Heinrich Ehrhardt

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Heinrich Erhardt (approx. 1922), signed with Heinz Ehrhardt

Heinrich Ehrhardt (born November 17, 1840 in Zella St. Blasii ; † November 20, 1928 in Zella-Mehlis , partly also Heinrich Erhardt ) was a German inventor , entrepreneur and manager .

Life

Ehrhardt, who was orphaned at the age of three, came from a gunsmith family based in Zella St. Blasii . The boy spent his childhood in the workshop of an uncle, where he was trained in all the technical techniques of the gunsmithing trade and metalworking , but grew up in poor conditions. Another uncle was Johann Heinrich Ehrhardt , who later lived in Dresden as a successful locomotive manufacturer and inventor .

After breaking off his apprenticeship prematurely , he found a job in Erfurt in a repair shop of the Prussian state railway and took up training in technical drawing and mechanical engineering with a private teacher at his own expense . In 1860 he worked for several years in the Sömmerda rifle manufacture Dreyse, where he almost died in an accident at work. Ehrhardt's technical precision was confirmed by an order for equipment for the Dresden Polytechnic . Around 1864 he learned and worked in Richard Hartmann's machine factory in Chemnitz , the largest Saxon company.

Erhardt married Augustine Winckler in Freiberg in 1868 , the daughter of a mill owner from Alsace . The couple had been married for fifty years and had eight children.

In 1878 Erhardt bought the land and buildings of the Obermühle, built in 1539, in his birthplace and converted the main building into his home. He died there on November 20, 1928. After his death, the building remained the property of his family.

Heinrich Ehrhardt also placed the order for the construction of a villa in Oberzella , today Blechhammer 3 in Zella-Mehlis. This house became the residence of his son Gustav and his family. His descendant was the head of the Heinrich Ehrhardt AG in Zell. Automotive department. After the First World War and the bankruptcy of Ehrhardt-Werke in 1925, the family sold the villa.

Patents and start-ups

7.5 cm mountain cannon L / 17 M.08

128 patents were registered by him in the German Reich. The processes patented in 1891, known as the "Ehrhardt's pressing and drawing process" for the manufacture of seamless tubes, are still used in industry today. He was also known for the development of the recoil gun . The 7.5 cm mountain cannon model Ehrhardt 04 , in the development and production of which he played a key role, was named after him.

Among other things, he founded a metal and weapons factory in Zella St. Blasii in 1878, the Eisenach vehicle factory in 1896 and in 1903 also in Zella-St. Blasii the Ehrhardt-Automobil AG. When Rheinische Metallwaren- und Maschinenfabrik AG was founded in Düsseldorf in 1889 for the large-scale application of the patented "Ehrhardt's hole pressing process" for ammunition production , he took over management of this company in addition to his own entrepreneurial activities, which he did not do until 1920 - when he was old of 80 years - gave up.

Passenger car construction

Wartburg motor car 1898

Ehrhardt initially owned 31.2 percent of the share capital of the Aktiengesellschaft Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach (FFE), which first manufactured guns and bicycles of the "Wartburg" brand. As early as the end of 1898, the production of the first automobile under the name " Wartburg motor vehicle " based on the model of the French Decauville two-cylinder, for which Heinrich Ehrhardt had acquired the license . Thus the Eisenach vehicle factory was after the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. the third company in Germany with an automobile production. Ehrhardt's son Gustav was in charge of the plant in Eisenach, which at the end of the 19th century already had 1,300 workers and was one of the major companies in Thuringia.

In order to convince the public and the shareholders of the quality of the “Wartburg” motor car, Heinrich Ehrhardt drove up the steep road to the Wartburg with it and a companion , which the car did.

From 1903 the Ehrhardts withdrew after losses and differences of opinion with the main shareholders from the company, whereby they kept the Decauville license, and founded the Ehrhardt Automobil AG . This produced luxury cars such as the "Kaiserklasse" sedan. A brochure from 1911 indicates an output of 50 hp from a displacement of 8 liters . The price was 26,000 marks . In 1922, Szawe took over the company.

Commercial vehicle construction

1906 lorry with a 5 cm Rheinmetall L / 30 anti-balloon cannon

In 1903 Heinrich Ehrhardt judged in his hometown of Zella-St. Blasii set up a factory for his son Gustav under his name as Ehrhardt Automobil AG for the manufacture of commercial vehicles. This new automobile factory, which was housed in the machine factory that had existed since 1878, was merged with the company on Reichsstrasse in Düsseldorf, which he had owned since 1873. Since 1903, trucks have also been produced for the imperial army administration and classified as "fit for war". From 1906 onwards only the trucks subsidized by the German Reich were built. The buyers of the trucks in question had to make them available to the army in the event of war. Sometimes the army administration also requested these vehicles for maneuvers. These Ehrhardt trucks were offered in eleven types with a gross vehicle weight of 2.5 t to 6 t. A special anti-balloon vehicle weighing eight tons was also built at the beginning of the war. Around 1924 two truck types with 35 hp and 80 hp were built, and in 1925 commercial vehicle production was shut down.

Commemoration

  • Ehrhardt's former house in Heinrich-Ehrhardt-Str. 18 used as living space. It reminds the citizens of the city of the important personality of Heinrich Ehrhardt.
  • The Heinrich-Ehrhardt-Gymnasium in Zella-Mehlis is named after him.
  • In Eisenach, a place at the former location of the vehicle factory is named after Ehrhardt.

Autobiography hammer blows

The autobiography "hammer blows" by Heinrich Ehrhardt gets the reader information about Ehrhardt's life and his work. The book is subtitled "70 Years of German Workers and Inventors". It begins with information about his earliest youth: he attended school and then took up an apprenticeship with the teacher Peter Ehrhardt.

After completing his apprenticeship, he worked as a mechanic. His career is described in the following chapters: he becomes a technician, inventor, engineer and goes into business in his place of birth. In 1887 he founded the machine factory in Zella St. Blasii - "Zellaer Werke". He also built the Ehrhardt-Werke [later: Rheinische Metallwaren- und Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft (Rheinmetall)] in Düsseldorf in 1889 and built a vehicle factory in Eisenach in 1896. In this factory, cars were built according to a French model: Decauville .

Furthermore, the biography reports on the many patents that Heinrich Ehrhardt applied for. Especially in the chapter "The invention of the pressing and drawing process" he reports on various patents that he commissioned. There were around 100 patents for a wide variety of applications of the pressing process alone. Probably his most important invention is the drawing and pressing process for the production of seamless tubes. He received the patent for this process on April 21, 1892

Fonts

  • A mechanic and worker, an orphan, crossed and crossed. Publishing house Hoch, Düsseldorf 1920.
  • Hammer blows. 70 years of German workers and inventors. KF Koehler Verlag, Leipzig 1922. (as reprint : Heinrich Jung Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-930588-37-4 .)

literature

  • Heinrich Ehrhardt †. In: Journal of the Association of German Engineers , Volume 73, 1929, No. 11 (from March 16, 1929), p. 356.
  • Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff, Hermann Strasser : Heads of the Ruhr. 200 years of industrial history and structural change in the light of biographies . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8375-0036-3 , pp. 91-98.
  • Hugo Racine:  Ehrhardt, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 579 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Josef Wilden: Heinrich Ehrhardt (1840–1928). In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien, Volume IV. Aschendorff, Münster 1941, pp. 172–186.
  • Otto Brack et al .: Chronicle of the City of Zella-Mehlis, Volume 2. Heinrich Jung Verlag, Zella-Mehlis 1998.
  • Wolfgang H. Gebhardt: History of German truck construction, Volume 1. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-811-2 , p. 68.
  • Wolfgang H. Gebhardt: History of German truck construction, Volume 2a. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-811-2 , p. 126.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Ehrhardt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Achim Dresler et al .: Myth Hartmann. Heimatland Saxony, Chemnitz 2010, ISBN 978-3-910186-72-9 .
  2. ↑ a b [1]
  3. ^ Werner Oswald : Motor vehicles and tanks of the Reichswehr, Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr . 16th edition, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 978-3-87943-850-1 , p. 51.
  4. ↑ [2]
personal data
SURNAME Ehrhardt, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ehrhardt, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor, entrepreneur and manager
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Zella St. Blasii
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1928
Place of death Zella Mehlis