VEB MÖBELFABRIK [DE]

Exploration #287. The former VEB Möbelfabrik Colmnitz in Saxony began in the 19th century as a chair factory created from the Neumühle site. After decades of furniture production, nationalisation and conversion under the GDR, it closed in 1992.

The industrial story of this abandoned factory starts in 1885, when chair maker Carl Friedrich Hofmann bought the Neumühle property in Colmnitz. By 1896, Hofmann and Carl Albert Kittel had turned chair making into factory production, linking the village to Saxony’s furniture industry. The first chapter ended in 1937, when financial difficulties forced the business to stop. Two years later, Helmut Richter acquired the buildings and rapidly expanded furniture production through military contracts during the Nazi period.

After 1945, private ownership disappeared and the plant was nationalised as VEB Möbelfabrik Colmnitz. Under the GDR, the factory mainly produced kitchen furniture, cupboards and buffets. But the planned economy created overproduction, while a destructive storm in 1958 further weakened the business. Furniture production faded, and the site was absorbed into VEB Bodenbearbeitungsgeräte Leipzig.

Its final role was agricultural: the Colmnitz works made parts for the KS-6 self-propelled beet harvester and later spray booms for crop protection. After German reunification, the factory could not survive the market transition. The last machines were dismantled on 31 March 1992, leaving empty halls and a surviving office wing.

VEB BÄRENSIEGEL [DE]

Exploration #201 VEB Bärensiegel. In the GDR, VEB Bärensiegel was one of the two largest suppliers of spirits. At the end of the GDR in 1989, VEB Bärensiegel produced around 26 million bottles of spirits with 400 employees.

VEB Bärensiegel Berlin was founded under the official name VEB Großberliner Getränkeindustrie on the 1st of March, 1949. The main headquarters were situated inside the former Research and Training Institute for Distillation in Berlin-Lichtenberg. On August 1950, the VEB was renamed into VEB Bärensiegel, and this date was then chosen as the official founding date.

During the duration of the GDR – the VEB Bärensiegel was one of the 2 largest spirit producers in East Germany, also partially due to the fact that it merged with other distileries. Later on the VEB merged into the Kombinat (Combination of various enterprises) Spirituosen, Wein und Sekt (Spirits, Wine, and Sparkling Wines). At its peak in 1989, the VEB employed over 400 workers and produced 26 million bottles of alcohol.

After the German reunification, the VEB was put under control of the infamous Treuhandanstalt and converted into a limited company which ran under the name Berlin BärenSiegel GmbH. The Treuhandanstalt sold off the company in 1994 to the Wine Company Franz Wilhelm Langguth Erben which proceeded to split up the company into different sections.

The production facilities in Lichtenberg and Adlershof were abandoned and all machinery has been removed from the buildings, whereas the facility in the Josef-Orlopp Straße was modernized and expanded. Interestingly enough, the Berliner BärenSiegel GmbH managed to quickly turn into a profitable company again, mostly due to drastically increased exports into the former eastern bloc. Bärensiegel products such as Wurzelpeter and Goldkrone that can still be found in supermarkets to this day.

Some of the buildings of the production facility in Adlershof were used as an Auto Repair shop after 1989, but they moved out sometime in the early 90s. The buildings were put under “Historic preservation” but have been left in their current state ever since. In 2020, the buildings were demolished and now a furniture shop stands in place of the distillery. Only the historic brick front façade was saved and incorporated into the new structure (source: https://digitalcosmonaut.com/).

VEB CHEMIEWERK RÜDERSDORF [DE]

Exploration #143. This former cement, then phosphate, chemical factory is located in the city of Rüdersdorf which dates back to the 13th century. It was around this time that the local settled farmers encountered large chunks of limestone when they tried plowing their fields. Little did the farmers know that they stumbled upon the resource which would be used to build the grandeur of Berlin for centuries to come.
The use of limestone saw rapid adoption and by 1600 it was realized that calcium oxide, otherwise known as quicklime, used in making cement and mortar, could have been produced by burning the limestone and dousing it with water. Rüdersdorf began soon to operate limekilns to mass produce said quicklime. What is known as the Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf today had its origins in the year 1900, when the C.O. Wegener Company built its first cement factory which produced cement using its ultra-modern rotary kilns.

During the years of Nazi terror, Nazis immediately took over control of the factory and over 2000 forced laborer’s had to work in the lime quarries and cement works, as did Italian, French and Soviet prisoners of war (who were held in a concentration camp nearby). The Cement factory continued producing cement until 1944, when it switched over to producing synthetic bauxite. Bauxite is used to create Aluminum and the German war industry was hungry for it. The majority of the buildings that are left standing today trace their origins back to that construction phase.

After the war Rüdersdorf capitulated to the Soviets. While the forced laborer’s and foreign prisoners of war were liberated – the Soviets erected a new Prisoner of war camp in May 1945 on the grounds of the cement factory. The Soviet Camp had a camp within the camp reserved for high ranking Nazis, Concentration Camp Commanders and personnel.
Because of its state-of-the-art technical equipment, the alumina plant immediately became the focus of the Soviet occupation’s dismantling efforts. The factory was completely cleared out, even doors, windows and gutters were sent east. On 25 August 1949, the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) issued Order 106 to reinstate the former plant with the aim of installing fertiliser production in the empty halls. A magnesium phosphate was produced from kola apatite and kieserite in the rotary kiln. In 1959, the annual production was 21000 t.

From 1972 onwards, the same technology was used to try to produce a calcium-sodium phosphate for industrial animal husbandry in the GDR, but this did not succeed satisfactorily because of the short rotary kilns. Therefore, major investments were made and two 100-metre rotary kilns were built at the Rüdersdorf branch of the VEB Chemiewerk Coswig, together with the equipment for waste gas purification, grinding and shipping, which was about 80% new.

The Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf began producing high quality feed phosphate under the brand name Rükana. The quality of Rükana was so good that the GDR used it to sell it abroad to western markets.
German reunification did not bring any good fortunes to the factory. The Rüdersdorf Chemical Factory did manage to continue production through the first years of German reunification but it was slow death. Rebranded as the Rüdersdorfer Futterphosphat GmbH, production capabilities and personnel were scaled down to such an extent that one could assume that the new owners and investors were deliberately running the company into the ground and by 1999, production was shot down. After all assets were sold off, all that remained were the empty production halls from the 1940s.

The ruins are today used as a film location for various film, big Hollywood as well as local German productions.