Find aids: Findbuch 1978, Revision 1988 (online searchable) Registraturbilder: The DCGG was founded on 12.03.1855 in Dessau on the initiative of the entrepreneur Viktor von Unruh and the Dessau banker Louis Nulandt. At first a gasworks was built in Dessau, which supplied the city with town gas for street lighting from 1856 onwards. This was followed by gas works in cities at home and abroad, such as Mönchengladbach, Magdeburg, Frankfurt/Oder, Mülheim/Ruhr, Potsdam, Warsaw and Lemberg. In 1857, Unruh brought the engineer Wilhelm Oechelhaeuser sen. into the company. In 1859 Nulandt retired after accusations of irregularities and Oechelhaeuser became the sole director general. Both the production of appliances for the sale of gas and the production of gas-consuming appliances themselves grew rapidly. The Centralwerkstatt Dessau was founded in 1871 to convert existing gas meters and to produce new ones. In 1921, the Centralwerkstatt merged with Carl Bamberg Werkstätten für Präzisionsmechanik in Berlin-Friedenau to form Askania-Werke AG. In 1872, Berlin-Anhaltische Maschinenfabrik AG (BAMAG), which manufactured the vertical furnaces used in the gas works, and Dessauer Waggonbau AG, which manufactured gas-powered trams, operated in Dessau. From 1886 Dessau received the second power station in Germany after Berlin. The required generators were developed by Wilhelm von Oechelhaeuser jun. Together with Hugo Junkers, brought into the factory in 1888, they succeeded in using powerful two-stroke counter-piston engines from 1892 onwards. Wilhelm von Oechelhaeuser jun. followed his father in 1889 as general director. Under the management of Bruno Heck, the company achieved a dominant position in Central Germany in 1917 with the founding of Elektrizitätswerke Sachsen-Anhalt AG in Halle. When the property located in the Soviet occupation zone was expropriated after the end of the war, the company moved its headquarters to Hagen/Westphalia in 1947. The alleged transfer of assets was the reason for the GDR's first Stalinist show trial, which was negotiated in 1950 under Hilde Benjamin in Dessau and ended with high prison sentences. The inventory is supplemented by the deliveries of the E-Werke in Bernburg, Dessau and Coswig. Inventory information: The collection was handed over in 1967 by the archive of the VEB Energieversorgung Halle to the then Historische Staatsarchiv Oranienbaum, now Abteilung Dessau. Small supplements were added in 1978. Included photos: 110

Find aids: Findbuch (online searchable) Registraturbilder: At the end of the 19th century, the development of a large chemical industry in Bitterfeld began. In 1893, Elektrochemische Werke GmbH, Berlin, built a chemical factory with an electrical plant for the production of caustic soda and chlorinated lime. In the same year, Chemische Fabrik Elektron AG, Frankfurt/a., decided to M., a subsidiary of Chemische Fabrik Griesheim, to establish a branch in Bitterfeld. In 1894, the Berlin-based Actiengesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation also opted for the Bitterfeld site and built a factory for dyestuffs. The choice of location was favoured above all by the presence of lignite deposits, water, clay and clay deposits as well as potash salt deposits around Halle. Equally important for transport was the connection to the railway lines. Walther Rathenau was the first managing director of Elektrochemische Werke GmbH in Bitterfeld. Carl Pistor became head of the Bitterfeld plants of Chemische Fabrik Elektron. Chemische Fabrik Griesheim and Chemische Fabrik Elektron AG merged in 1898. The plants were named Plant I (in the south) for the former plant of Chemische Fabrik Elektron and Plant II (in the north) for the leased facilities of the Elektrochemische Werke. The most important technology at the Bitterfeld site was chloralkali electrolysis. Until 1945, the most important production lines included chloralkali electrolysis products, aluminium and magnesium production. From 1925, Bitterfeld belonged to the IG Farben group and became the headquarters of the IG Farben Betriebsgemeinschaft Mitteldeutschland. With order no. 124 of the SMAD of 30 Oct. 1945, the IG plant was placed under the control of the Soviet administration. In 1946, the Bitterfelder Werke Süd and Nord were integrated into SAG Mineral-Dünggemittel "Kaustik" and thus became the property of the USSR until 1952. After that the name of the plant was VEB Elektrochemisches Kombinat Bitterfeld. Inventory information: The holdings were transferred to the Magdeburg State Archives by the VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld in 1986. The works archive of the chemical combine carried out the indexing mainly by non-archival assistants, who are thus afflicted with deficiencies. In 1994 the collection was transferred to the newly founded Merseburg State Archive for reasons of competence. In 2011, a retroconversion of the finding aid book took place, which resulted in a formal revision of the data, but also in the modification or creation of some file titles. A complete revision/redevelopment of the inventory was postponed in the interest of rapid accessibility. The collection contains a small number of older and more recent documents that are not directly related to the registry formatter. Furthermore, an extensive register of forced labourers has been preserved in the inventory. Additional information: Plumpe, Gottfried: IG Farbenindustrie AG. Economy, Technology and Politics 1904-1945, Berlin 1990 - Hackenholz, Dirk: The Electrochemical Plants in Bitterfeld 1914-1945. A Site of IG-Farbenindustrie AG, Münster 2004 - Bitterfeld Chronicle. 100 Years Chemical Site Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Ed. Member of the Executive Board of Chemie AG Bitterfeld-Wolfen, 1993.

Note: The holdings contain archival material that is subject to personal protection periods in accordance with § 10 Para. 3 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA and until their expiration is only accessible by shortening the protection period in accordance with § 10 Para. 4 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA or by accessing information in accordance with § 10 Para. 4a ArchG LSA. Find aids: Findkartei 1991, Findbuch 2014 (online searchable) Registraturbilddner: In February 1897, the Aktien-Maschinenfabrik Kyffhäuserhütte Artern emerged from the Paul Reuß sheet metal and coppersmith's shop that had existed since 1881. The main products were agricultural equipment and machines for customers at home and abroad. In 1904 the company joined the Wohnungsbauverein Artern eGmbH as a co-partner. In 1910 the Maschinenfabrik merged with Ergon-Kosmos AG in Karlsruhe, in 1912 with Ruhrwerke Motoren- und Dampfkesselfabrik AG in Duisburg and finally took over Eisenwerk Brünner AG (later GmbH) in Artern in 1938. Sales offices were established in Elbing/Westpreußen (today Elblang, Poland), Nuremberg, Duisburg, Prague and Karlsruhe as well as Wroclaw, Gdansk, Berlin, Frankfurt/Oder, Hanover and Vienna. In the 1920s and 1930s the production and sales offer of the company was considerably expanded. In particular, Kaha, planet and zenith milk separators, ice machines, various types of steamers, steam generators, potato and milk can washing machines, shot and fertilizer mills, boilers, hay and straw blowers, boilers and radiators were offered. During the 2nd World War, war materials, anti-aircraft accessories and gunships were also built. Between 1946 and 1949, the company was confiscated, sequestered and liquidated, and converted into the machine factory of Soviet AG Maschinenbau vorm. Kyffhäuserhütte (SAG) in the Transmasch combine. In 1952 the company was transferred into public ownership as VEB Maschinenfabrik Kyffhäuserhütte. Inventory information: In 1988, the company archive of the VEB Kyffhäuserhütte Artern handed over to the State Archive Magdeburg documents of the Aktien-Maschinenfabrik Kyffhäuserhütte Artern and its successor company which had been indexed via a number list and an incomplete card index. The partial revision of the index data was carried out in 1991 by an archival assistant, with minor corrections to archive signatures, durations and file titles. There were no cassations of archive material. In 1994 the Landeshauptarchiv Magdeburg transferred the files to the newly founded Landesarchiv Merseburg. In 2011 the card index was first retroconverted in the archive program scopeArchiv, in 2014 the final archive processing of the files took place. Additional information: Further parts of the company tradition of the Kyffhäuserhütte Aktienmaschinenfabrik Artern or from the time of the VEB Maschinenfabrik Kyffhäuserhütte are kept in the Museum Kyffhäuserhütte (Artern, Oberer Hof) and at the Kyffhäuser Maschinenfabrik Artern GmbH (Artern, Otto-Brünner-Straße 4). Literature: Krombholz, Klaus: Agricultural engineering of the GDR. Light and shadow. Möller, Florian, Hübner, Sebastian: History of the Kyffhäuserhütte Artern (in: "Der Goldene Pflug" Förderverein Dt. Landwirtschaftsmuseum e.V. Stuttgart /Universität Hohenheim, pp. 33-44 Photos included: 10

Note: The holdings contain archival material that is subject to personal protection periods in accordance with § 10 Para. 3 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA and until their expiration is only accessible by shortening the protection period in accordance with § 10 Para. 4 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA or by accessing information in accordance with § 10 Para. 4a ArchG LSA. Find aids: Findbuch 2015 (online searchable) Registraturbilddner: On 5 Oct. 1923 the sugar distribution company Halle-Rositz-Holland AG was founded in Halle (Saale). After the closure of the Holland sugar factory in Dessau-Alten (1932), the company was renamed Zuckervertriebsgesellschaft Halle AG (ZVG), with branches in Halle and Rositz/Altenburg. From 1942 ZVG and the Vereinigung mitteldeutscher Rohzuckerfabriken (VEMIRO) formed a dual company within the meaning of the Cartel Tax Regulation. The sugar distribution company coordinates the supply of raw sugar to the sugar refineries, the sale of sugar products, controlled the beet cultivation and was the sales organ of the raw sugar factories combined in VEMIRO, primarily in the Halle, Köthen and Zeitz/Altenburg regions. It belonged to the Berlin Sugar Industry Economic Group and to the Berlin Association of the German Sugar Industry. In the 1930s and 1940s, the company also provided foreign labour and forced labour for the refineries and sugar factories. In 1946 the company was expropriated, assigned to Industriewerke Sachsen-Anhalt and dissolved in 1947. Their tasks and assets were taken over by the Halle sugar refinery. Inventory information: From the administrative archive of the VEB Zuckerkombinat Halle, about 2 linear metres of ZVG documents were handed over to the Staatsarchiv Magdeburg in 1981, where the files were recorded on index cards and re-signed in 1984. The holdings were transferred in 1994 to the newly founded Landesarchiv Merseburg (later Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Merseburg Department), where the card index was retroconverted in 2011 in the scopeArchiv archive programme. 2015 saw the complete revision and reorganization of the archive holdings. Additional information: Corresponding stocks: - I 599 VEMIRO - I 601 Zuckerraffinerie Halle AG - Stocks of various sugar factories

Note: The holdings contain archival material that is subject to personal protection periods in accordance with § 10 Para. 3 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA and until their expiration is only accessible by shortening the protection period in accordance with § 10 Para. 4 Sentence 2 ArchG LSA or by accessing information in accordance with § 10 Para. 4a ArchG LSA. Find aids: Findbuch 2016 (online searchable) Registraturbilddner: As successor to the Neue Aktienzuckerraffinerie Halle, which had existed since 1859 and went bankrupt in 1880, Zuckerraffinerie AG Halle was founded in 1881 with headquarters in Raffineriestraße there. The main purpose of the company was the processing of raw sugar into consumable sugar. Bread, cube, utility, granulated and icing sugar as well as molasses were produced. In 1885, the AG took over the Hallesche Zuckersiederei Compagnie auf Aktien, which had existed since 1835 (Am Hospitalplatz, Halle-Glaucha), the operation of which was abandoned in 1906. In 1922 the refinery joined the Vereinigung Mitteldeutscher Rohzuckerfabriken Halle (VEMIRO), whose representatives (raw sugar factories) held the majority of the shares in the company. As a result, raw sugar was processed only on the basis of factory wage contracts. Sugar sales were organized by Zuckervertriebsgesellschaft AG Halle. In the 1940s, prisoners of war, forced labourers and foreign workers were also used to ensure refinery production. In World War II, the sugar refinery AG was heavily destroyed, expropriated in 1946 and placed under the control of the industrial works of Saxony-Anhalt. As of 1 July 1948, the company was transferred into public ownership as VVB Zuckerindustrie - VEB Zuckerraffinerie Halle. In 1951 it became the VEB "Vorwärts" Zuckerraffinerie Halle. Inventory information: From the administrative archive of the VEB Zuckerkombinat Halle, about 6 linear metres of documents from the Zuckerraffinerie AG Halle were handed over to the Staatsarchiv Magdeburg in 1981, where the files were redrawn on index cards in 1984. The collection was transferred to the newly founded Landesarchiv Merseburg (later Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Merseburg Department) in 1994. In 2013, the search index was retroconverted in the scopeArchiv distorting program. In 2016 the complete revision of the written material was carried out. Additional information: Corresponding holdings: - I 599 VEMIRO, - I 601 ZVG Halle - Holdings of various sugar factories Literature: Karl Sewering: Zuckerindustrie und Zuckerhandel in Deutschland. Poeschel Verlag Stuttgart 1933. Olbrich, Hubert: Sugar museum in upheaval. University publishing house of the TU Berlin, 2012. Olbrich, Hubert: Sugar museum in exile. University publishing house of the TU Berlin, 2013. Olbrich, Hubert: Zucker-Museum, vol. 26. Druckhaus Hentrich, Berlin, 1989 (2016).