QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Standing behind Australia

Under the Third Reich, following Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, Hochtief had become a key civil engineering contractor once more. Many of Germany’s major public buildings, and its flourishing network of autobahns, as well as giant industrial plants and defence projects, bore Hochtief’s imprint. With the outbreak of World War II, Hochtief’s construction activities came entirely under military control. Postwar reconstruction of the infrastructure, power stations, communication facilities and, most importantly, housing became the next focus for Hochtief. But Hochtief also considered starting activities overseas again, in particular in Australia, which was accepting European immigrants displaced by the war. As early as 1946 Hochtief Australia Ltd was established. Road and dam construction contracts were obtained in Tasmania and in various suburbs of Brisbane. But with Marshall Plan-induced construction activity booming in West Germany and the introduction of the Deutsche Mark as the official new currency in 1948, Hochtief had little time to continue giving its support to the small Hochtief offshoot ‘down under’. Without this support the company started to struggle and its losses became inevitable. In the face of consequences for the German parent company, Dr Albrecht Schumann was sent to rescue Hochtief Australia Ltd in 1952. After successfully stemming the red ink, he wound up the Australian venture in 1954 and returned to head office in Germany.

Detlef Sulzer summarises some of the Australian connections with Germany’s largest construction company, and one of its oldest, formed when two Helfmann brothers started a construction business in Frankfurt-am-Main in the 1870s,. This followed the Franco-Prussian War, Otto von Bismarck’s establishment of the Second German Empire, and the crowning of Kaiser Wilhelm I as Prussian Ruler of all Germany, Kingdoms, Dukedoms and free cities. The economic boom occasioned by the creation of the new empire was short-lived, however. Real estate speculation contributed to cyclical overheating of the economy and led to the crash of 1873. So severe was the jolt to the young First Reich, and Continental Europe as a whole, that only a few of the newly-established construction companies survived. Philipp Helfmann changed the name of the company to Hochtief after the death of his brother Balthasaar in 1896. The recovery of the economy presented Hochtief with the opportunity to expand its operation into the Ruhr Valley and Berlin area, building mostly factories, port facilities, bridges and other infrastructure. With the fall of the Second Reich and the end of World War I, the Rheinisch Westfälische Elktrizitäts Werke (RWE) – the electricity corporation of the state of Rhine-Westphalia – became a major shareholder of Hochtief and remained so for over 80 years.

U-Bahn beneath the Elbe: Hochtief built the tunnels for the almost 6km-long U4 line, which joins the ‘HafenCity’ waterfront redevelopment project with the city’s centre. Image courtesy of Hochtief Aktiengesellschaft

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