Operating period

Growing demand for steel from the US and the German navy’s extensive shipbuilding plans led to a pig iron shortage around 1900. It was against this background that, from 1901, August Thyssen initiated the building of a blast furnace plant in Meiderich to produce pig iron. Pig iron is smelted with the addition of lime and coke from iron ores. The liquid end product can then be further processed into steel.

The property was located in the immediate vicinity of the coal fields he had previously acquired, thus creating the perfect conditions for the operation of the blast furnaces. In July 1901 he began construction of the works and on 16 May 1903 blast furnace 1 was blown for the first time, and blast furnace 2 became operational as early as August 1903. By 1912 all five blast furnaces of the "Ironworks Company" in Meiderich were working.

Until closure in 1985, the works produced special types of pig iron to make castings for mechanical engineering, for example. Because of its wide product range, the ironworks was therefore known in professional circles as the “pharmacy of the Ruhr District”.

You can gain a detailed insight into the history of the site in the "Zeitreise Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord "