Unfinished former potash shaft site at Rockensußra near Ebeleben, where planned sinking reached only a trial depth before the mine closed, leaving the site largely cleared.
The Schachtanlage Volkenroda/Rockensußra in the village of Rockensußra, a district of Ebeleben in the Kyffhäuserkreis, was a planned fifth shaft of the Kaliwerk Volkenroda in Menteroda, operated by the Gewerkschaft Volkenroda. Borehole data indicated a planned sinking depth of 1,106 metres — which would have made Schacht Rockensußra the deepest potash shaft in Germany. However, the sinking never progressed beyond the initial trial depth (Vorteufe) before the Kaliwerk Volkenroda was closed in 1990–91.
South Harz Potash Limited and its German subsidiary Südharz Kali GmbH noted in the 2020s that the former Grube Volkenroda, closed in 1991, had been associated with ambitious expansion plans that included the Ebeleben licence area, within which the Rockensußra site lies. No potash production is recorded from the Schacht Rockensußra site and the shaft was not completed. The site at Rockensußra today is occupied partly by a commercial zone; a tank dismantling facility belonging to KNDS Deutschland has operated there since 2016.
The Schacht Rockensußra was a planned shaft of the Kaliwerk Volkenroda, which operated from 1906 at Menteroda in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis. The five shafts of the Kaliwerk Volkenroda and its subsidiary Werk Pöthen formed a single interconnected enterprise, all reaching depths exceeding 1,000 metres. The Schacht Menteroda (Carl-Eduard Schacht) reached 1,001 metres; Schacht Pöthen I reached 1,016 metres; Schacht Pöthen II reached 1,036 metres.
The planned Schacht Rockensußra at the hamlet of Rockensußra, approximately 11 kilometres east-southeast of the main Kaliwerk Volkenroda site, was assigned a planned sinking depth of 1,106 metres, as derived from borehole data. This would have made it the deepest shaft in the entire German potash industry. The site was designated Schacht 2.15.5 (Rockensußra) in the Lars Baumgarten catalogue of German kali and rock salt shafts, with coordinates at 51°16′03.19″N, 10°41′27.02″E, Am Schlotheimer Berg, OT Rockensußra, 99713 Ebeleben.
The sinking progressed no further than the Vorteufe (initial penetration) before the Kaliwerk Volkenroda was shut down. Kali production at the Grube Volkenroda ended in 1990–91. The mine remained a going concern in some capacity until 1999. After closure the existing shafts were sealed or secured; the Rockensußra shaft, never having been completed, required only basic closure measures.
The coordinates supplied in the TSV (51.2675300, 10.6908510) point to the western edge of the Rockensußra settlement, consistent with the Lars Baumgarten coordinates at Am Schlotheimer Berg. The area is recorded as largely cleared. The eastern part of the Rockensußra site hosts a commercial zone (Gewerbegebiet); from 2016 the former shaft area at the western end has been used by Battle Tank Dismantling GmbH (later KNDS Deutschland) for the dismantling of armoured fighting vehicles, a facility described as the only civilian operation in Germany permitted under satellite surveillance to hold significant quantities of military equipment.
In the 2020s South Harz Potash Limited and Südharz Kali GmbH noted the former Grube Volkenroda's connection with the Ebeleben licence area in the context of proposed new potash exploration, acknowledging that the DDR-era state mining enterprise had carried out intensive investigation of the Ebeleben area before the 1991 closure.