Manfred Sachse

Manfred Sachse forging a damask package on a belt-pulling hammer

Manfred Sachse (born August 8, 1935 in M. Gladbach (today Mönchengladbach )) is a German blacksmith , author and expert on Damascus steel .

Live and act

Essen ceremonial sword Damascus, diamond pattern, forged by Manfred Sachse

Sachse grew up in a parental home that was characterized by craftsmanship, his father was an independent master decorator and at the same time his teacher. Manfred Sachse passed his journeyman's examination as a painter and varnisher in 1953 and as an electroplater and metal grinder in 1956. The master's examination as a galvanizer and in the metal grinding trade followed in 1959.

Sachse practiced fencing in his youth. Manfred Sachse came to Damascus steel in a roundabout way through fencing. For his second training, he attended the vocational school in Solingen , the center of the German blade industry, where he was shown a damask blade in a fencing company.

In 1962 he started his own business as a galvanizer and metal grinder. In his workshop he set up a forge , where he began to make damask himself. In contact with other experts and on study trips, he gained knowledge about damascus steel. From the beginning of the 1960s he received orders for the restoration of historical weapons, e.g. B. from the municipal museum Schloss Rheydt . In 1989 he built the Essen ceremonial sword .

Sachse also designed museum exhibitions, including the German Forging Museum in the LWL Open-Air Museum Hagen, Westphalian State Museum for Crafts and Technology . A large part of his collection on the subject of damascus steel can be viewed in the Manfred Sachse Damascus Steel Archive in the German Blade Museum .

Forge-friendly reconstruction of the Spatha (sword) from Soest

His book Damascus Steel has been published in 3 editions and has been translated into English.

Rifle scope made of Damascus steel, by Manfred Sachse. Optics from Schmidt & Bender.

Lecturer activity

• Akademie des Handwerks Schloss Raesfeld (training of monument conservationists in the craft)
• Membership in the steel institute VDEh , there member of the history committee
• 1995–2013 member (temporarily also president) of the International Society for Damascus Steel Research eV (dissolved in 2013)
• Since 1984–2002 sworn expert at the Krefeld Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mönchengladbach, Neuss for historical weapons made of Damascus steel

Publications

• Damascus steel
  • 1st edition, Wirtschaftsverl. NW, Verl. For Neue Wiss, 1989.
  • 2nd edition, Verlag Stahleisen, 1993. With an introduction by Helmut Nickel : Schwertmagie und Schwertmythos
  • 3rd edition, Verlag Stahleisen, 2008.
• Everything about Damaszener Stahl, Wirtschaftsverlag NW 1993.
• Co-author with Alfred Pothmann: The ceremonial sword of the Essen Cathedral Treasury, Aschendorff Verlag, 1995.
• Series of articles Damaszener Stahl 1–25 in the Deutsches Waffen-Journal 1978–1983
• The restoration of Damascus steel, 11th ATM workshop in Münster 1976.
• It stinks of foxes here (Goethe and the sword) DWJ 9/1999.
• Foundling, the saber of Tsar Alexander I, DWJ 3/2000
• A Russian damascene blade, steel, etc. Iron 21/82
• Made visible, damask barrel restored, DWJ 5/2000

Web links

• Short biography International Society for Damascus Steel Research eV
• https://www.filmothek.bundesarchiv.de/video/589943?se from minute 7:58 a contribution about Manfred Sachse
• https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/kap_5/advanced/t5_1_1.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHP501Fxlkk Reconstruction of the sword of Sutton Hoo part 1
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0hoWLOUmtQ Reconstruction of the sword of sutton Hoo part 2
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnpV0yOxrVs reconstruction of the sword of sutton Hoo part 3
• https://www.manfredsachse.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinz Denig: Title Alte Schmiedekunst, Damaszenerstahl , Verlag Heinz Denig, 1990, ISBN 3-927754-04-8 , p. 129.
2. ↑ Bulletin of the Mönchengladbach District Craftsmen Association 12/2009, p. 295 Archived copy ( memento of October 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.3 MB)
3. ↑ Die Zeit February 23, 2006 No. 9 [1]
4. ↑ http://damaszenerstahlforschung.gmxhome.de/Geschichte/Manfred_Sachse/manfred_sachse.html
5. ↑ http://damaszenerstahlforschung.gmxhome.de/Geschichte/Manfred_Sachse/manfred_sachse.html
6. ^ Alfred Pothmann: The ceremonial sword of the Essen Cathedral Treasury, Aschendorff Verlag, 1995
7. ↑ http://damaszenerstahlforschung.gmxhome.de/Geschichte/Manfred_Sachse/manfred_sachse.html
8. ↑ Blurb written by Horst Schankliss in the book Damaszener Stahl, Manfred Sachse, 2nd expanded edition. 1993.
9. ↑ Blurb written by Horst Schankliss in the book Damaszener Stahl, Manfred Sachse, 2nd expanded edition. 1993.