Chronology

In 1873, the metallurgical engineer Julius Buch founded a puddling and rolling mill near Völklingen on the Saar. After six years, he had to close his factory because the business was no longer profitable due to cheap British pig iron imports and the absence of import duties.

The Saarbrücken businessman Carl Röchling buys the closed works in Völklingen. He prefers the production of pig iron. In 1883 the first blast furnace goes into operation.

Between 1882 and 1889, the Röchling Iron and Steelworks built four settlements, known as colonies, with company-owned homes to meet the escalating demand for accommodation for its workers and their families.

The improvement of the infrastructure implemented by Carl Röchling brings success to Völklinger Hütte.  The Röchling Brothers Völklinger Ironworks in Völklingen becomes the biggest steel girder producer in the German Empire.

Carl Röchling introduces the Thomas process at the Völklinger Hütte relatively late. Minette from Lothringen can now be mass smelted in Völklingen.

The first coke oven battery is erected directly adjacent to the blast furnace in Völklingen. The Röchling family has considerable experience in the coking of coal having operated one of the largest coking plants, in the Saarland industrial region at Sulzbachtal.
The coal silo, made of sheet steel, which rises up above the coking-plant, dates from the same year and is one of the oldest constructions still preserved at the Völklingen Ironworks.

Carl Röchling initiated the construction of the company's own hospital for the victims of accidents at work. However, it was primarily open to foundry workers and their families. An extension was added just two years later, an indication of how the village of Völklingen had expanded.

Two years earlier experiments concerning the use of blast furnace gas for the driving of power engines were successfully executed.  The experiments show blast furnace gas to be necessary for propelling internal combustion engines. The Röchling brothers immediately recognise the significance of the gas engine for the development of the iron and steel industry. They therefore erect a blast engine building some distance away from the blast furnaces.

The building cooperative Arbeiter-Baugenossenschaft 04 was founded by Hermann Röchling, marking the beginning of a new form of housing policy. As well as alleviating the housing shortage that resulted from the rapid development of the population of Völklingen, the aim was also to allow a larger number of foundry workers to own their homes in order to bind them to the company.  

As a contribution to the fight against infant mortality, a milk kitchen was set up at the initiative of Carl Röchling's wife Alwine. A doctor prescribed the milk from the works' own farm to be given to babies, toddlers and the sick. Next to the milk kitchen was a welfare station that offered advice to mothers. The milk kitchen remained in existence until 1961.

The railway system for loading the blast furnaces is built. It combined the two leading technologies of the time, the self-propelled suspended railway ladders, corresponding to the Wuppertal suspension railway.  In the inclined lift, a cable helped to cross the slope, according to the principle of the American "cable cars". The suspension railway system supplied the six blast furnaces of the Völklingen ironworks.

This year also marks the use of the world's first dry gas purification system. The blast furnace gas produced in the blast furnace process was thus purified of solid components. The gas could then be used to operate the gas blowing machines and to heat the cowper and coke batteries. This technology was so successful that it spread throughout the world.

The burden shed is built in 1913 and like the water tower, is one of the first constructions of this size made from reinforced concrete.

At the outbreak of the First World War production initially came to a standstill. Later, Völklingen also proceeded making armaments: shells for the front and almost 90% of the raw steel required for the new German steel helmet, which went into general issue from 1916.  Ironworkers, however, were drafted into military service; their place in the ironworks was taken by women and – illegally – by prisoners of war. During the war the Völklingen works underwent further construction: a Siemens-Martin steelworks was built for the production of armaments.

The elevated water tank, a reinforced concrete truss structure, is erected and is one of the first examples of a new industrial architecture that is just emerging.

Sintering technology offers the opportunity to recycle waste products from the smelting processes - i.e. ore dust, blast furnace flue dust. One of the most modern sintering plants in Europe is built in Völklingen - and one of the biggest at that time. Materials with a grain size that is too fine for use in the blast furnaces at 1300°C are heated to form a sinter cake in the sinter plant and then broken into the correct size pieces.

As a major industrialist, Hermann Röchling actively pursued the annexation of the Saar region to National Socialist Germany, among other things with his polemic "Wir  halten die Saar!". In the following years, as a "military economic leader" he was one of the leading players in the pre-war and war economy.

With the construction of the Bouser Höhe housing estate, from 1937 the "Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Völklingen 1904" realised an urban planning concept that had already proven its value in the 1920s: that of the small housing estate. One key factor in the foundation of the new estate was a concept that was pursued in early projects of binding workers at the Völklingen Ironworks more closely to the company by providing them with their own homes. Following the death of Hermann Röchling, the Bouser Höhe was renamed Hermann Röchling Höhe despite the fact that he was a convicted war criminal. After many years of dispute over the name, a compromise was finally reached in 2013: Röchling-Höhe.

During the Second World War a total of almost 70,000 foreign workers and prisoners of war worked in the mines, foundries and factories of the Saar region. At the Völklingen Ironworks and its auxiliary operations more than 12,000 foreign people of various nations were put to work for the ironworks. The great majority were forced labour, French, Italian and Russian prisoners of war or Russian and Ukrainian civilians deported from the Soviet Union. The working conditions were discriminatory and inhuman. More than 250 of the foreign work force, most of whom were forced labourers (male and female), died there.
At the end of the war the ironworks goes back into operation under French management.

After the Second World War, the Völklingen Ironworks was placed under French sequestration. It was only when the Saarland was given back to Germany at the end of 1956 that the Völklingen Ironworks were returned to the Röchling family.

Along with other family members and directors, Hermann Röchling was sentenced to ten years in prison. His entire fortune was confiscated and he was deprived of his civil rights.

More than 17,000 people work at the Völklinger Hütte. The highest number of employees in the history of the works is reached.

The Völklingen Ironworks was also affected by the global steel crisis of 1975. While the Luxembourg steel group Arbed ran the Burbach site in the Saarland until 1971, the Völklingen Ironworks amalgamated with the "Vereinigte Hüttenwerke Burbach-Eich-Düdelingen" to form the jointly operated "Stahlwerke Röchling-Burbach GmbH". Arbed Saarstahl GmbH was created with the integration of the Neunkirchen Ironworks in 1982; the Röchling family parted company with the works in 1978. In 1986 the company was renamed Saarstahl.

A new steelworks goes into operation in the vicinity of the Völklingen Ironworks. Using the basic oxygen process, the pig iron from the blast furnaces is further processed into steel

The Völklinger Hütte blast furnaces are shut down. The Saarland Council of Ministers agrees to preserve significant parts of the closed works as historical monuments

A new phase begins in the history of the ironworks when the Völklinger Hütte is granted a place as the first industrial monument on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site List. It is the only surviving ironworks in the world from the heyday of iron and steel production and a unique testimony to an industrial epoch of the past.

The Saarland founded the new sponsoring company, the Weltkulturerbe Vöklinger Hütte - Europäisches Zentrum für Kunst und Industriekultur. Since 1999, more than 4.5 million people have visited the World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte.