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Anna Prochotta, 2024

The Hamburg district of Harburg was an independent city with a port on the Elbe until the 20th century. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, new companies were established here that processed raw materials from colonized areas. The rubber and oil industries in particular made the relatively small city an important industrial location in the German Empire.

In contrast to the architectural traces in today's cityscape, the legacies in the countries of origin of the colonial raw materials are invisible in the Harburg urban area. In the former German colonies, but also in Nigeria and the Amazon region, the exploitation of the raw materials processed on the Elbe often destroyed the livelihoods of local societies. Land was expropriated to create plantations on which people were forced to work. The resistance from the local population, which arose almost everywhere and again, was often violently suppressed by the colonial actors.

These events are also part of the history of industrial monuments, even if they are not commemorated in Harburg. The stations in this article shed light on important places and companies in Harburg and their connection with colonialism.

Stationen

From rubber shoes to rubber tyres

Of strings and bags

Blue dyeing with indigo

Oil supplier for margarine factories

Harburg´s first oil mill

Rubber for the Empire