Dear Prof. Dr. Fuhrmann

Dear Mr. Räschke

Dear Mr. Lingstädt

Dear guests of honor,

dear citizens,

I would like to extend a warm welcome to you today on behalf of the Salzgitter City Council and administration, and also to you personally. Today is an important day for our city. Today we are inaugurating a special monument that commemorates the prevention of dismantling in Salzgitter. Many Salzgitter residents regard this date as the second birth of our city.

All of you who have appeared here today are an important part of our community, the city of Salzgitter, or are closely interwoven with it through partnerships. You are all "guests of honor" in the truest sense of the word.

However, I would like to extend a special welcome to a few guests of honor and good friends:

First of all, our greetings and thanks for your extraordinary commitment to the people of our town go to our honorary citizens Rudi Rückert and Georg Obst! A very warm welcome! As we all know, Rudi Rückert was also Lord Mayor of our city for many years.

Our honorary citizen and former Lord Mayor Hermann Struck sends his apologies, but wishes us all a wonderful celebration!

I am particularly pleased that my predecessor in office, former Lord Mayor Helmut Knebel, and many honorary council members are present. They have all rendered outstanding services to our city over the decades. A warm welcome to you all!

I would like to welcome all the current members of the Council, some of whom have to steer and take responsibility for the fate of our city in rough seas, in particular the Chairman of the Council, Bernd Grabb, and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Group, Peter Kozlik (M.B.S.).

What would our city be without our heart - Salzgitter AG? You all know the answer: "Nothing!". Since its foundation, our city has been closely linked to our "hut", as people still affectionately call it today. We stand together as a family in good times and bad.

The relationship between the city administration and Salzgitter AG has not been as good as it is today for a long time. And that is down to the people involved. It is a great honor and a very special pleasure for me to welcome the Chairman of the Executive Board, Prof. Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann.

I am delighted that you have not only taken the time out of your busy schedule to attend this festive event, but that you will also be giving a short welcome address. This is a clear expression of your personal connection to our city, in which you are known to live.

It is also nice that the Chief Human Resources Officer Michael Kieckbusch and the Chairman of the Management Board of Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH Ulrich Grethe are celebrating with us. A warm welcome to you all!

I would like to welcome the other representatives of the local companies, on behalf of all of them Dr. Joachim Bamberg from Bosch and the many representatives of the works councils and IG Metall - especially our keynote speaker Mr. Wolfgang Räschke. A very warm welcome!

I would like to welcome the representatives of the authorities, on behalf of everyone Mr. Berg from the Salzgitter/Wolfenbüttel/Peine police station.

Last but not least, I would like to welcome the representatives of the press.

The town of Watenstedt-Salzgitter was founded on April 1, 1942. 73 years is a considerable age for a person, but for a town it is actually a manageable time.

There are several cities in Germany in the old settlement areas that are over 2,000 years old, such as Trier, Cologne or Mainz, and which have a history rich in tradition.

Salzgitter is not a historically developed old town, but it is still something very special! It was formed from around 30 villages, a small town, barrack camps, the small housing estates built since 1938 and the large housing estate named after Göring, which was started in 1939. The will of the people played no role in this; the Reichswerke, headed by Pleiger, wanted it that way, they needed a local authority as a point of contact in order to be able to implement the construction quickly.

The accompanying circumstances, the background to the creation of our town, are truly no glorious story. The construction of the huge ironworks, the creation of a new industrial district - which Pleiger, the top boss of the Reichswerke, dreamed of - cost the lives of thousands of people from all over Europe.

The municipality, which was named after two districts from the Free State of Braunschweig and Prussia, Watenstedt-Salzgitter (until 1951), remained a torso in every respect until 1945.

After Allied troops took the city on April 10/11, 1945, it was not clear for a long time whether the city of Salzgitter would remain. There were attempts to dissolve the town itself (in the south of Salzgitter), but the British put their foot down. West Germany and the areas, towns and villages in this part of our fatherland were given a new chance.

Salzgitter had a particularly hard time and had to solve incredibly difficult problems. Housing shortages, taking in thousands of refugees and displaced persons, developing and building an urban infrastructure. The city was unable to build on the democratic traditions of the Weimar Republic; Salzgitter had not existed as a major city before 1933.

March 1947:

Parties, organizations, associations had to be formed completely anew.

A democratic administration had to be set up. On October 13, 1946, the first free Kommunalwahl took place.

The city began to consolidate. The new city community was formed from 18,000 "old residents" (10,000 who had lived through the end of the war and 8,000 who had returned home), 40,000 immigrants and 40,000 refugees (including 33,000 Silesians).

The dismantling of the industrial plants by the British threatened to drain the lifeblood from the still young town. The people did not accept this. Fierce resistance arose. In January 1951, the British announced the end of dismantling in Salzgitter too. A small steelworks remained. The workers and the entire population of Salzgitter had saved the ironworks and thus the town through their resistance. This was the second town foundation of which we can be justifiably proud. The people who fought with heart and soul for the future of this town - sometimes at the risk of their lives - still deserve our thanks and recognition today!

With this new self-confidence and supported by initial federal funding, Salzgitter quickly developed into a city worth living in and loving:

The city center, residential districts, schools, sports facilities, transport routes, post office, land registry office, Salzgitter Lake, city library were built. In 1963, the town hall, the "Blaue Bock", was finally completed. This marked the end of the first major stage of the second city foundation.

But the expansion and development of the city did not end there. Barrack clearance programs, construction of the Fredenberg, expansion of Krähenriede, creation of several building areas, construction of schools, sports halls, etc.. In addition, companies such as LHB (Alstom), MAN (Büssing), VW and Bosch moved in.

And again and again, major problems had to be solved, even though budget funds were always tight.

Things became particularly critical once again when the sale of Salzgitter AG to foreign investors was imminent. When it was already on the brink, the then Minister President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder, put his foot down and secured the continued existence of the plant.

The city has stood its ground through all the difficult phases of its history, supported by the will of the people living here.

And new citizens kept coming to the city, as the impressive exhibition on migration in Salder Castle shows. People from over 100 countries live in Salzgitter today. Salzgitter is a colorful, exciting city that is wonderful to live in.

I would like to thank all the parliamentary groups in the Council who agreed in 2011 that Salzgitter should receive this memorial to commemorate the "Prevention of Dismantling".

My special thanks go to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, Chairman of SZ AG, and Mr. Ulrich Grethe, Chairman of the Management Board of Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, for their generous support. We have them to thank for the two slabs. I would like to thank them most sincerely on behalf of the citizens.

I would also like to thank Mr. Helmut Lingstädt for his artistic design, which we are able to admire today. Thank you very much for your special creativity! I would also like to thank the modeller Juliane Jüttner for the excellent realization.

Of course, I would also like to thank all the people and companies involved who contributed to the realization of this unique monument.