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HEIDELBERG HISTORY In 1856 Andreas Hamm, owner of Hemmer, Hamm & Compagnie, the Frankenthal bell foundry and machine factory and Andreas Albert, a newly qualified engineer from Koenig & Bauer in Oberzell, got together to develop their vision of a "high-speed press." In just 2 years they already manufactured 14 such presses establishing a reputation far beyond Germany's borders.
A year after Andreas Hamm's death (on June 22, 1894), his son Carl Hamm sold the company. Shortly afterwards, it moved from Frankenthal to Heidelberg, was converted to a joint-stock company and, in 1905, was renamed "Schnellpressenfabrik AG Heidelberg". By this time, construction had already begun on a smaller type of press known as the "platen press" (Tiegeldruckpresse). Karl Georg Ferdinand Gilke arrived in Heidelberg in 1912 and developed what he called the "propeller-gripper", describing it as "an automatic feeding and placing device, in which a pivoting rack picks up the sheet by applying suction to its entire surface, then uses blast air to deposit it on the platen...". This meant that the sheet no longer had to be positioned by hand, an operation which had slowed the overall process considerably.
In 1934, Heidelberg introduced a fully automatic high-speed cylinder press to the market, and it caught on like wild fire. At that time, 60% of the company's revenues came from foreign sales, a level which became difficult to maintain after the outbreak of World War II. Because printing presses were not essential to the war effort, production was cut back and the company manufactured precision lathes and hydraulic devices until the end of the war. In 1957, the largest printing press plant in the world began production in Wiesloch near Heidelberg. By 1959 it had turned out 100,000 presses. Heidelberg were fairly late in developing presses using the new technology of offset printing. It wasn't until 1962 that the company finally started building offset presses. Around 1980, more and more printers were looking to print in colour, and Heidelberg presses were selling so well that a second factory was built in Amstetten. This plant, which opened in 1985, was fully computerized. In 1988, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG acquired the American web offset specialist, Harris, thus entering a new market. In 2000 Heidelberg celebrated its 150th anniversary. Today roughly 400,000 Heidelberg presses are running in 240,000 printing companies spanning the globe. |
The
competitive nature of the two men, that had in the past been a strong
driving force for many of their successes, finally led to a break-up
of the partnership in 1873. A battle for supremacy then ensued and
in 1875 Andreas Hamm patented a "high speed cylinder letterpress"
that sold world-wide. 
After
series production of the "Express", an automatic platen
press able to print 1,000sheets per hour, began after the end of
World War I, and was a huge success. This platen press was branded
with the now immortal phrase "Original Heidelberger."
Due to the great demand the very first assembly line in a German
printing press factory was installed, permitting 100 "Tiegel
presses" to be assembled each month. The merger of Heidelberg's
Schnellpressenfabrik with the Maschinenfabrik Geislingen (M.A.G.)
in 1929 expanded the company's casting capacity. In the early 1930s,
various banks acquired a majority interest in the "Schnellpressenfabrik
Heidelberg", transferring their shareholdings to Rheinelektra,
a subsidiary of RWE, in 1941.