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Marburg QM Reclamation Depot
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Looking for more information from military/civilian personnel assigned to or associated with the U.S. Army in Germany from 1945 to 1989. If you have any stories or thoughts on the subject, please email me (webmaster ).

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1. U.S. Army Rebuild Plants
Requester: Webmaster
Subject: If you were assigned to (US personnel) or worked at (local nationals) one of the Ordnance, Engineer, or Quartermaster Rebuild Plants, I would be very interested in hearing from you. Please help me to document the history and accomplishments of these plants. (Sie können auch auf deutsch schreiben.)
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History of the Marburg QM Reclamation Depot

The Marburg Quartermaster Reclamation Depot in 1957, shortly after being closed (Walter Elkins)
(If you served at the depot or have information about it, please contact the webmaster)

The Marburg QM Depot (Class II & IV), 1947 (Webmaster's collection)
1947
(Source: US Army Signal Corps, via Army Heritage & Education Center, Carlisle Barracks, PA)

1. Shipping
2. Chief Clerk
3. Checking records
4. New shoes

5. Sorting shoes
6. Checking nomenclature

1950
(Source: STARS & STRIPES, Feb 26 1950)

In an effort to eliminate waste, a QM reclamation program was initiated in EUCOM by the EUCOM Quartermaster Division in 1947.

Repair, instead of replacement, of items ranging from Army clothing to heavy-duty equipment has saved the Army nearly $15 million in EUCOM. Clothing, supplies and equipment whose replacement would have cost more than $16 million, were repaired and reissued at a cost of less than $2 million.

The QM Reclamation Depot at Marburg was activated as part of this program in 1947. The depot's mission is to repair clothing, equipage, office equipment, household refrigerators and special-purpose vehicles. The depot has reclaimed more than $20 million worth of equipment since its activation.

The materials-handling equipment rebuild shops at the Giessen Depot have rebuilt 608 major items of equipment during 1949. These include such items as cranes, tractors and forklifts. A total of 1,354 warehouse trailers, hand trucks and conveyors were also repaired.

A new program was started in 1949 at Marburg - the installation and repair of refrigeration equipment for EUCOM commissaries and messes.

Another project started in Feb 1949 in Frankfurt was the rebuild of refrigeration-van units.

(Source: STARS & STRIPES, Dec 17 1950)
In November 1950, the QM Reclamation Program in EUCOM was significantly expanded when Maj Gen George A. Horkan, EUCOM chief quartermaster, ordered that all QM stocks be resurveyed and renovated by July 1 1951. With the tremendous use of military equipment in the Korean war, it became even more necessary for EUCOM to make use as much as possible of the stocks and equipment left in theater after the end of WWII. (The same directive was given to the other technical service in EUCOM.)

Both the Munich and Giessen QM depots and all post quartermasters are performing more of the repair jobs that used to go to the central Marburg Reclamation Depot. Marburg has also stepped up its production lines that already are reclaiming every day hundreds of such items as refrigerators, laundry vans, typewriters and troop bath and sterilization units.

In addition, Marburg Depot personnel have just finished two sessions of a concentrated course for officers, enlisted men and DA civilians who classify QM stocks at each post. In the course standards for determining whether an item can be economically repaired and if it should be done by the post quartermaster or by the Marburg depot were explained and demonstrated.

Some recent successes of the reclamation program:
-- At Marburg, from Oct 1949 to Oct 1950, QM stock items which would have cost close to $6.4 million to replace, were rebuilt at a cost of about $1 million.
-- At Giessen, from Sept 1949 to Sept 1950, about $1.3 million worth of material handling equipment and about $1.9 million worth of prefabricated refrigerators were repaired.
-- At Munich, from Aug 1949 to Aug 1950, the depot repaired $541,000 worth of warehousing machinery in its field maintennace shop.
 
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