Backfilled shaft site of KWK Makoszowy colliery in Zabrze, with headframe demolished during post-closure liquidation works.
Szyb III was a multi-functional shaft belonging to Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Makoszowy in the Makoszowy district of Zabrze, Upper Silesia. Sunk during the 1960s to a depth of 717 metres, the shaft served the mine in two compartments: IIIa for personnel transport and IIIb for skip winding. It was commissioned in 1967 and 1968 respectively, forming part of a postwar expansion of the colliery that had originated in 1890 and opened formally as Delbrückschächte in 1906.
The mine reached its peak output of over five million tonnes in 1988. Coal extraction ceased in December 2016, and the mine was transferred to Spółka Restrukturyzacji Kopalń for liquidation. Szyb III had already been backfilled by the time headframe dismantling began in May 2019.
Liquidation works were planned to conclude by the end of 2021 or 2022. The shaft left no heritage-listed structures.
The site of Szyb III forms part of the wider history of Kopalnia Węgla Kamiennego Makoszowy, a colliery whose origins lie in 1890, when exploratory headings were driven westward from the adjacent Kopalnia Guido at depths of 170 and 230 metres to prospect the reserve mining fields known as Zero and Double Zero. The Prussian Treasury, which owned both workings, commenced sinking Szyb I in 1900 and Szyb II in 1901, initially as ventilation shafts for the Königin Luise mine. Both shafts reached approximately 407 and 412 metres respectively and grew into an independent colliery. The mine opened formally on 1 April 1906 under the name Zeroschächte, producing its first coking coal in April 1910. By 1908 the shafts were connected with a newly built coking plant and the combined enterprise was renamed Delbrückschächte in honour of a Prussian statesman.
Following the Third Silesian Uprising and a two-year territorial dispute, Makoszowy was awarded to Poland in 1923 by a special commission of the League of Nations. During the interwar period the mine's entrance gate served as a formal border crossing, with the national boundary running partly along the colliery fence. Under Polish administration from April 1945, the mine was renamed Makoszowy, and it passed through the Gliwice, then Zabrze coal industry unions in the postwar years. On 28 August 1958, a catastrophic underground fire caused by an acetylene torch cutting iron props at the 300-metre level killed 72 miners and severely injured a further 87, the worst accident in the mine's history.
During the 1960s the mine undertook a major expansion programme that included the sinking of Szyb III to the west of Szyb II. This new two-compartment shaft reached a depth of 717 metres. Compartment IIIa, serving personnel transport, was brought into operation in 1967, and compartment IIIb, equipped with skip winding for coal extraction, followed in 1968. A fourth shaft, Szyb IV, a dedicated extraction shaft sunk from March 1976 to September 1978 and commissioned in 1981, reached 865.5 metres and was surmounted by a prominent 98-metre concrete headframe that became the most recognisable structure on the colliery surface. A further ventilation shaft, Szyb Północny, was driven to 865 metres between 1982 and 1985 by Przedsiębiorstwo Budowy Szybów in Bytom, situated outside the main colliery perimeter to the northwest.
The mine achieved its highest ever annual output of 5,127,000 tonnes in 1988, employing over 10,000 workers at that time. From 1993 it formed part of Gliwicka Spółka Węglowa, and from 2003 part of Kompania Węglowa. On 1 July 2005 it was merged with Kopalnia Sośnica to form the two-section KWK Sośnica-Makoszowy, before being separated again as an independent unit on 1 May 2015. Extraction ceased on 30 December 2016 following a decision by the Ministry of Energy, and the mine was placed in formal liquidation under Spółka Restrukturyzacji Kopalń.
Szyb III was backfilled prior to the commencement of headframe dismantling works, which began in May 2019. The dismantling proceeded from the top downward rather than by the cutting-and-toppling method. Full completion of surface liquidation was scheduled for the end of 2021, with a possible extension to 2022 on account of drainage works required to redirect underground water to the adjacent Kopalnia Sośnica. Among the colliery structures, only those assessed as heritage-listed were to be retained: the early twentieth-century compressor station, the lamp room building, and the winding machine of Szyb II. No heritage designation applied to Szyb III or its headframe.