Abandoned Kansai

The Papierfabrik Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. (Papierfabrik = paper mill) was without the shadow of a doubt the urbex highlight of my vacation to Germany in 2011. Ever since I moved to Japan in 2006 I spend a couple of weeks in summer back home in Germany, visiting family and friends. As much as I love Japan – I really hate the summers there. It’s hot, it’s humid and it’s dark at 8 p.m. the latest. German summers are less hot, way less humid and you can have a BBQ outside till 10 p.m. or even later. There’s actually stuff you can do after work, not just crawling under the next air-condition – which most likely is set to a smoldering 28° Celsius anyway since Japan pretends to save energy ever since Fukushima happened. (Ironically the ACs are set to 28°C in winter, too – heating is no problem, but if you wanna have some cool air you are considered the devil…) I started with urban exploration in late 2009 and when I came back to Germany in 2010 I visited *Pripyat and Chernobyl* as well as two locations in Luxembourg I yet have to write about. No urbex in Germany in 2010 for me. 2011 on the other hand saw me visiting places like the *Clubhotel Messel* and the *Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne* – and the latter one almost prevented me from actually entering the Papierfabrik Knoeckel as I ran into some security trouble at the CFK the day before I visited the paper mill with my old friend *Gil*.

Located on both sides of a valley in the Palatinate region of Germany the Papierfabrik Knoeckel is virtually impossible to miss – if you found the right valley you are golden. The downside of that fact is the traffic ahead and behind you. Getting a parking spot is not the problem – entering the factory without being seen is. Like I said, I ran into some trouble the day before (on a former military basis, to make things worse), so I wasn’t exactly eager to jump a fence and run while being watched by potentially dozens of people. The backside of the factory seemed to be a bit quieter, so we walked along a forest road up a slope… only to run into a house where a dog started to bark and didn’t stop for at least an hour! We followed another road leading down to the factory, the damn dog still barking. Now we were separated from the factory by a small river (maybe three meters wide), once a fundamental element of every paper mill as water ran machines. Two bridges and a building span across that river, but our options were limited soon – one bridge was fenced off and the other was equipped with a modern security camera. Caught the day before, dog barking in the background, an active security system. My urge to enter the factory went down to zero and in the end it became another key moment regarding my dislike of infiltration. Not nearly as bad as the experiences at the *Noga Hotel* or the *Sunset View Inn Shah Bay Resort*, but another stepstone…
To make a long story short: We entered somehow, it was an amazing location, and it took us four hours to leave. Four overly cautious, nerve-wrecking hours that weren’t really fun at all – in hindsight it’s always easy to say that it was totally worth it since nothing went wrong, but the potential for disaster was there…
In the end I took some really neat photos at the Papierfabrik Knoeckel. Photos that work very well in both monochrome and color – which makes it one of my favorite locations in Germany, at least now that I am sitting in front of my PC. The reasons why the photos turned out that way, is because the Papierfabrik has a lot of history and grew organically. Old buildings weren’t demolished, they were reused and new buildings were constructed in addition. Some buildings still had large ciphers fitted to their walls – 1914 and 1952 I remember vividly. But the paper mill was older. Much older. 1888 saw the founding of the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. GmbH (GmbH = Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, which equals a modern Limited = company with limited liability) which turned into the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. Papierfabriken AG on January 29th of 1923. (Papierfabriken means paper factories, AG = Aktiengesellschaft = joint-stock company) In 1945/46 production was partially stopped due to a shortage of raw materials and coal – the company survived World War 2 without any damages. Which is even more surprising since the factory had its own railway siding. The reason for that is the fact that paper is incredibly heavy and larger amounts are easier and more cheaply transported by trains. At one point the rival Robert Cordier AG (which produces paper since 1836!) bought 99.78 percent of the Knoeckel, Schmidt & Cie. shares (which was turned back into a GmbH in 1995 after a loss of 1.4 million Deutschmarks (0.7 million Euros) within half a year), but on August 18th of 2000 the Robert Cordier AG filed for bankruptcy. Knoeckel, producing glassine, translucent vellum paper and special papers for technical applications, wasn’t making money anymore after 112 years…
On May 30th of 2006 a conflagration that took 9 hours to extinguish destroyed several disused production sheds, making the abandoned buildings even more dangerous due to a higher risk of collapse.
Today the Papierfabrik Knoeckel shares the fate of many abandoned buildings – potential private investors, local politicians and citizens’ groups are arguing what to do with the 55.000 square meter area, but can’t agree on anything. And so the paper mill continues to decay, attracting more and more urban explorers, graffiti sprayers and vandals…

This is the *second time* I decided to publish a photo set in monochrome. I actually converted all photos and selected two sets – one in color, one in monochrome. There were hardly any overlaps, so I might publish a color set in the future, maybe along with an update on the state of the paper mill. I even converted the videos to monochrome, just for the sake of atmosphere. Exploring this location I felt like being transferred back in time to the 40s, 50s or 60s; decades most of us associate with monochrome photography. I hope you welcome this decision…

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