Dr. phil. Friedrich Linde, Chairman of the Executive Board from 1924 to 1946. |
With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the business of Linde’s Division B (gas liquefaction and separation) collapsed almost completely. In addition, most of its staff was drafted into military service. Friedrich Linde volunteered for his artillery regiment and served first in France, then in Galicia and Russia. In the fall of 1915, he was discharged from the military because he was needed urgently in Höllriegelskreuth. |
There, after a short break, work continued almost unabated for the engineers and technicians. After the deliveries of Chilean saltpetre had stopped, there was an urgent need for nitrogen compounds for the production of explosives and artificial fertilizers. Large nitrogen plants were needed to produce nitric acid from calcium cyanamide - and quickly: In late 1914/early 1915, Department B received an order for four large nitrogen plants with a total output of 14,000 cubic meters per hour, to be completed within eight to ten months. These output requirements pushed the Linde Company to a completely different scale. Since the four plants were identical, a kind of mass production could be organized in the Höllriegelskreuth facilities, which had been significantly expanded in 1913.
More orders for nitrogen plants followed soon thereafter, the last ones coming from BASF as late as 1918 for its plant in Leuna. Inquiries for the construction of large and medium-sized oxygen plants, which were needed for direct saltpetre production and metal processing - mainly in airplane manufacture - also came in. Furthermore, liquid oxygen was gaining new importance in mining as the explosive "Oxyliquid." The overall demand for liquid oxygen grew so dramatically that the Linde Company had to assign licenses to former competitors, while the Höllriegelskreuth plant was operating up to twelve hours a day, seven days a week.