Paper Mill H.
Since the 1660s, smelting works used to produce raw iron on the site of this abandoned paper mill. However, the operation ran into deficit by the early 1830s and was closed down. A Prussian bank purchased the area and by 1838, a paper mill had been built and was operational.
the factory was privatized in the 1880. Various changes of ownership followed until the late 1930s, when World War II started. In 1946, all paper machines were shipped to the Soviet Union as reparations. A "new" machine was built using spare parts and scrap metal. The paper mill remained in operation and was nationalized in 1953. From 1967, the production was focused on manufacturing transparent drawing paper which was needed for cnstruction in socialist states.
The paper was exported into the entire "Eastern Bloc" - as far as Cuba.
When the German Reunification came, the production collapsed. No paper machine in Eastern Germany was capable of producing in neither the quantitiy nor the quality needed to compete on the world market. The factory was closed in 1992 and all 140 remaining workers were let go. Plans followed to turn the factory into a museum while at the same time rehashing second-hand paper, but those plans were never turned into reality. In 2003, the paper mill was put under monument protection.
It is the only complete historical paper mill left in Germany,
