Leonie Mine, Auerbach in der Oberpfalz, Amberg-Sulzbach District, Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germanyi

Regional Level Types
Leonie Mine	Mine (Abandoned)
Auerbach in der Oberpfalz	Town
Amberg-Sulzbach District	District
Upper Palatinate	Administrative District
Bavaria	State
Germany	Country

Iron mine, abandoned in 1988.

Located 1 km north of Auerbach.

The Leonie iron ore mine was a mine in Auerbach in the Upper Palatinate. It was operated from 1977 to 1987 by the Maxhütte steelworks in Upper Palatinate. The Leonie mine mined white and brown iron ore from the stock-shaped chalk ore deposit of the same name. With Fe content of around 47%, it was the richest iron ore deposit in the Federal Republic of Germany. After decommissioning, an estimated 20 million tons of iron ore remained in the deposit.

In 1877, in addition to its mines in the Sulzbach district, the Maxhütte also acquired the first mine in Auerbach, Leonie – later called Leonie 1 or Alte Leonie to distinguish it from the new facility – from Theodor von Cramer-Klett, the founder of MAN. In addition, the smelter had owned some ore fields in Auerbach since 1875, which were not yet used but were intended to serve as resources, such as Nitzelbuch, Welluck and Bernreuth. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, additional shafts were sunk in Auerbach, some of which were quickly closed again because they were unprofitable. The Leonie 2 and Minister Falk mines, which were started between 1900 and 1903, were closed just a few years later because the water intrusion could not be controlled. More luck was had in this regard with the Maffei I and Maffei II shafts in the Nitzelbuch ore deposit, which were sunk between 1905 and 1906 and continued to produce until the 1970s. In 1921 the old Leonie I colliery was closed down. In 1943, a mining tunnel was driven down to a depth of up to 30 m near Schleichershof, which was called “Kleine Leonie” (Leonie 3). A conveyor belt carried the ore into the cable car bunker. Operations ceased in 1945.

The last efforts to sink another shaft resulted from 1971. The drilling for Leonie IV, which had already begun in 1838, was resumed because it was the last iron ore deposit worth mining in the Federal Republic.

The exploration began with the sinking of the Leonie shaft on August 13, 1972 due to water-bearing layers using the freezing process, ore mining began in February 1977. After the last layers were drilled on St. Anna in the summer of 1974 and in the Maffei shafts in 1972, Leonie IV remained, the last mine of the Maxhütte until it was closed.

With the increasing decline in the price of foreign ores, the Leonie ore became too expensive in the mid-1980s and from then on almost all of it was dumped. On April 17, 1987, Maxhütte filed for bankruptcy. To save the steelworks, the principle of an integrated steelworks with its own raw material base was abandoned. The Leonie mine should therefore be liquidated as quickly as possible; the stockpiled ore was transported to the smelter within a short time.

The last production shift took place on May 8, 1987. Immediately afterwards, the decommissioning work began, which ended on November 28, 1989 at 11 a.m. with the dewatering being switched off and the ventilation shaft being filled. This marked the end of the last chapter of the last German ore mine, after only ten years of production.

NOTE: The iron ore mining pit is designated as an important geotope (geotope number: 371G002) by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment. After the mine was closed, the cavities created during mining partially collapsed. The result is a multitude of depressions and faults, so-called sinkholes. Since 1996, the mining area east of the mining facility has been declared a nature reserve called Grubenfelder Leonie and is grazed by Heck cattle and Exmoor horses. A wooden walkway leads to some of the most impressive sinkholes, the rest of the area is not permitted to be entered.

Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenerzbergwerk_Leonie
Wikidata ID:	Q1289370

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References