Grubenunglück von Courrières – Wikipedia

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The Grubenunglück von Courrières occurred on March 10, 1906 in the city of Courrières in the northern French department Pas-de-Calais. With 1,099 dead – including many children – it was and is still the mining catastrophe of Europe with the most fatalities. [first] (see also list of accidents in mining).
The mine was operator of the mine of the Mines de Courrières (founded in 1852).

Around 1,800 miners worked in the interconnected shafts underground Auguste Lavors, Lavaleresse and Sainte-Barbe In about 300 to 400 m depth when a huge coal diobab explosion shook the pit around 6:30 a.m. The exact cause of the explosion remained unclear. The violence of the explosion was damaged. The extent of the disaster overwhelmed the local assistants who did not have respiratory protection; Rescue teams were requested from away.

The rescue measures for the miners enclosed underground were made only to hesitate. A total of around 600 miners were saved. Many of them had suffered serious burns and gas poisoning. The miners came to the most part from the surrounding settlements Billy Montigny, Sallaumines, Méricourt and Noyelles-Sous-Lens. 13 survivors ( survivor ) were saved 20 days after the explosion on March 30th, one last survivor on April 4.

Many miners used mine lamps with an open flame despite the associated risk of triggering a fire or an explosion. There have been security mine lamps for decades; However, these were more expensive than the simple lamps. Before the accident, there was a mine fire that led to an explosion before the accident that was used for wood storage. Further explosions and poisonous gases spread over a large area. [2] [3] [4] [5] The rescue was additionally made more difficult by the lack of ladders. [4]

In the funerals, there were protest ratings against the operating company, [6] which was accused of deliberately delaying the opening of the blocked shafts in order to narrow down the deposit losses. Four workers were arrested for a protest on March 20. [7]

The procedure against state engineers was on July 29, 1906, [8] the investigation of the causes of the accident on May 6, 1907. [9]

The breathing device Guglielminetti-Dräger
MP Émile Basly observes the rescue of the victims

On the initiative of the mountain master Konrad Engel (1862–1912), Managing Director of the Association for Mining Interest in the Oberbergamt district of Dortmund, a German rescue team of 25 mine defenders from the Shamrock and Rheinbersgesellschaft Hibernia mining team broke out of volunteers Georg Albrecht Meyer on Eve of March 11th to France. [ten] With the help of breathing devices, they penetrated the gas swaths in search of survivors and dead there.

The commitment of the German miners was praised, among other things, by the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès and also received worldwide attention, because the relationships between the French 3rd Republic and the German Empire were very tense a few years before the outbreak of the First World War (see also revanchism).

The first film adaptation Le Feu à la Mine took place in 1911. Against the background of the Völkerbund Idea, Georg Wilhelm Pabst in 1931 addressed international solidarity with the film camaraderie.

  • Women are waiting for the rescue of their husbands and sons, March 10, 1906

  • German rescue team on the way to Courrieres

  • Supporting the victims on March 13, 1906

  • The 13 miners who were saved on March 30th.

  • Memorial “Way of the Survivors”, 100th anniversary on March 10, 2006

After the end of the Second World War (and before the Franco-German friendship contract from 1963), Herne tried to be a city partnership with the cities of Lens, Billy-Montigny and Hénin (all located at Courrières). A partnership between Hénin and Herne was signed in 1954. In 1971, Beaumont was added due to the French regional reform. In 1967 there was the Aristide Briand medal in recognition of this sign of Franco-German friendship. [11]

There is a couriery road in Herne.

During the ruhr line -up, members of the rescue team were arrested and accused by French troops (participation in the General strike). Relatives brought them to prison, which they had received in France in 1906; The men wore these medals when they appeared in front of the judge. This did not open the process, but left the men free.

  • Michael Farrenkopf, Peter Friedemann (ed.): Die GrubenkatastRasters von Courrières 1906 , Aspects of transnational history, Bochum 2008. [twelfth]
  • Michael Farrenkopf: Courrières 1906 – a disaster in Europe. Explosion risk and solidarity in mining. Bochum 2006. ISBN 3-937203-23-0 (leader and catalog for the exhibition of the German Mining Museum Bochum, the Institute for City History Gelsenkirchen and the Herne City Archives)
  • Heinz-Otto Sieburg: The Courrières 1906 mine disaster: a contribution to the social history of the Third Republic and to the Franco-German relationship around the turn of the century , Verlag F. Steiner Wiesbaden, 1967
  • Bruno Vouters: Courrières March 10, 1906: The terrible disaster. Lille: Editions La Voix du Nord. 2006. ISBN 2-84393-100-2.
  1. ↑ Robert G. Neville: The Courrieres Colliery Disaster . In: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1978), pp. 33–52
  2. ↑ Berthold Seewald: Mining: Europe’s largest mine accident hit Courrières in 1906 . In: THE WORLD . July 27, 2021 ( welt.de [accessed November 13, 2022]).
  3. ↑ Das Grubenunglück in Courrières. In:  Wiener Zeitung , March 28, 1906, p. 22 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/Wrz
  4. ↑ a b Expert opinion on the causes of Courrières mine accident. In:  New free press , March 20, 1906, p. 20 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/NFP
  5. ↑ Die GrubenkatastRasters von Courrières. In:  New free press , March 12, 1906, p. 4 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/NFP
  6. ↑ Die Grubenkatastrophe in Courrières. In:  Oesterreichische Kronen-Zeitung. Illustrated Tagblatt / Illustrated Kronen-Zeitung / Wiener Kronen-Zeitung , March 19, 1906, p. 9 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/Krz
  7. ↑ Courrières. In:  Arbeiter-Zeitung , March 24, 1906, p. 6 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/AZE
  8. ↑ From the courtroom. In:  New free press , July 30, 1906, p. 10 (online at Anno). Template: Anno/Maintenance/NFP
  9. ↑ Die Grubenkatastrophe in Courrières. In:  New free press , 7. Never 1907, S. 33 (online beautiful year). Template: Anno/Maintenance/NFP
  10. ↑ Helga Belach and Wolfgang Jacobsen: Border courses of criticism
  11. ↑ Help was the cornerstone for town twinning (WAZ July 24, 2011)
  12. ↑ Die Grubenkatastrophy von Courrières 1906 – Aspekte Transnational Geschichte (PDF, 30 pages; 148 KB)