Silesia Water Towers 2: Gliwice

Gliwice is home to what remains of Huldschinskyche Hüttenwerke AG. Founded for pipe manufacture in 1867 by Solomon Huldschinksy and Albert Hahn, the mill installed Siemens-Martins furnaces in 1890 and made a start producing wheels and rims for the railroad.  Then in World War I, the mill switched to munitions production.  At its height in World War II, the steel works employed 20,000 workers.

The water tower itself was built 1930- after the Soviets had renamed the mill “May 1” and added glass production.  A spiral staircase reaches to the heavens.  But the ascent is treacherous: there is no rail, surfaces are crumbling, and the occasional step is dislodged and dangling from rusty cables.  

The land has been cleared where May 1 once operated.  Gliwice has long been a shopping destination for regions west of the Katowice conurbation, and soon this plot will be home to a new shopping mall.

Brandenberg Wasserturm: Eberswalde

The once highly industrialized town of Eberswalde is home to Wolfswinkel paper mill, founded 1726 and maker of the Spechthausen brand paper.

Wolfswinkel specialized in Deckle-edge paper- a rough-cut form that became a status symbol once industrial processes rendered it obsolete.  The plant is said to have manufactured a good many of the banknotes and letters of credit that fuelled the Reich's expansion, 1874-1945.

At its peak in 1897, Wolfswinkel employed over 200 workers. With brief interruptions, it made paper through the Seven Years War, World War I, and World War II. It was also left unmolested by Soviet metallophiles following World War II.  Two years after privatization in 1992, the plant shuttered.

Wolfswinkel's watertower- built when the mill expanded in1928- today casts a hollow gaze over the Finow canal.  But it can boast a big tent constituency that includes Graffiti artists from Berlin, land developers, and dog walkers on a neighbouring footpath.