!!!Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft

Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft, founded in 1881 by merging 
of the Styrian and the Carinthian iron and steel works centred at 
Leoben-Donawitz. The production site was chosen because of the 
vicinity of the iron ore mines at Erzberg mountain (Styria), 
Huettenberg mountain (Carinthia), and local brown coal extraction 
sites. Hard coal was imported from Bohemia and Moravia. The most 
important buyers of steel were shipyards on the Austrian Adriatic.

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In 1893 Donawitz was the first European iron and steel works to 
introduce the processing of crude iron in a Siemens-Martin open-hearth 
furnace; the then largest European blast furnace (300 t per day) 
was built here in 1902. In 1907 Donawitz operated Europe´s 
largest integrated steel works facilities. The period after 1918 saw 
several changes of ownership; the majority of shares was transferred 
from Italian to German ownership in 1926 (Stinnes and 
Siemens-Schuckert). In 1938 the 
Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft was merged with the 
newly founded, Linz-based "Reichswerke AG Alpine Montanbetriebe 
"Hermann Goering´". Independent again after 1946, the 
Oesterreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft was nationalised ( 
Nationalised Industry). New technologies, especially the  LD process, 
which went into operation in 1953, and increased demand led to an 
expansion of the plant with branch plants in Zeltweg, Krieglach and 
Judenburg etc. In a move towards consolidation of Austrian heavy 
industry, the group was merged with VOeEST AG ( VOEST, Vereinigte 
Oesterreichische Eisen- und Stahlwerke AG) on January 1, 1973 to form 
VOEST-Alpine AG. After several restructuring moves within the group in 
the years that followed, the main plant of what used to be the 
Oesterreichisch Alpine Montangesellschaft at Donauwitz now belongs to  
VOEST-ALPINE STAHL AG.

!Literature
M. Scherb and I. Morawetz (eds.), Stahl und Eisen bricht. 
Industrie und staatliche Politik in Oesterreich, 1986.


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