AG Vulcan

Aktien-Gesellschaft Vulcan Stettin (short AG Vulcan Stettin) was a German shipbuilding and locomotive building company. Founded in 1851, it was located near the former eastern German city of Stettin, today Polish Szczecin. Because of the limited facilities in Stettin, in 1907 an additional yard was built in Hamburg. The now named Vulcan-Werke Hamburg und Stettin Actiengesellschaft constructed some of the most famous civilian German ships and it played a significant role in both World Wars, building warships for the Kaiserliche Marine and the Kriegsmarine later.

Both yards became members of the Deschimag in the 1920s. The Stettin shipyard was closed in 1928, opened again in 1939. During World War II it exploited slave workers, and after the war, was taken over by the Polish government, while the Hamburg yard was sold to Howaldtswerke AG in 1930 and the ''Locomotive Department'' was sold to in Berlin

History

A.G. Vulcan Stettin was founded 1851 as Schiffswerft und Maschinenfabrik Früchtenicht & Brock by the two young engineers ''Franz F. D. Früchtenicht'' and ''Franz W. Brock'' in the little village ''Bredow'', which later became suburb of the eastern German city of ''Stettin''. Its first ship was the small iron paddle steamer, named ''Die Dievenow'' for the service between the cities of ''Stettin'' and ''Swinemünde''. Several small vessels followed, while the yard continuously was enlarged.

When the yard went into financial problems, in 1857 the company was taken over by some entrepreneurs and politicians from Stettin and Berlin which founded the new company Stettiner Maschinenbau Actien-Gesellschaft Vulcan. Ship construction was continued, but the solution of the financial trouble was expected by additionally constructing locomotives. A subsidiary company was founded, called Abteilung Locomotivbau in Bredow bei Stettin. In 1859 the first locomotive was delivered; all together the company built about 4,000 units in Stettin until it was sold to the Berlin company Borsig.

In the future larger and larger ships were built, the facilities in Stettin could no longer sustain the scale of the operations. The yard built the s.

Thus a new shipyard was built in Hamburg between 1907 and 1909. From 1911, it was named Vulcan-Werke Hamburg und Stettin Actiengesellschaft. The Hamburg yard was the scene of a week-long strike in 1918 which was only brought to a close through the reading of the War Clauses.

Automatic transmissions for motor vehicles

Gustav Bauer, director of the marine engine section, supervised the work of Hermann Föttinger on the Fottinger hydraulic transmitter known as ''Vulcan Coupling'' and ''Vulcan Drive'' or fluid coupling. In 1924, Vulcan's Hermann Rieseler invented one of the first automatic transmissions, which had a two-speed planetary gearbox, torque converter, and lockup clutch; it never entered production., p. 62. (The less-sophisticated Hydra-Matic, which used a simple fluid coupling, was an available option on Oldsmobiles in 1940.) The original coupling further developed in collaboration with Harold Sinclair of Fluidrive Engineering of Isleworth for Daimler of Coventry and matched with a manually controlled epicyclic gearbox went into production in England in 1929.

Shutdown

In 1928 Vulcan Stettin went bankrupt and sold its Hamburg shipyard in 1930. The AG Vulcan Stettin had been closed.

New enterprise

1939 a new company - also named Vulcan - was founded on the site of the former Stettin-shipyard. All together 34 construction numbers were started in the following years, including 18 type-VII C submarines. But because of the war only a few ships could be launched and completed. Among these were two submarines, but only one of them () was ever in service while the second one () was destroyed by allied air attacks before.
During the war the yard exploited slave workers and had its own prisoner camp, part of the prisoner population engaged in anti-Nazi resistance, successfully sabotaging several constructed ships
After World War II the slave workers were freed and the shipyard was finally taken over by the Polish government and the new Szczecin Shipyard was started at this site. The Szczecin Shipyard named one of its wharfs "Wulkan" and two slipways "Wulkan 1" and "Wulkan Nowa".

Ships built by AG Vulcan Stettin (selection)

* 1851, Constr.No. 1, Paddle steamer ''Die Dievenow'', first built ship
* 1873, CNo. 66, SMS Preussen, first ironclad warship build
* 1877, CNo. 74, , ironclad warship
* 1879, for Shipping Company on the Don, Azov and Black Seas with their tributaries (). After 1886 belonged to Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company
* 1880, Corvette ''Olga''
* 1881–1882, and for Chinese Navy
* 1887, protected cruiser for Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy); 1922 broken up
* 1889, ''Scandia'' Hamburg America Line liner, sold to U.S. Army Quartermaster Department 1898 serving as U.S. Army Transport ''Warren'' until 1922, sold, burned sunk Shanghai 1924
* 1891, for Kaiserliche Marine, 1910 sold to the Osman Navy
* 1892, Aviso and imperial yacht for Kaiser Wilhelm II; 1923 broken up
* 1897, 4-funnel , won 1898 Blue Riband
* 1897, Passenger ship ''Königin Luise'' for Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), 1935 broken up
* 1897–1899, great cruisers and
* 1899, Steamer ''König Albert'' for NDL, 1926 broken up
* 1901, Pre-dreadnought battleship for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1900, Passenger ship ''Deutschland''
* 1902, 4-funnel Kaiser-class ocean liner
* 1902, Pre-dreadnought battleship for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1903, Torpedo boat
* 1903–1904, s and for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1905, Pre-dreadnought for Kaiserliche Marine; sunk in Battle of Jütland in June 1916
* 1906, Passenger ship ''Kaiserin Auguste Victoria''
* 1906, 4-funnel Kaiser-class ocean liner
* 1907, light cruiser for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1906–1907, s , , and for the Hellenic Royal Navy
* 1909, for Kaiserliche Marine, became later Osman cruiser , sunk 1918 by mines
* 1907, Passenger ship
* 1907, Passenger ship
* 1907, for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1909, CNo. 294, small experimental ship ''Föttinger Transformator'' with steam turbine and hydrodynamic transmission (Föttinger Transformator) propulsion
* 1909, for Kaiserliche Marine; sunk 1914 in the Battle of Helgoland Bight
* 1910, cruiser ROU ''Uruguay'', for National Navy of Uruguay. Out of service in 1951, scrapped in the 1960s.
* 1912, Destroyers (ex-German V-class destroyer ''V6'') and (ex-''V5'') for the Hellenic Royal Navy
* 1914, Imperial yacht for Kaiser Wilhelm II, not in service, 1923 scrapped in Hamburg
* 1915, for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1913, Passenger ship for HAPAG, not finished during war, 1919 British war-booty and renamed , 1952 scrapped
* 1913, Passenger ship for Norddeutscher Lloyd, supply ship for German raiders in World War I, seized by Peru 1917, renamed ''Callao'', chartered by United States Shipping Board (USSB) and transferred to U.S. Navy 26 April 1919 and commissioned USS ''Callao'' (ID-4036), decommissioned 20 September 1919. Sold at auction by USSB, renamed ''Ruth Alexander'' by Dollar Steamship Lines.
* 1914–1918, All together 32 torpedo boats ( - , - , - , and )
* 1915, and for Kaiserliche Marine, 1918 both internment in Scapa Flow
* 1916–1917, ''Rostock'' and ''Wiesbaden'', both not finished before the end of the war
* 1922, Passenger steamer ''München'' for NDL, 1931 renamed and 1938 only ''Steuben'', sunk 1945 in the Baltic Sea by Soviet submarine , about 3,000 people, mainly refugees, killed
* 1923, Passenger steamer ''Stuttgart'' for NDL, sunk 1943 by US Air Force
* 1926, Passenger ship for beach resort service, used as minelayer in WWII, 1942 sunk by Royal Air Force in Rotterdam
* 1941, Type VII-C U-boats and , but only U 901 was ever in service

Ships built by AG Vulcan Hamburg (selection)

* 1911/12, for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1913/14, Passenger ship
* 1913/14, for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1913/14, Merchant ship
* 1914, Battleship '' Salamis'' for Hellenic Navy, construction stopped with beginning of war, 1932 scrapped in Bremen
* 1915–1917, All together 69 U-boats of types UE 1, UE 2, UB III, UC I and UC II for Kaiserliche Marine
* 1916, Modified (Replacement Yorck), construction stopped and after war broken up
* 1917, for Kaiserliche Marine, not finished before end of war
* 1922, Merchant ship ''Cap Norte''

Ships built by AG Vulcan Stettin (selection)

Civilian ships

* (1896)
* (1900)
* '' Kronprinz Wilhelm'' (1901)
* (1902)
* (1906)
* (1906)
* (1907)
* (1907)
* (1913)

Naval ships

Battleships

* (1881)
* (1882)
* (1890)
* (1890)
* (1900)
* (1902)
* (1904)
* (1907)

Cruisers

* (1883)
* (1887)
* (1887)
* (1887)
* (1897)
* (1897)
* (1897)
* (1898)
* (1901)
* (1902)
* (1903)
* (1906)
* (1908)
* (1910)
* (1913)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)

Destroyers

* (1906)
* (1906)
* (1907)
* (1907)
* (1912)
* (1912)

Submarines (U-boats)

* Type VII-C U-boats (1941), out of six commissioned, only one, was ever in service.

Torpedo Boats

* (1914)
* (1914)
* (1914)
* (1914)
* (1914)
* (1914)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1915)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* (1916)
* , ex-Dutch ''Z-4'', later Polish
* (1918)

Ships still afloat

* ''Gryfia'', ex-''Tyras'' (1887), small railway ferry, today in Szczecin, Poland
* ''Wittow'' (1895), small railway ferry, today shown in the harbour of Barth, Germany
* Icebreaker ''Suur Tõll'' (1914), today a museum ship in Tallinn Icebrecher Stettin Hamburg Museum Ship

References

* Armin Wulle: ''Der Stettiner Vulcan. Ein Kapitel deutscher Schiffbaugeschichte''. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford 1989,
* Dieter Grusenick: ''Lokomotivbau bei der Stettiner Maschinenbau AG „Vulcan“''. B. Neddermeyer VBN, Berlin 2006,
* Christian Ostersehlte: ''Von Howaldt zu HDW. 165 Jahre Entwicklung von einer Kieler Eisengießerei zum weltweit operierenden Schiffbau- und Technologiekonzern''. Koehler-Mittler, Hamburg 2004,
* Arnold Kludas: ''Die Geschichte der Deutschen Passagierschiffahrt. Band 1: Die Pionierjahre von 1850 – 1990'' (= Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums. Bd. 18). Ernst Kabel Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 1986,
* Arnold Kludas; ''Die Seeschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd 1857 bis 1970'', Weltbild Verlag GmbH, Augsburg 1998,
* Bodo Herzog, ''Deutsche U-Boote 1906 – 1966'', Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft mbh, Herrsching 1990,
* Siegfried Breyer, ''Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905 - 1970''J. F. Lehmanns Verlag München 1970,

External links

Summary of ''AG Vulcan Stettin''

{{Authority control

Former submarine builders
Shipbuilding companies of Germany

Locomotive manufacturers of Germany

Defunct manufacturing companies of Germany

Companies of Prussia

Manufacturing companies established in 1851

Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1945

1851 establishments in Prussia

German companies established in 1851

1945 disestablishments in Germany

History of Szczecin
Companies based in Szczecin