, 52 and 86. The Schichau-Werke also designed the Class 24 and delivered the first two batches [ Eisenbahn Journal Band No. 1, Typenblätter, Baureihen 01-59, Archiv 1/2002, Horst J. Obermeyer, p. 101 ] The factory sites were dismantled by Russian occupying forces after the war.

Recent History

At the end of the war the original factory sites went into Polish ownership with the loss of East Prussia to Poland. They no longer builds locomotives, but ships, wagons and boilers.The Schichau shipyard at Danzig was renamed the Lenin shipyard in 1950 and, in 1980, attracted world-wide media coverage as a result of protests led by the Solidarność trades union.

In West Germany, former employees of the Schichau shipyard formed a new company in Bremerhaven after the war. This was later merged into the "Schichau Seebeck Shipyard Company", which went into bankruptcy in 1996 following the demise of Bremer Vulkan. Its successor company is the present-day "SSW Schichau Seebeck Shipyard" based at Bremerhaven.

References

Sources

* [http://www.werkbahn.de/eisenbahn/lokbau/schichau.htm Werkbahn: Schichau Werke]
* [http://www.deutsches-museum.de/ausstellungen/ueber-das-museum/ehrensaal/galerie-iii/ Important busts in the memorial hall of the Deutsches Museum, including Ferdinand Schichau]
* [http://www.deutsches-museum.de/sammlungen/maschinen/kraftmaschinen/dampfmaschinen/dampfmaschinen-nach-1850/dreifachexpansion/ F.Schichau developed a steamship engine with triple-expansion]

External links

* There is a relevant English-language forum at [http://germanrail.8.forumer.com/index.php Railways of Germany]