#TBT: 80 years ago, World War II came to an end

Eighty years ago today, World War II ended, a conflict that changed the world forever. With a total of 60 to 70 million deaths, it is the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.
Today, the topic of war is more relevant than ever. The effects of war must therefore not be forgotten. Perhaps one day we will learn from the mistakes of the past.

By the end of the war, Cologne had been more than 90% destroyed by Allied carpet bombing. A letter written by our then managing partner Otto Lindemanns to his shareholders in November 1944 reflects the mood of the people: “There is not much hope left for Cologne. The city is dead, or at least so badly damaged that it cannot be expected to return to its former state. Perhaps 30% of it can still be saved. Cologne has gained its significance from over 2,000 years of development. It is not imperative to rebuild the city to its previous size. Perhaps we should move a few kilometers to the south or north and preserve the ruins as an example or a warning, or perhaps as a sensation for people with cold hearts.”

In March 1945, the war was over for our locations west of the Rhine, as the entire Rhineland was occupied. In today’s eastern German territories, however, there were still massive bombing raids. Cities such as Magdeburg, Dresden, and Zwickau were severely hit and heavily destroyed in the final weeks of the war.

When the Red Army reached the Reich border in the fall of 1944, Germans began fleeing East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania en masse for fear of reprisals. Hundreds of thousands fled westward in the final weeks of the war. The refugees often found themselves caught between the fronts, and in many cases the rapidly advancing Red Army overran the Tecks. Millions of refugees died of cold and hunger or were abused, raped, or murdered by Soviet troops.

At the beginning of May 1945, Berlin was the first to surrender in the east, followed by the complete surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8.

And quartz movements? Some of our locations were severely damaged and there was a shortage of everything—especially labor.

Fortunately, the war damage at the Frechen plant was less dramatic than initially feared: although the long shutdown had turned the sand pit and the mine railway facilities into a dune landscape, and there was damage to excavators, locomotives, the sand washing plant, and the connecting track caused by bombs and artillery hits, operations were quickly resumed here after a short reconstruction phase.

In Haltern, and especially at the former plant in Neuss harbor, extensive cleanup and repair work had to be carried out. On May 22, 1945, the military government granted Quarzwerke permission to resume quartz sand mining, primarily to supply glassworks. However, it took until mid-1946 before all sites were back in production. And even in the years that followed, there were repeated shortages of important items such as paper sacks for loading quartz flour, coal, electricity, and food.