Visit from Seevetal - from the watermill Karoxbostel - in front of the industrial mill of the 'Königshütte'
From left: Rüdiger Fromator (Watermill Karoxbostel), Rolf Nagel (Watermill Karoxbostel), Willy Koppermann (Deputy Chairman of the association Watermill Karoxbostel), Gudrun Grzyb (Förderkreis Königshütte), Claus Hiller (Watermill Karoxbostel), Christian Mühl (Deputy Chairman of the Förderkreis Königshütte)
Our guests from the watermill Karoxbostel in the mill of the Königshütte - in front of the overview board of the grinding arrangement
From left: Claus Hiller (water mill Karoxbostel), Rüdier Fromator (water mill Karoxbostel), Rolf Nagel (water mill Karoxbostel), Volker Puhrsch (Förderkreis Königshütte), Willy Koppermann (vice chairman of the association 'Wassermühle Karoxbostel)
On Wednesday, October 14, 2020, the ‘Förderkreis Königshütte’ received a visit from a mill association from the district of Seevetal. which is in charge of the 'watermill Karoxbostel' in the district of Hittfeld. The contact came about through an inquiry to the ‘Förderkreis’ because of the origin of a crushing chair, a special grinding chair of a mill, with which grain flakes can be produced. After privatization in 1872, the Königshütte company had built its own industrial mill and also sold entire mills and mill accessories throughout Germany. Whether the squeezing chair of the water mill Karoxbostel originated from Königshütte could not be conclusively clarified. Four members of the association, which cares for the water mill - it counts today to the 1,300 members - had set out to visit the mill and also the entire king hut. After a conversation to get to know each other, they went to the mill. (The mill equipment is still completely preserved, only the motors and the transmission belts were dismantled when the mill was shut down in 1960). Our guests - Willi Koppermann, deputy chairman of the ‘Mühlenverein Karoxbostel’ (mill society ‘Karoxbostel’), Rolf Nagel, Rüdiger Fromator and Claus Hiller - were totally enthusiastic about what Mr. Puhrsch had shown to them and, they would have liked to start immediately with the restoration and repair of the mill.
A visit to the South Harz Ironworks Museum followed. Here, Hans-Heinrich Hillegeist, our first chairman of the ‘Förderkreis Königshütte’, led the tour. This was followed by a look inside the machine factory and, after a joint coffee in the Hüttenschenke (hut tavern), a visit to the foundry building followed. Our guests had brought along a slide show of their mill, the water mill Karoxbostel, which - more dilapidated than the mill building of the Königshütte - has become a jewel with a lot of money and commitment. Numerous prizes have been awarded to the mill society of the watermill Karoxbostel for his work in the preservation of historical monuments. This time we - that is Mr. Puhrsch, the real estate owner of the Königshütte, the married couples Mühl and Wildner, Mr. Wolf and I - were amazed. The association had found similar conditions with the water mill Karoxbostel as the promotion circle with the former tasting house of the fiscal royal ironworks, today 'Südharzer Eisenhüttenmuseum'. ‘Particularly impressive, however’, was the description of the association's development into a cultural and social center of the village of Karoxbostel.The visit was concluded with a joint Tscherper meal in the Hüttenschenke with stimulating discussions. Our guests stayed overnight in Bad Lauterberg and wanted to see more of the Harz region on Thursday. Their destination should depend on the weather, because Peter had spared us from a storm, but it was autumnally cloudy and fresh. "With what you have shown us, you have a unique ensemble of treasures of industrial and mill history that deserves to be preserved and presented" was the conclusion of our guests. *** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***