Nordhausen - The years from 1989 onward were a time of upheaval not only for Germany but for all of Europe. "Overnight, the previous structures collapsed and the plant management was left alone with almost 3,000 employees. There was no textbook on how to deal with such a situation," recalls Dr. Peter Pfeifer, then plant director at Schachtbau Nordhausen. The fact that Schachtbau is still a mainstay in the region and throughout Germany today, despite the upheavals of the Wende years, is due not only to Dr. Peter Pfeifer, but above all to the then Bauer managing director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Bauer and the former Spesa managing director Prof. Dr. Heinrich Markgraf.
The takeover of Schachtbau by Bauer was, of course, preceded by a number of major and minor events, so Bauer and Schachtbau were no strangers to each other. There had already been several negotiations during the GDR era concerning the purchase of equipment for foundation engineering, which was urgently needed for the execution of economically important projects. These contacts existed, for example, as early as 1985 in connection with the construction of the ore dressing plant in Krivoj Rog in the former USSR.
At the end of 1989, Heinrich Markgraf was invited by the University of Karlsruhe to evaluate a complicated construction project at Lake Constance. After completion of the work, he met Dr. Stocker there, who was a member of the management of BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH and spontaneously invited him to Schrobenhausen. There he took part in a meeting of the executives, of which he later often told how amazed he was at the good working atmosphere that characterized this consultation.
From these meetings, the idea of founding a joint company developed. Around Whitsun 1990, the time had come when something concrete was created from non-binding intentions: Thomas Bauer and Heinrich Markgraf developed the basic concept of a new company in a three-day discussion at the latter's dacha in Nordhausen.
On this basis, the ARGE SBS Spezialbau- und Sanierungsgesellschaft was founded between Schachtbau and Bauer at the beginning of 1990, and still in 1990 it was transformed into the joint company SPESA Spezialbau und Sanierung GmbH. "Spesa was one of the very first all-German joint ventures after reunification. It got off to a super start and shot right through the boom in the new federal states in the early 1990s," Thomas Bauer looks back proudly.

In the boom years immediately following reunification, SBN was faced with the question of how to proceed under the emerging conditions of the free market economy for the company with its 3,000 employees. Following the conversion of VEB Schachtbau Nordhausen into a limited liability company in June 1990, SBN itself had already made some efforts to find an investor, but had to bury its best hopes when Deilmann-Haniel turned it down. Meanwhile, Bauer came up with the idea of buying Schachtbau himself so as not to lose the Arge partner to a rival company. So Thomas Bauer drew up a simple but convincing profitability analysis and concept for Schachtbau. "With that, we took over SBN in 1992 - and it was no small risk," he adds. Bauer and Schachtbau were almost the same size at the time; after all, the Schrobenhausen company had 1,350 employees at the time, but Schachtbau, which was to be bought up, also had about 1,200. The acquisition therefore meant an increase of almost 90%. According to the restructuring concept, however, mining capacities were to be significantly reduced through restructuring and reprofiling in order to create a reasonable basis for the survival of the company. Unfortunately, the boom came to an abrupt end in 1994 and the company not only had to cope with major learning processes, but was suddenly confronted with an enormous slump in the market. As a result, a tough but also confident battle for Schachtbau broke out, all three players agree. "We looked for gaps in the market and faced the cut-throat competition," Peter Pfeifer explains the reorientation. The rest is a unique success story.
Today, the Thuringian company can look back on 32 successful years as a limited liability company - 30 years of which as part of the BAUER Group. The management, whose chairmanship was taken over by Jürgen Stäter from Dr. Peter Pfeifer in 2005 and has been held by Michael Seifert since 2019, has always been able to instill the necessary confidence in the workforce. Currently, almost 800 employees work at Schachtbau Nordhausen - making the company a firm pillar of economic life in northern Thuringia.
At a ceremony on September 16, 2022, SCHACHTBAU NORDHAUSEN GmbH looked back on 30 years of successful corporate development as part of the BAUER Group. The official ceremony in the Nordhausen town hall was attended by numerous contemporary witnesses as well as high-ranking guests from politics and business. The highlight of the celebrations was the entry of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Bauer in the Golden Book of the City of Nordhausen.
The official part was followed in the afternoon by a get-together with all employees on the company premises at Industrieweg 2a.