Abstract: A comminuting apparatus has a housing and a crushing area. The housing includes left and right bearing plates, left and right reinforcing, bearing and holdback plates, each with clearing and crushing prongs. The crushing unit includes left and right crushing shafts which are rotationally supported by the housing are interconnected to rotate in opposite directions, synchronously. Each crushing shaft includes a number of radially-extending tool carriers having tool heads which carry clearing devices and front and rear wear inserts, in seats within the tool heads. The crushing unit can be configured to provide clearing spacing between adjacent clearing devices of adjacent tool carriers, or to provide an overlap thereof. The clearing and crushing prongs are arranged between each of the tool carriers. An intermediate crushing area is formed between the left and right crushing shafts.