WesWorld

In 1850 the engineer Andreas Hamm opened in Frankenthal a workshop for the manufacture of bells, brass and iron work under the name Glocken, Feuerspritzen und Dampfmaschinenfabrik Frankenthal. In 1861 he entered into a partnership with Andreas Albert to manufacture printing presses (Schnellpressen) in addition to their existing manufacture of bells and cast items. Hamm separated himself from the firm in 1871, and Albert relocated the factory to Heidelberg, where he concentrated on the manufacture of printing presses and allied products. The current corporate style was adopted in 1896.

In addition to its printing machines, the firm manufactures a full line of offset presses and ancillary equipment, including machines for cutting, folding, gathering, gluing, stitching, binding and punching (post press). It is one of the largest manufacturers of printing equipment in Germany and its products are exported around the globe.

This firm is considered one of the oldest printing press manufacturers in the world and is a world market leader in the manufacture of sheet-fed large-scale offset presses, packaging, newspaper and bank-note printing machines. It was founded in 1817 when Johann Friedrich Gottlob Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer joined forces to establish a manufactory for printing presses in Würzburg. The firm pioneered many of the innovations in high speed printing but from 1880 concentrated its efforts in specialised printing presses; it holds nearly three-quarters of the world market for such specialised machines as bank note presses. At the present time some two thousand workers are employed at the Würzburg facility, which includes its own foundry for cast parts.

In 1879 Gustav Hiltmann and Bernhard Lorenz of Aue founded a factory for the manufacture of machine tools and machinery, which was converted to a joint stock company in 1911. The firm manufactures eccentric presses, crank presses, draw presses, screw presses, automatic progressive presses and guillotine shears for metal and wood processing.

Engineer Gustav Köllmann founded this factory in 1904 in Leipzig to manufacture gears and gear cutting tools of his own design. It was registered as a joint-stock company in 1912. The firm manufactures milling and gear cutting machines, tools, cutters and cutting wheels, gears for railway locomotives and transmission gears for automobiles.

In addition to the factory at Leipzig the concern operates at branch factory in Liebertwolkwitz and has recently formed a subsidiary, Pulsgetriebe GmbH, to supply components to the Junkers engine works at Dessau.

In 1871 the mechanical engineer Johannes Klein received a patent for his invention of boiler-feed machines and founded the firm as Frankenthaler Maschinen und Armatur-Fabrik Klein, Schanzlin und Becker with the support of Friedrich Schanzlin and Jakob Becker. The firm adopted its current style when it was converted to a joint stock company in 1887. It is a leading manufacturer of pumps, valves and related equipment for industrial and building systems, water and waste-water management. The firm opened a subsidiary in the United States in 1896 and has market much of its output abroad for many years.

This firm was founded in 1900 to manufacture ancillary equipment for the steel industry, including charging machines, casting cars and trolley systems for the transport of molten steel. Principal output of the firm is transfer cars of 15, 30, 50 and 70-tonne capacity. It also manufactures equipment for continuous casting furnaces. In 1927 it acquired the Phönix Maschinenfabrik und Eisengießerei and added to its product line heat exchangers and annealing furnaces.

This concern was formed in 1917 to carry on the business of the long-established firm of Carl Schember und Söhne, a manufacturer of platform scales and other weight-measurement equipment. Following the Great War the firm acquired larger and more modern faculties in Oberwaltersdorf, where manufacture of small scales was concentrated, while the original works at Wien-Atzgersdorf was re-equipped to carry on the series production of automatic and roller weight scales and large platform scales for motor vehicles. More than forty percent of the firm’s shares are in the hands of the Creditanstalt.

In 1919 the engineer Henry Meinecke established a screw and fastener factory in the town of Zerbst, in Saxony-Anhalt. The firm specialises in the manufacture of cold pressed bolts and nuts primarily for the automotive industry; automatic presses and lathes were introduced as early as 1930 and the firm has won export orders from locations as diverse as the United States, Bharat and Denmark. At the present time the firm employs three hundred workers and daily output is in excess of 100,000 bolts (with corresponding nuts), screws and other fasteners.

Located in the district of Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, this firm was founded in 1910 through the amalgamation of two pre-existing firms, Koeber's Eisen und Bronzewerke (founded in 1856) and Maschinenfabrik Eddelbüttel (founded in 1858). The principal business of the firm is the manufacture and sale of machinery and equipment for the refining of food-grade oils, for processing of edible fats and for the manufacture of margarine, as well as the production of refrigeration and cold-storage equipment for all commercial uses.

This firm was founded in 1926 in Breslau to acquire and rationalise several previously independent bolt, screw and fastener manufacturers operating in eastern Germany, including the Archimedeswerke of Breslau, the firm of Bernhardt und Philipp of Chemnitz and the Schrauben und Mutternfabrik Gebrüder Hübner, also of Chemnitz. The organisation of the firm was led by the Bankhaus Alexander Theodorescu, but the firm subsequently entered the financial orbit of the Dresdner Bank.

The factories of the concern manufacture a wide variety of bolts, nuts, screws and specialty fasteners for the automotive and aviation industries, with a combined output of more than 100,000 items per day. Approximately one thousand workers are presently employed.

In 1870 Julius Reichelt established a factory for the manufacture of metal screws and other builders’ hardware in Berlin. The success of the firm prompted its relocation in 1880 to larger facilities in Finsterwalde, which, over the years, have been continuously expanded. The firm was converted to a joint-stock company in 1900. In 1916 the firm opened its own machine shop for the repair and production of its own screw-forming machines as well as manufacture of screw-forming machines for sale to other firms. In 1931 the firm increased its capital to acquire the Stettiner Schraubenwerk, a major fastener factory with complementary product lines; organised as a subsidiary, the Stettin factory was in 1937 absorbed by the parent firm as a branch factory.

The firm manufactures all manner of fasteners and hardware including bolts, machine screws, wood screws, patent fasteners for the aviation industry and rivets used in industrial and marine construction. In addition to its factories in Finsterwalde and Stettin the firm is constructing a third factory in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which is expected to be completed sometime in 1942.

The engineer Bernhard Schäffer and entrepreneur Christian Friedrich Budenberg founded this firm in 1850, to exploit Schäffer’s 1849 patent for a plate spring manometer. In subsequent years the firm became renowned for the design and manufacture of precision pressure gauges, control valves, and other equipment for the operation of boilers (injectors, speedometers, dynamometers, water level indicators, lubrication equipment, etc.). Before the Great War the firm operated branch factories and agencies in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Paris, Lille, Liege, Zürich, Milan, Stockholm, Saint Petersburg and New York. The firm’s assets in Britain, France, Belgium and Italy were sequestered in during the Great War and subsequently expropriated. The American subsidiary, which had been founded in 1892 as the American Steam Gauge and Valve Manufacturing Company, was reorganised in 1922 as American Shaeffer and Budenburg Corporation, with its headquarters in Brooklyn, New York.

The firm’s present product line includes all manner of precision measurement equipment for boilers, turbines and industrial processes, valves – including steam pressure reducing valves and safety valves, boiler fittings, boiler feed pumps, gear pumps, hydraulic press pumps and stream turbo-pumps. The principal works of the firm are located in Magdeburg-Buckau.

The firm was founded in 1876 by Carl Benteler, who opened a hardware-trading business in Paderborn that year. The concern passed to his son, Eduard Benteler in 1908, who expanded the business into metals trading and production. In 1915 the firm acquired a factory for the production of drawn tubes for use in production of motor vehicles, which has since become a major part of its business. In 1922 the firm was converted to a joint stock company but remained under the control of the Benteler family.

In 1923 the firm erected a new seamless tube mill in Schloß Neuhaus, and the factory in Paderborn-Mönkeloh was re-equipped to manufacture welded as well as drawn tubing. The firm came to specialise in the production of tubes to the exact specifications of customers, particularly in the automotive field. From 1935 the firm became the exclusive supplier of tubing used by the Ford-Werke in Köln. The firm has also undertaken the manufacture of barrels for light cannon under contract to the Defence Ministry.

Construction of a steel casting shop at Schloß Neuhaus was initiated in 1941, with the expectation that the first steel will be poured sometime in late 1942; the company has announced its intentions to enter the business of manufacturing automotive components, building upon its existing relationships with the industry.

The cousins Adolf Boge and Fritz Kasten founded this firm in 1903 in Velbert as Rheinische Türschließerfabrik Boge und Kasten, to undertake the manufacture of door locks according to a design patented by Boge. The silent and sure operation of this design quickly gained the firm a wide reputation and in the years prior to the Great War it was one of the leading lock-making firms in Europe. In 1927 the American firm Yale and Town acquired the firm, and merged it with another lock-making firm, Damm und Ladwig, to form the current enterprise. In 1938 it introduced the revolutionary round cylinder to the construction of locks. It remains one of the largest lock-manufacturing firms in Europe, employing more than three thousand workers at its factories in Velbert.

In 1877 the engineers Johann Selwig and Bruno Lange established in Braunschweig a factory for the production of machines and equipment for the sugar industry, distilleries and starch factories, such as centrifuges, crystallisers, beet chip presses and washer for sugar beets. From 1895 the firm added equipment for the manufacture of powder and explosives to its product line. The firm has enjoyed an international reputation for its products since its establishment, and much of its annual production is exported, chiefly to southeastern Europe.

This firm, one of Germany’s oldest steel casting foundries, was founded in 1853 in Solingen by Conrad Carl Grossmann to manufacture keys, steel shackles and other hardware. Through successive expansions the firm entered the production of custom steel castings for the machine-building industry, and in 1899 commissioned a new Siemens-Martin furnace of three-tonne capacity. Among the company’s specialties was the production of flanges and guiding wheels for mining equipment. The firm was converted to a joint stock company in 1911.

A new foundry was constructed in 1912, with electric furnaces, and at that time more than seven hundred workers were employed. During the Great War the firm manufactured components for ordnance and munitions; following the return of peace it was able to prosper on the wave of reconstruction and expansion in the German mining industry, which stimulated demand for its products. Presently the firm employs more than eight hundred workers in its shops at Solingen.

In 1862 Carl Grundmann established a factory for the production of locks on an industrial scale, operating from a small workshop in Wien. In the first ten years of the firm’s existence it manufactured more than one million locks of all types, and the expansion of the firm required its relocation to larger facilities in Ossarn. In 1880 control of the firm passed to the sons of the founder, Carl, Gustav, Heinrich and Wilhelm, who incorporated the firm as a joint-stock enterprise. A new and larger factory was built in Traisen, and in 1910 the firm again moved to larger facilities in Herzogenburg, where its headquarters remain. By 1914 the firm was the largest lock-manufacturing firm in the Hapsburg lands, employing more than four hundred workers.

The breakup of the Hapsburg Monarchy in the wake of the Great War forced the company to undertake a great reorganisation. It no longer had direct access to the many of its former markets, and the domestic Austrian market was not sufficient by itself to support the firm. In 1924 the firm established a local branch factory in Arad, Romania, as Grundmann´sche Eisenwarenfabrik AG, where more than one hundred workers were employed in what became the largest lock-manufacturing firm in Romania. With the union of the Austrian provinces with Germany the firm was able to take advantage of the much enlarged domestic market to resume its expansion.

This enterprise was founded in 1934 to undertake the development, manufacture and sale of small stationary industrial steam turbines for use in the steel industry, making use of waste heat and gases from the smelting process to generate electric power on site. From 1939 the firm also added the manufacture of small steam engines to be used in river craft. It presently employs some three hundred workers.

This enterprise was established in 1938 as an affiliated company of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg to expand the production base of marine diesel engines for the growing needs of the Kriegsmarine and the Handelsmarine. Between 1938 and 1941 a total of six great assembly halls have been constructed in the factory’s facility at Hamburg-Steinwerder, where large marine diesel engines are manufactured. More than two thousand workers are employed here, and it is expected that the work force will increase as demand for diesel engines increase.

Jacob Hilgers established his small steel works in 1867, in the town of Rheinbrohl near Nieuwied. The firm constructed rolled and fabricated sections for bridges and in 1869 opened the first galvanising plant in Germany. The concern pioneered the construction of corrugated iron roofing and subsequently entire metal buildings. The firm also constructed metal pontoons for the Imperial Army, and for export to the Netherlands, Iberia, Denmark, Nordmark and Turkey. To this end it established its own boatyard at Rheinbrohl, where it also undertook the construction and repair of river barges. From the 1890s the firm began the construction of complete bridges, many for the expanding German rail network; others were exported to Asia and South America. From 1910 the firm began the construction of cranes.

In the period following the Great War the firm continued to manufacture large steel constructions including bridges, towers and transmission towers for the national electricity system. Pontoons and barges are constructed in the firm’s shipyard. Employment exceeds 1,300.