United Initiators: Early resistance to chemical plant

Created: 09/25/2022, 07:00

By: Andrea Kästle

Thea Sternheim with Karl, her idolatrous son.

© Andrea Kästle

Stories from history: as early as 1911, well-known Pullach residents resisted the United Initiators chemical plant.

Pullach - The community of Pullach and United Initiators - this is a story whose end is not yet foreseeable.

But it is also a story that goes far back into the past.

There have been protests against the chemical company and concerns about the products that are manufactured there as long as the company is based here.

These concerns and protests even existed before the company was even set up on the banks of the Isar.

At first there were only rumors that Adolph Pietzsch was planning to settle with his electrochemical works on the banks of the Isar, which he did in 1911.

Pullach: Not a suitable location for a large energy plant

The result was a "citizens' action", as can be read in the first volume of the Pullach series of publications, "which protested against this project in the strongest possible terms" and which "with an ecological far-sightedness that was unusual at the time" took the view that "the scenically so attractive Isar valley ... no suitable location for large industrial plants".

As is well known, those involved were not successful, despite prominent comrades-in-arms.

One of them was the well-known psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, the second: the writer Carl Sternheim, who had only built here himself two years before the rumors started.

In 1908 he and his wife Thea moved into their "Bellemaison" in the then still green Höllriegelskreuth, the beautiful house.

On May 31, 1910, the "Münchner Latest News" reported that the approval of a factory at the site, which had apparently already been granted by the local building commission at the time, had "triggered numerous protests" and that "a large number of letters" had been received.

Pullach: "A mockery of public opinion"

Two of these letters were then also printed, they say that the whole thing is "a mockery of public opinion", "incomprehensible", and what is the purpose of the Isar Valley Association, which is there to prevent the Isar Valley be spoiled.

It was also clear to the authors of the two letters to the editor that the settlement of companies here, in this incomparable location, had something to do with the fact that the technically groundbreaking hydroelectric power station down on the Isar had existed for several years.

And that the Isarwerke would of course want to resell "the excess energy... from their electricity plant...".

This is exactly why Jacob Heilmann, one of those who pushed ahead with the hydroelectric power plant in 1894, had already secured plots of land on the Hochleite.

He would now sell it to suitable companies.

Linde already existed at that time, Carl von Linde had built his "experimental institute for gas liquefaction and decomposition" in 1901, he would have a number of workshops follow, and later also buy the Bellemaison, where the Sternheims were not happy.

also read

Concern about the blackout: Munich district office advises citizens to prepare

Serious accident on the A8 near Munich: the driver of the caravan team nods off - the police block the highway

Pullach: The production of hydrogen peroxide is not profitable at all

In his memoirs, he raved about the possibilities offered by the location, which also had a railway connection: In Höllriegelskreuth, "any desired extension" could be implemented, and "many different jobs" could be carried out "undisturbed".

While the letter-to-the-editors were calling on the authorities to put in an "energetic veto" to prevent the chemical factory, Carl Sternheim himself turned to the Munich district office a month later.

He argued that the production of hydrogen peroxide, which Adolph Pietzsch was planning, was not profitable at all, he had had it checked by an expert.

Pietzsch probably wants to secretly produce other chemicals that "seriously damage the residents".

Last sentence of the letter: "On this occasion, the undersigned also refers to the nonsensical responsible persons in the Pullach municipal administration, who managed that he and the other residents only found out about the impending danger from alarming newspaper articles."

At the same time, the writer stood as a candidate in the local elections in the autumn of 1911, and then actually became a “community representative”, i.e. a municipal councillor, and also a “councillor” and thus the deputy of the then mayor Simon Metz.

In another volume of the series, that by Michael Davidis about the Sternheims in Pullach, it seems that his commitment was not too great.

Carl Sternheim, writer and "alderman" from Pullach.

© Andrea Kästle

Pullach United Initiators: "With all energies against the factory project"

In June 1912 he had to pay 45 marks for three unexcused absences from meetings.

In March 1912 he had also taken over the chairmanship of the newly founded Pullach Tourist Office in order, as Thea noted in her diary, to be able to "use all energies against the factory project".

By then, of course, the train had long since left.

And Adolph Pietzsch did not contest the scramble for what he was planning to do in Höllriegelskreuth anyway.

On June 8, 1912, he arrogantly asked the royal district office in Sternheim, who had repeatedly complained about odors and noise, "to have his mental state examined by the authorities so that he could finally be neglected as a troublemaker."

Ultimately, the writer gave up - and sold Bellemaison.

Which had also become necessary in the spring of 1912 because his father had left him a pile of debts.

With Thea he settled in Belgium, where he, a "half-Jew" according to the absurd racial laws of the Nazis, fortunately survived.

At some point the two separated, he married again, a daughter of Wedekind - but this marriage did not last either.

His beautiful house has long been a listed building, but it has long since ceased to radiate splendor in the Pullach industrial area.

(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular district Munich newsletter.)