The western plastics processing center developed around Kierspe, Lüdenscheid and Schalksmühle around 1930. The largest company based in Kierspe, Dr. Deisting GmbH, became famous for its thick-skinned rotary switches and sockets, which still work in many cellars today. Since 2003, several thousand exhibits have been presented in the Bakelite Museum in a temporary exhibition - unique in Germany. Products from the early days up to around 1965 are on display: from food processors to bicycle handles, from light switches to magic lanterns, from people's receivers to ashtrays and from hairdryers to typewriters, there are always interesting things to discover from the early days of Duroplast.
Conversely, there is also amazement, e.g. at a telephone with a rotary dial in the age of cell phones! Here, industrial history is conveyed in its purest form and the development of Kierspe into a location for the modern plastics, metal and electrical industries is explained.
It's well worth a visit!
The Bakelitmuseum in Kierspe is dedicated to the world's first industrially produced plastic. Its inventor is Dr. Leo Hendrik Baekeland, who was born in Ghent, Belgium. After a study trip to the USA in 1889, he settled in Yonkers. He first invented velox paper, which was needed for photography. He was unexpectedly able to sell this invention to Eastman Kodak for 1 million dollars. Between 1905 and 1907, Naekeland, a chemist by training, used this money to develop Bakelite, a material consisting of phenol and formaldehyde, and applied for a patent for it in the same year. The Bakelite brand is still one of the strongest in the plastics sector today and enjoys iconic status worldwide. The thermosetting material is characterized by good dimensional stability, heat resistance and excellent insulating properties and was dubbed the material of a thousand things. It replaced shellac and porcelain and revolutionized everyday culture.
In Germany, Rüttgerswerke acquired a license and, together with Baekeland, founded Bakelite GmbH in 1910 with the industrial production of phenolic resins in Erkner near Berlin. The toxic waste material phenol produced by Rüttgerswerke could thus be recycled directly. When the site fell into the Soviet occupation zone after the Second World War, a new start was made in 1948, initially in Munich, before Bakelite Gesellschaft mbH moved to Letmathe two years later. In the Sauerland, and particularly in the Kierspe, Lüdenscheid and Schalksmühle region, a center of excellence in the metal and electrical industry had already been established in the 1930s. In Kierspe alone, there were 36 companies with more than 450 plastic presses. The Kierspe factory owner Carl-Heinz Vollmann collected many interesting Bakelite products and donated them to the Heimatverein Kierspe e.V. This laid the foundation for the Bakelitmuseum, which opened in Kierspe in 2003 - the only one of its kind in Germany.
Whether a kitchen machine, bicycle handle, ashtray or hairdryer: there are always interesting things to discover in the Kierspe Bakelitmuseum.
The Bakelite Museum is one of the attractions at WasserEisenLand - Industriekultur Südwestfalen
Special guided tours on request
Heimatverein Kierspe
www.kierspe.de/heimatverein
Tip : At a listening point in Kierspe, not far from the Bakelite Museum, you can use a QR code to find out exciting information about this historic building. You can find out more under the entry "Kierspe listening points".
Text source © WasserEisenLand
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