The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz

Chemnitz

Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...

 was one of the most important engineering companies in Saxony

Kingdom of Saxony

The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...

 in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. Including its various predecessor businesses, the firm existed from 1837 until its liquidation in 1930, and individual branches of the company taken over by others continued to operate until 1990. The company is closely linked with the name of its founder and long-time manager, Richard Hartmann

Richard Hartmann

Richard Hartmann was a German engineering manufacturer.- Life :Richard Hartmann was born on 8 November 1809 in Barr, Bas-Rhin, the son of a tawer . In his Alsace homeland he learnt the trade of a toolmaker...

, whose name formed part of the new company title in 1898: the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik vormals Richard Hartmann ('Saxon Engineering Factory, formerly Richard Hartmann').

Major products

The main aim of the business was the development, design and production of:

• Spinning machines
  Spinning (textiles)
  Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
  
   (1837–1998)
• Locomotive
  Locomotive
  A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
  
  s (1848–1929)
• Steam engine
  Steam engine
  A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
  
  s
• Turbine
  Turbine
  A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
  
  s
• Mill equipment
• Military technology
  Military technology
  Military technology is the collection of equipment, vehicles, structures and communication systems that are designed for use in warfare. It comprises the kinds of technology that are distinctly military in nature and not civilian in application, usually because they are impractical in civilian...
  
   (about 1910-1918)

No less than 4,699 locomotives were built by the company between 1848 and 1929. The majority were delivered to the Royal Saxon State Railways

Royal Saxon State Railways

The Royal Saxon State Railways were the state-owned railways operating in the Kingdom of Saxony from 1869 to 1918...

 (Königlich Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen), but customers for her locomotives were to be found worldwide. Equally impressive is the list of spinning and textile machines produced by Hartmann's business. Over many decades these machines from the factory in Chemnitz and its other subsidiaries set the standard for German engineering tradition.

Founding and growth into a major business

In 1837 August Götze and Richard Hartmann founded the firm of Götze & Hartmann, that produced a very wide range of machines. Hartmann, who had acquired experience in numerous businesses, very quickly grasped the significance of many technical innovations. As early as 1839 the business developed the technical concept of a carded yarn speed frame that was developed into a marketable product and sold successfully. But the most important business was for some time the repair and design of individual technical solutions (equivalent to the present-day concept of special purpose machines). In 1842 about 200 employees were engaged in the business.
In the years to 1845 the company underwent numerous expansions and relocations within the Chemnitz area.

From 1848 steam locomotives were built by the firm now dominated by Hartmann, but this branch of the business did not take off until a decade later. To begin with their major customer, the Royal Saxon State Railways

Royal Saxon State Railways

The Royal Saxon State Railways were the state-owned railways operating in the Kingdom of Saxony from 1869 to 1918...

, had to be convinced of the quality of their products through the delivery of very small batches of engines.

From 1855 the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik also produced turbines and mill equipment, so that by 1857 the work force had grown to about 1,500 employees. In the mid-1860s, steam locomotive production reached a very high level; to wit in 1868 a new production hall was built in which up to 36 locomotives could be simultaneously mounted.

Transition to a public limited company

In 1870 the business became the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik AG. Richard Hartmann took over the chairmanship of the governing board, a post he held until his death in 1878. The sons of Richard Hartmann were given important roles within the business.

In 1878 the 1000th locomotive left the production line of the Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik, numerous business expansions followed during this period, in order to meet the steadily growing demand from around the world. IN 1896 the construction of a new headquarters in Chemnitz was begun, in the same year a subsidiary was founded in Luhansk

Luhansk

Luhansk also known as Lugansk is a city in southeastern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Luhansk Oblast . The city itself is also designated as its own separate municipality within the oblast...

 (also known as Lugansk) by one of Richard Hartmann's sons, Gustav Hartmann, that exists today as the Lokomotivfabrik Luhansk

Luhanskteplovoz

Luhanskteplovoz , earlier known as Voroshilovgrad Locomotive works is a large industrial company in Luhansk, Ukraine, manufacturing locomotives, multiple unit trains as well as other heavy equipment....

.

In 1898, in the course of restructuring, the business was renamed to the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik vormals Richard Hartmann Aktiengesellschaft.

At the beginning of the 20th century the business had also built up a strong armaments branch and produced, amongst other things, guns, artillery equipment and munitions. At that time various other companies were integrated into the business.

The demise of the company

In the 1920s the business continued to acquire numerous companies, including the 'King Friedrich-August Steelworks' in Freital-Potschappel, formerly an important supplier for the business, and finally the textile maschine firm of Walter Löbel AG in Dresden.
But the effects of the changing economic situation left the business increasingly in difficulties during the 1920s. Even the founding of the Deutsche Reichsbahn

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft

The Deutsche Reichsbahn – was the name of the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the German Empire following the end of World War I....

 in 1920 and the wide distribution of locomotive construction quotas to different manufacturers led to a big reduction in the purchase of locomotives. Between 1920 and 1924 only 64 locomotives were built for the DRG, abroad the political aftermath of the First World War was also clearly taking effect.

In 1926 the machine tool business was wound up and several smaller firms took over the parts of the production. In 1928/29 the last major order was carried out for the DRG. But only 13 engines of the newly-developed DRG Class 99.73-76 standard locomotives

Einheitsdampflokomotive

The German term Einheitsdampflokomotive, sometimes shortened to Einheitslokomotive or Einheitslok, means standard steam locomotive and refers to the steam engines built in Germany after 1925 under the direction of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft...

 were delivered for the Saxon narrow gauge

Narrow gauge

A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...

 railways. The remaining portion of the planned order of 32 machines was picked up by the Berliner Maschinenbau

Berliner Maschinenbau

Berliner Maschinenbau AG was a German manufacturer of locomotives.The factory was founded by Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff on 3 October 1852 as Eisengießerei und Maschinen-Fabrik von L. Schwartzkopff in Berlin ....

 (BMAG, formerly Schwartzkopff). After these gauge engines, only six more locomotives were produced in the locomotive works at Chemnitz. After that the firm, which was already in economic difficulties, became a victim of the worldwide economic crisis.

Liquidation and successors

In 1928 the 'King Friedrich-August Works' in Potschappel was sold off again; the very disparate textile machinery division was restructured, and steam roller and locomotive construction ceased in 1929.
The 'Sächsische Maschinenfabrik, vorm. Richard Hartmann AG' was liquidated in 1930, and the remaining economical core of the textile machinery division was incorporated into the newly formed Sächsische Textilmaschinenfabrik vorm. Richard Hartmann AG. As in the early days of the Hartmann enterprise, this company concentrated exclusively on spinning machines and weaver's looms. In 1933 it was amalgamated with several other companies into the Textil-Maschinen-Compagnie Chemnitz. The remaining area of business of the former Hartmann company was now purely spinning machines.

In the Second World War the bulk of the factory buildings, sites and equipment was destroyed and, after most of the remaining sites had been given to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 as war reparations

War reparations

War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.- History :...

, there was only about a tenth of the facility left for starting it up again as the VEB Spinnereimaschinenbau in 1946. Until the reunification of Germany the firm was the leading manufacturer of textile machines for the production of spun cotton in the Eastern Bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

.
In 1990 this firm became a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung

Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung

Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung is a type of legal entityvery common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other Central European countries...

 (the German form of a limited liability company

Limited liability company

A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...

), the Chemnitzer Spinnereimaschinenbau GmbH, and was taken over by the trustee company. At the end of 1994 it was sold to the holding company, Neue Länder. Its main market in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 was breaking up and overwhelming competition led to its amalgamation with two other Saxon textile machinery companies to form the CSM-Sächsische Spinnereimaschinen GmbH Chemnitz, but despite producing technically, high-quality products the firm ceased production in 1998 and subsequent folded, whereupon the last manufacturing elements of the firm's long tradition finally disappeared.

Maintenance of tradition

In memory of the work of Richard Hartmanns, part of the former Leipziger Straße street in Chemnitz was renamed Hartmannstraße. The former villa of the company director is available today for exhibitions and a trade training centre in Chemnitz is called Richard-Hartmann-Schule.
Since 1990 the memory and tradition associated with the names of Richard Hartmann and his Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik, is increasingly being recognised. In the town of Chemnitz, the Saxon metal and electric industry and the operators of locomotives from the factories of the Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik, a unique Saxon engineering tradition is associated with the name of this company.

The firm has also left a special legacy of its contribution to the provision of locomotives for the Saxon narrow gauge railways to this day. No less than 125 years after the delivery of the first engine for these narrow gauge railways in 1881, the Saxon Narrow Gauge Society (Verein zur Förderung sächsischer Schmalspurbahnen or VSSB) has ordered the construction of a copy of the Saxon Class I K.

Locomotives

• ATE IIIa: 1
  • Nr. 18 DONNERSBERG (National Technical Museum (Prague)
    National Technical Museum (Prague)
    The National Technical Museum in Prague is the largest institution dedicated to preserving information and artifacts related to the history of technology in the Czech Republic. The museum was founded in 1908 and has been in its current location since 1941. The museum has large exhibits...
    
    )
• Saxon I TV: 1
  • 98 001 (Chemnitz Industrial Museum)
• Saxon VII T: 1
  • 98 7056 (Dresden Transport Museum
    Dresden Transport Museum
    The Dresden Transport Museum displaysvehicles of all modes of transport, such as railway, shipping, road and air traffic, under one roof.The museum is housed in the Johanneum at the Neumarkt in Dresden, Germany...
    
    )
• Saxon XI HT: 1
  • 94 2105 (Schwarzenberg Railway Museum)
• Saxon XII H2
  Saxon XII H2
  The Saxon Class XII H2 steam locomotives were bought by the Royal Saxon State Railways specifically for the mountainous areas of Saxony. They were built by Hartmann between 1910 and 1927 in Chemnitz...
  
  : 1
  • 38 205 (Saxon Railway Museum
    Saxon Railway Museum
    The Saxon Railway Museum is located in Chemnitz, in the state of Saxony, eastern Germany. It is situated on the site of the former locomotive depot for goods train locomotives in the district Hilbersdorf.After the locomotive depot was closed in 1992, the society moved into the buildings which...
    
     (SEM), Chemnitz
    Chemnitz
    Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
    
    )
• Saxon XIV HT: 2
  • 75 501 (German Steam Locomotive Museum
    German Steam Locomotive Museum
    The German Steam Locomotive Museum or DDM is located at the foot of the famous Schiefe Ebene ramp on the Ludwig South-North Railway in Neuenmarkt, Upper Franconia. This region is in northern Bavaria, Germany...
    
     (DDM), Neuenmarkt
    Neuenmarkt
    Neuenmarkt is a municipality in the district of Kulmbach in Bavaria in Germany.-City arrangement:Neuenmarkt is arranged in the following boroughs:...
    
    , on loan from the Schwarzenberg Railway Museum)
  • 75 515 (SEM)
• Saxon XX HV: 1
  • 19 017 (VMD)
• Saxon IV K
  Saxon IV K
  The Saxon IV K were eight-wheeled, narrow gauge, Günther-Meyer type steam engines built for the Royal Saxon State Railways with a rail gauge of 750 mm. A total of 96 were built between 1892 and 1921, making the Saxon IV K the most numerous narrow gauge locomotive in Germany...
  
  : 3
  • 99 535 (VMD)
  • 99 579 (Saxon Narrow Gauge Museum (Sächsisches Schmalspurbahnmuseum, Rittersgrün)
  • 99 604 (Radebeul Narrow Gauge Museum (Schmalspurbahnmuseum Radebeul, Radebeul
    Radebeul
    Radebeul is a town in the Elbe valley in the district of Meißen in Saxony, Germany, a suburb of Dresden. It is well-known for its viticulture, a museum dedicated to writer Karl May and a narrow gauge railway connecting Radebeul with the castle of Moritzburg and the town of Radeburg...
    
    )

Literature

• Richard Hartmann AG (Hrsg.): Lokomotiven. Ausgabe 1910. Selbstverlag, Chemnitz 1910 (Digitalisat)
• Richard Hartmann AG (Hrsg.): 1837–1912. Jubiläumsschrift aus Anlass des 75jährigen Bestehens der Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik vorm. Richard Hartmann Aktiengesellschaft. Selbstverlag, Chemnitz 1912
• Günther Reiche: Der Chemnitzer Maschinenbauer Richard Hartmann und seine Lokomotiven. Eine Faktensammlung. Oberbaum Verlag, Chemnitz 1998, ISBN 3-928254-56-1
• Günther Reiche: Richard Hartmann. 8. November 1809 - 16. Dezember 1878. Vom Zeugschmied zum sächsischen Lokomotivenkönig. Reihe Chemnitzer Lebensbilder Band 6, Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, Chemnitz 2007, ISBN ISBN 3-910186-60-2
• Sächsische Textilmaschinenfabrik vormals Richard Hartmann Aktiengesellschaft (Hrsg.): 100 Jahre Hartmann Textilmaschinenbau im Jahre 1937. Zur Hundertjahrfeier des Unternehmens. VDI-Verlag, Berlin 1937
• Wolfgang Uhlemann: 2008 - Vier Jubiläen der Firma Rich. Hartmann/Sächsische Maschinenfabrik, vorm. Rich. Hartmann AG, Chemnitz. in: Erzgebirgische Heimatblätter, Heft 2/2008, S. 5-8
• VEB ERMAFA Karl-Marx-Stadt (Hrsg.): 150 Jahre Maschinenbau 1837 - 1987. Karl-Marx-Stadt 1987

External links

• The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik vormals Richard Hartmann AG (German)