Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (), sometimes referred to as Heidelberg or Heideldruck for short, is a German precision mechanical engineering company with registered offices in Heidelberg (Baden-Württemberg) and headquarters in nearby Wiesloch-Walldorf (Baden-Württemberg).Bergsträßer Anzeiger: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, accessed on 27 November 2024. The company offers products and services along the entire process and value chain for printing products and is the largest global manufacturer of offset printing presses. Heidelberg further produces equipment for prepress, press and postpress.Tom Allsop: Heidelberg opens renovated Print Media Center, in: PrintWeek, 31 October 2012, accessed on 27 November 2024.
History Early years (1845–1896)
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG goes back to a bell foundry founded in Frankenthal in 1774. In 1845, the bell caster Georg Hamm took over the foundry before his brother Andreas Hamm joined as a partner in 1849. The official founding date of the AG is 1850, when Andreas Hamm took over the shares of his brother, who had to flee into exile after the Revolutions of 1848. In 1851, Hamm left the company and took the bell foundry business with him.
In 1856, Hamm met Andreas Albert, a mechanical engineering manager, with whom he decided to produce high-speed presses in loose cooperation. In 1863, they officially founded the company Albert & Hamm, which Hamm supplied with machines and raw materials, while Albert took over the day-to-day running and design of the presses. Operating costs and profits were shared. The machines were sometimes criticized for resembling Reichenbach's models without offering significant improvements.
After Andreas Albert's departure in 1873, Hamm devoted himself increasingly to bell casting, including the Kaiserglocke for Cologne Cathedral. Later, he and his son Karl again produced rapid presses, in competition with Albert's new company, the Albert & Cie rapid press factory. After Hamm's death in 1894, his son sold the company to Wilhelm Müller in 1895, who moved the company headquarters to Heidelberg. The sale included the mechanical engineering division, but not the bell foundry. Müller was already a partner in Maschinenfabrik Heidelberg Molitor & Cie.
In 1896, Maschinenfabrik Heidelberg Molitor was liquidated and A. Hamm OHG, Schnellpressenfabrik und Eisengießerei was entered in the Heidelberg commercial register. The partners of this company, which took over the Maschinenfabrik Molitor's building, were Wilhelm Müller and Karl Geiger. Around 300 people were employed at the two production sites in Frankenthal and Heidelberg-Bergheim in 1896.
Takeover by the banks and Richard Kahn (1896–1931)
Rising raw material prices and declining demand led to a crisis for the company at the turn of the century, as a result of which the factory, then called Schnellpressenfabrik A. Hamm AG, became the property of Rheinische Creditbank in Mannheim and Darmstädter Bank für Handel und Industrie. In 1905, the company name was changed to Schnellpressenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft Heidelberg (short form: Schnellpresse). As the crisis of the Schnellpresse continued, the banks were soon looking for a new investor for the company, for which they also acted as creditors. In 1916, the Bochum-born entrepreneur Richard Kahn incorporated Schnellpresse into his own corporate network, the Richard Kahn Group.
A well-known product in Kahn's era was the Original Heidelberg Platen Press, which was produced 165,000 times between 1914 and 1985. It was the first press to have an automatic paper feed and therefore worked much faster than conventional models. The Original Heidelberg Platen Press had already been developed before Kahn took over, and under his leadership it was further developed and made ready for series production. It is the best-known and most widespread form of this type of machine in the world.Deutsches Museum: Original Heidelberger Tiegel (OHT), Modell TP, accessed on 27 November 2024.
During the Great Depression, the Kahn Group was struggling with increasingly severe financial problems and was heavily in debt. This led to the complete collapse of the Kahn Group in 1932. Fortunately for Schnellpresse, the profitable parts of the Kahn Group, including Schnellpressenfabrik with its subsidiaries Maschinenfabrik Geislingen (MAG) and C. Maquet AG, had already been spun off in 1931 at the insistence of the banks. This ensured the continued existence of the company, even though Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft and Commerz- und Privatbank became the new main shareholders. In March 1940, Rheinelektra took over the absolute majority of Schnellpressenfabrik shares from Deutsche Bank.
Third Reich and World War II (1931–1945) After the collapse of Kahn's holding company, Schnellpresse continued to grow. The company suffered a serious setback for its domestic business in 1935, during Nazi Germany, when Max Amann, the president of the Reichspressekammer, issued several decrees that allowed the liquidation of publishing houses that did not conform to the system and prohibited the establishment of new printing plants. At the same time, the increased performance of the printing plants due to the more efficient machine base had a negative impact on the new press business for the first time. All of this led to a 27.6% drop in domestic sales in 1935. However, this decline in sales was compensated for by an increase in foreign sales of almost a third. Despite severe disadvantages due to the restriction of press freedom, the factory was not unpopular with Nazi functionaries due to the foreign currency it generated.
From 1939, the company shifted to manufacturing lathes, crucial for the war effort. It secured major orders from Magdeburger Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik and Gebrüder Heinemann, producing 1,000 precision and turret lathes worth Reichsmark 4.7 million. During that time, Schnellpresse became the first German company to manufacture machine tools on an assembly line. The Geislingen plant mainly manufactured shells and bullet casings, while hydraulic units for aircraft were also produced in Heidelberg itself. Although the armaments command in Mannheim demanded the discontinuation of printing press construction as early as 1940 and the procurement of materials important to the war effort, such as steel, became increasingly difficult, production continued until 1942. To compensate for male workers called up for military service, a maximum of around 150 French and Soviet prisoners of war and Ostarbeiter were deployed during the war. At this time, they made up 23% of the total workforce. The halls of the Schnellpresse factory survived the end of the war unscathed.
Growth and further internationalization (1945–2000)
After the end of World War II, Hubert Sternberg became the company's new manager. He had already joined the board in 1926 and remained there until 1972. The current main plant in Wiesloch-Walldorf was opened in 1957 after a year of construction, as the main plant in Heidelberg had become too small and the resistance to the company's new building project in Heidelberg had become too strong.Micha Hörnle: Unternehmer Epple kauft Firmensitz der Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, in: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 21 September 2015, accessed on 27 November 2024. At the beginning of the 1960s, only machines for relief printing were produced by Schnellpresse, but in 1962, the company introduced its first machine for offset printing, the Heidelberg KOR (Kleine Offset Rotation).Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG: 100 Jahre Offsetdruck / Die glückliche Zangengeburt , accessed on 30 September 2018 In 1967, Schnellpresse was renamed Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. In 1972, GTO (Großer Tiegel Offset) was the first offset press to deliver more than 40,000 printing units. The introduction of the Speedmaster series in 1974 consolidated Heidelberg's position in the construction of offset presses. Although Heidelberg entered the offset press market relatively late, the company became the world market leader in this field within a few years.
The company continued to grow in the 1980s and at times had around a third of all European machine tool bases with numerical control in operation.druckmarkt.com: Eine Fabrikanlage für die Drucker der ganzen Welt (PDF; 560 kB), accessed on 27 November 2024 In 1988, Heidelberg acquired the web offset press manufacturer Harris Graphics Corporation with locations in France, the United States and Mexico. In 1996, Heidelberg acquired the companies Linotype-Hell AG (laser imagesetters specifically for plate imaging), Stork Contiweb (web offset presses and ancillaries) and Sheridan Systems (newspaper mailroom and commercial bindery systems).PrintWeek: Print, Prinect and paranoia, the long roots of Zaikio’s open promises, 23 September 2020, accessed on 27 November 2024.
In Hartmut Mehdorn's era as managing director, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG went public for the first time in 1997 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (under the abbreviation HDD). In 1999, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen took over the office imaging division (black-and-white digital printing) from Eastman Kodak Company as well as the company Stahl from Ludwigsburg,RWE: Heidelberg und Kodak unterzeichnen Kaufvertrag für Office Imaging (Memento in Internet Archive), accessed on 27 November 2024. a company that primarily manufactured folding machines and other machines for print finishing. In 2000, the Print Media Academy was opened, a high-rise building that was erected as a training and office building in Heidelberg on behalf of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen.baunetz.de: Kommunikations- und Wissenszentrum / Einweihung der „Print Media Academy“ in Heidelberg, accessed on 27 November 2024.
First phase of weakness and contraction (2000–2008) Following the September 11 attacks and the associated sharp downturn in the advertising industry, which was particularly relevant for Heidelberger, the financial year 2002/2003 was the first in decades in which Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG made a loss. Following this, the company reorganized its business activities.brandeins.de: Was Werbung treibt: Die Preise der Preise, accessed on 27 November 2024Manager Magazin: Abschied von ambitionierten Projekten, accessed on 27 November 2024.Manager Magazin: Konzern kappt nach Verlustjahr weitere Jobs, accessed on 27 November 2024. In 2003, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen took over Jagenberg AG's die-cutting and folder-gluer division, the subsidiaries Jagenberg Diana GmbH in Neuss and Woschnik + Partner in Mönchengladbach as well as a plant in Slovakia, Jagenberg Slovensko spol. s.r.o. in Nove Mesto. These companies produced machines required for folding and gluing cardboard and corrugated cardboard packaging.Rheinische Post: Heidelberger Druck übernimmt Diana, accessed on 27 November 2024.
After the company's strong growth could no longer be sustained, the Web Systems division (web offset presses) with plants in Dover (U.S.), Montataire (France) and Boxmeer (Netherlands), among others, had to be sold to the US company Goss International. In return, Heidelberg received a 15% stake in Goss. The digital printing division and the existing joint venture with Kodak for digital color printing, NexPress, were transferred back to the American partner, and Heidelberg Digital Finishing GmbH in Mühlhausen im Täle, a former Kodak site, was closed. With these decisions, the expansion into new business areas was revised.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Heidelberger Druck verkauft Digitaldruck an Kodak, accessed on 13 September 2018.