page_title: Leuna works
section_title: 1945 to 1990
hierarchical_section_title: Leuna works / 1945 to 1990
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. ADN-ZB-Zühlsdorf-Schmidt 6.8.1958 Frö-Schm Veb Leuna-Werke UBz.: Blick auf den Werkbahnhof.
context_page_description: The Leuna works in Leuna, Saxony-Anhalt, is one of the biggest chemical industrial complexes in Germany. The site, now owned jointly by companies such as Total S.A., BASF, Linde AG, and DOMO Group, covers 13 km² and produces a very wide range of chemicals and plastics.
context_section_description: After partial destruction in World War II and the dissolution of IG Farben, the works were transferred into a Soviet holding. About half of the remaining production plants were dismantled and shipped to the Soviet Union as war reparations. In the following years, the Leuna site was gradually rebuilt and expanded. In 1954 the works were transferred into public property and became known as "VEB Leuna-Werke Walter Ulbricht", the largest chemical production site in the German Democratic Republic. Next to the existing plant, the construction of Leuna II started in 1959. This was a modern petrochemical plant, with equipment such as a cracking plant for the production of ethylene and propene and the subsequent processing facilities for the production of phenol, caprolactam, and HDPE partly being supplied domestically, partly being imported from the Federal Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. In the 1950s an oil refinery was built, which processed crude oil supplied from the Soviet Union via a branch of the Druzhba pipeline. The latter also had a branch to Rostock port allowing the import of oil of other origin by sea.
  Following the oil price hikes of 1973/1974 and of 1979/1980 and the reduced supply from the Soviet Union, substantial investments were made in the oil processing industry. New, more sophisticated cracking plants were imported from the Federal Republic of Germany, from Japan, Austria, and Sweden, and were operated with modern distributed control systems originating in the FRG and the United States. Thereby, the fraction of so-called "black products" such as bitumen and heavy fuel oil was reduced to almost zero in favour of the "white products" such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and light heating oil. Motor fuels produced in Leuna II were also exported outside the socialist bloc to bankroll the new plants and to earn hard currency. For instance, Leuna gasoline was sold in West Berlin. Even the heaviest residues from oil processing were used as raw material for the production of syngas in the new low-pressure methanol plant. This hydrogenation-based technology required a large amount of hydrogen and was not profitable.
  Leunawerke employed about 30000 persons, the fenced-in complex extended over an area about 7 km long and 3 km wide. Two railway stations on the Halle–Bebra railway and several stops of Halle tramway line 5 served the works.
  Wear and tear of the up to 70 years old plants, in particular those for the production of syngas and ammonia and the high-pressure methanol plant, increased considerably until the 1980s, so that the high expenditures for energy, upkeep, and manpower made their economical operation impossible. To counter the shortage of manpower, construction soldiers were also employed.
caption: One of the railway stations serving Leunawerke
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