Site history

In the 19th century, many industrial establishments in Chemnitz were concentrated along today’s Zwickauer Straße. Since city centers offered little space for factories and urban fire and noise regulations prohibited the installation of machinery in densely built areas, the outer streets became preferred locations for workshops and factories.

Some businesses had only short lifespans, and turnover was high. Between 1857 and 1910, ten different companies, mostly textile businesses, were located on the property at Zwickauer Straße 117, which today belongs to the museum. During roughly the same period, ten foundries operated along Zwickauer Straße between Falkeplatz and Lützowstraße. When the Chemnitz-Reichenbach railway line began full operation in 1858, many companies were further motivated to establish or relocate their factories along Zwickauer Straße. The factories were built on land that had previously been used for agriculture.

On the site of today’s Chemnitz Museum of Industry, two foundries were initially established: Hugo Schreiter and Moritz Rockstroh. In 1907, the machine manufacturing company Schubert & Salzer acquired Hugo Schreiter’s business and produced cast parts for, among other things, knitting, tulle, and machine tools. Rockstroh’s foundry was taken over by Hermann Escher after Rockstroh went bankrupt.

Together with his son Alfred, Escher built a highly efficient company producing lead-screw and plan lathes, planers, drilling and shaping machines, as well as steam engines “in various sizes of the latest design.” A year later, the now Hermann & Alfred Escher AG constructed a large foundry and assembly hall. About 100 workers produced approximately 6,000 tons of cast machinery per year using two Krigar cupolas.

By the late 1920s, many companies faced economic difficulties. Production capacities were reduced, and jobs were cut. Schubert & Salzer and Escher AG ceased production at Kappler Drehe in 1930. Some spaces were rented to other companies as storage, and private individuals used areas as parking lots. In 1942, Auto-Union acquired the entire site and built a modern foundry for producing housings for tank engines.

War-related damages were limited, but as an armaments facility, Auto-Union fell victim to total dismantling. Reconstruction took place gradually. As a branch of VEB Vereinigte Chemnitzer Gießereien (from 1953 VEB Gießerei Rudolf Harlaß), the company worked for the city’s machine engineering businesses. Production in the halls on Zwickauer Straße was permanently discontinued in 1982 and transferred to a modern foundry in Wittgensdorf, now a district of Chemnitz.

Note: Rudolf Harlaß
Rudolf Harlaß (born 1892 in Chemnitz-Kappel) trained as a turner at the Wanderer Works. As a communist resistance fighter, he died in 1944 at Kaßberg Prison from the effects of torture.