Dynamit Nobel

A year later, having found some German business partners, he launched the Alfred Nobel & Company in Germany, building an isolated factory in the Krümmel hills of Geesthacht near Hamburg.

This business exported a liquid combination of nitroglycerin and gunpowder known as "Blasting Oil", but it was extremely unstable and difficult to transport, as shown in numerous catastrophes.

[2] One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells Fargo office in San Francisco and killing fifteen people, leading to a complete ban on the transport of liquid nitroglycerin in California.

Nobel wanted to produce nitroglycerine on several sites in Europe because the transportation of explosives was very dangerous due to its well-known sensitivity to shocks.

[5] In 1874, in order to ensure a better supply of the main buyers, the mines of the region of Ruhr, the company took over the Schlebusch factory in Manfort (since 1930, a district of Leverkusen;[4] Nobel was involved in its construction since 1872, and supervised the production on a temporary basis.

In 1886, Dynamit Nobel opened a branch in Troisdorf[4] and as from 1905, this factory also manufactured a plastic material based on nitrocellulose (an explosive product): known as celluloid.

[9] Until the start of the First World War, Dynamit Nobel grew by acquiring smaller competitor companies to become the biggest explosive manufacturer in Europe.

[10] After the end of the war, parts of the factory's facilities were dismantled and after the enforcement of the Versailles treaty, companies were forbidden to manufacture defense equipment.

New factories manufacturing explosives and ammunitions were built on government lands and received help from a company which had been nationalized, the Verwertungsgesellschaft für Mountain-Industrie mbH.

After World War Two, Dynamit Nobel began manufacturing plastic equipment and ammunition in West Germany but was not able to keep the factories located in the areas occupied by the Soviets.

After deciding the rearmament of Bundeswehr, the manufacture of ammunition was restarted in 1957, at first in the factory of Liebenau by the Gesellschaft zur Verwertung chemischer Erzeugnisse mbH which had survived the war.

At the beginning of the 1960s, once again, the company became the leader of the military and civil powder market in Germany, namely due to the takeover of the manufacturer of ammunitions Gustav Genschow & Co. AG de Karlsruhe in 1963.

Supported by the Bremen speculator Hermann Krages and partly due to the collusive trading of actions with the Feldmühle AG of which Flick was also a shareholder, he managed to obtain the majority of the shares of the company and became the president of the board of directors.

After several groups of shareholders protested against this law put into place under the third Reich, the Federal Constitutional Tribunal gave a judgement in favor of Flick.

As from 1962, due to the pressure which occurred during the conference, the company which belonged to Flick started to negotiate the compensation to be given to 1,300 forced Jewish employees who worked in the factory of Troisdorf in 1944 and 1945.

After an agreement was made, Friedrich Flick personally blocked the payment of five million Deutsche Mark and no sum of money was released until his death in 1972.

[12] After Bundeswehr was fully equipped with antitank mines during the late 1960s, the factory of Liebenau was sold in 1977 to the Dutch ammunitions manufacturer Eurometaal, owned by Dynamit Nobel (33% of shares).

About one quarter of the turnover of the company originated from the traditional sector of explosives, as well as the ammunition technology which is closely linked to the equipment projects of the Bundeswehr.

The technical armament activity was reduced under the name of Dynamit Nobel Defence GmbH, with the registered office located in Würgendorf (Burbach).

The company was specialized in the manufacture of small calibers for the army, official authorities, hunters and shooting sports and was taken over by the Swiss group RUAG in 2002 and merged with its ammunitions branch.

[14] As from 1958, Gesellschaft zur Verwertung chemischer Erzeugnisse mbH/Verwertchemie, a subsidiary of Dynamit Nobel manufactured antitank mines of type DM-11 in Liebenau, under license of the Swedish company LIAB.

The Bundeswehr ordered 300,000 of them for the LARS (a system of light artillery with missiles) which was into place until 2000, about 300,000 were manufactured for Minenwurfsystem Skorpion (a vehicle which installed mines) and 300,000 for M270 (a multiple rocket launcher).

Dynamit Nobel also agreed to develop the Panzerfaust 3, in order to progressively deliver it to the Bundeswehr and other armies as the priority antitank defense mechanism in the infantry.

Infringing the health and safety regulations in force at that time, the employees of Dynamit Nobel were exposed for years, with little protection, to this harmful substance which later turned out to be carcinogenic.

Contamination due to vinyl chloride was so severe that for years in the company, the employees complained of damage relating to the liver, anemia, finger circulation disorder resulting in acro-osteolysis (necrosis of the first phalanxes), as well as headaches and dizziness.

Afterwards, the 40 sick employees gathered together as Interessengemeinschaft der VC-Geschädigten in order to file a complaint for violation of duty against the Land of North-Rhine-Westphalia and asked for damage compensation, just like in the Contergan trial.

The local committee of the DKP in Troisdorf filed a complaint for injury and involuntary homicides against the board of directors of Dynamit Nobel AG.

In 1975, the company's board of directors decided to shut down PVC polymerisation workshop to escape the expensive costs related to modernization and security of the plant.

Alfred Nobel
Share of the Dynamit AG, vorm. Alfred Nobel & Co., issue August 1928
The old administrative building of the Krümmel explosive factory.
The Minenwurfsystem Skorpion .
Ammunition project 2010: rocket launcher Panzerfaust 3 .