Richard Hartmann (machine manufacturer)

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Richard Hartmann

Richard Hartmann (born November 8, 1809 in Barr , Alsace , † December 16, 1878 in Chemnitz ) was a German machine manufacturer and railway pioneer. His Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz was one of the most important mechanical engineering companies in Saxony in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century .

biography

Richard Hartmann was the son of a white tanner . In his Alsatian homeland he learned the trade of a kit maker . His wandering years began in 1828 , during which he reached Chemnitz in 1832. Hartmann began to work for various early manufacturers in Chemnitz. One of his employers was Carl Gottlieb Haubold , who is considered the founder of Chemnitz mechanical engineering. In Haubold's business it brought Hartmann from journeyman (agents) to the chord - Master . In 1837 he acquired citizenship . In the same year he left the Haubold factory and together with his colleague Karl Illing bought a mechanical engineering workshop on Annaberger Straße. Here Hartmann and Illing repaired cotton spinning machines together with three journeymen . The business flourished and after a short time the production of entire spinning machines was started.

Advertisement for the Hartmann factory (1861)

In 1839 Hartmann fell out with Illing and founded the Götze & Hartmann company with August Götze , in which Götze was responsible for commercial matters and Hartmann for technical matters. In the same year Hartmann acquired the rights to a carded yarn spinning machine from a penniless inventor for 1000 thalers . With this machine, the breakthrough began for the company, which then had around 30 employees. The roving machines established Hartmann's reputation as a spinning machine manufacturer beyond the Chemnitz area. In 1840 the growing company, which now had 76 employees, moved into new premises in Gablenz , but a year later there was not enough space here either and another move to the Chemnitz Klostermühle took place. The range of production had meanwhile expanded, and the first steam engine was delivered in 1840. Richard Hartmann received the great gold medal for a new spinning machine in 1843. In 1844 Hartmann relocated its production site again and moved into new halls on what would later become Hartmannstrasse in Schloßchemnitz . At that time it employed around 350 people. In the same year, an iron foundry was put into operation. In 1847 Hartmann was accepted into the Chemnitz Masonic Lodge Zur Harmonie .

The year 1848 was a milestone for Richard Hartmann and his company. Together with Theodor Steinmetz, the company succeeded in manufacturing its first steam locomotive . The Saxon state government had supported the step towards locomotive construction with a loan of 30,000 thalers in order to develop its own, self-sufficient locomotive production. Hartmann's locomotives proved to be competitive with those imported from Great Britain and were also exported worldwide in the following decades. Hartmann developed into the main supplier of the Royal Saxon State Railways . Richard Hartmann, however, was far-sighted enough not to focus exclusively on locomotive construction. At the end of the 1850s, he added turbines and mill equipment, mining machines, drilling equipment and heavy machine tools to the company's production range . In 1857 his company had 1500 employees.

Tomb with sculpture by Johannes Schilling

1870, the company's transformation took place into a public limited company under the company Saxon machine factory formerly Richard Hartmann . At that time the company had 2,700 employees. Hartmann took over the chairmanship of the administrative board.

Richard Hartmann lived in the immediate vicinity of his factory in a villa on Kaßbergstrasse. Here he died on December 16, 1878 of complications from a stroke . Hartmann's grave is in the Chemnitz municipal cemetery .

From 1874 to 1877 he had the architects Hübner and Baron build Villa Hartmann , a summer residence in the style of Gottfried Semper , on the Elbe in Dresden - Laubegast , Laubegaster Ufer 34. This villa was used as a residence by his son Gustav Hartmann since 1881. It has been preserved to this day and can usually be viewed on the day of the open monument .

In 1880 the street closest to the factory was named Hartmannstrasse after him. The four-field sports hall Richard-Hartmann-Halle , which opened in 2002 and is located on the former factory premises, and a Chemnitz vocational school center also bear his name. Only a few of the former factory buildings have survived, including the building of the main administration, which is a listed building and now serves as the police headquarters.

Merits

Name plate in the Norwegian Railway Museum in Hamar

Richard Hartmann was one of the most important Saxon entrepreneurs and the most successful Chemnitz manufacturer in the second half of the 19th century. He is considered to be an important pioneer of the Saxon mechanical engineering, whose reputation he helped to shape worldwide. Hartmann succeeded in establishing a locomotive construction company in Saxony that was competitive compared to Great Britain. The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik he founded was the largest company in Saxony and played a part in the fact that Chemnitz developed into one of the major German industrial metropolises after 1870.

Sponsorship award

The Industrieverein Sachsen 1828 e. V. awards the Richard Hartmann advancement award endowed with 5,000 euros for outstanding industry-related scientific, technical and business results with a high degree of novelty.

literature

  • The machine factory of Richard Hartmann in Chemnitz In: Album of the Saxon industry . Volume 1. Louis Oeser, Neusalza 1856, pp. 6–7 ( Wikisource )
  • Germany's great workshops. No. 3 - The creations of a journeyman kit maker . In: The Gazebo . Volume 4, 1866, pp. 59–63 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - with illustration by A. Eltzner ).
  • Karl Lamprecht :  Hartmann, Richard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 701-703.
  • Ernst Rudolph: Richard Hartmann. A picture of life . Pickenhahn, Chemnitz 1884. ( digitized version )
  • Bernhard Rost: Richard Hartmann, the great Chemnitz machine builder. A picture of life for the 100th anniversary of his birthday. Self-published, Chemnitz 1909.
  • Richard Hartmann AG (Ed.): 1837-1912. Anniversary publication on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik vorm. Richard Hartmann Aktiengesellschaft . Self-published, Chemnitz 1912.
  • Sybille Haubold:  Hartmann, Richard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 736 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Tilo Richter (ed.): The Kaßberg. A Chemnitz reading and picture book . Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-9805299-0-8 .
  • Günther Reiche: The Chemnitz mechanical engineering company Richard Hartmann and his locomotives. A collection of facts. Oberbaum Verlag, Chemnitz 1998, ISBN 3-928254-56-1 .
  • Gabriele Viertel : From André to Zöllner. 125 biographies on Chemnitz's history . Reintzsch-Verlag, Radebeul 1998, ISBN 3-930846-13-6 , p. 42.
  • 600 years of Laubegast 1408–2008 . Publishing house Die Fähre , Dresden 2004.
  • Günther Reiche: Richard Hartmann. November 8, 1809 - December 16, 1878. From kit maker to Saxon locomotive king. Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, Chemnitz 2007, ISBN 3-910186-60-2 . (= Chemnitz Life Pictures , Volume 6.)
  • Saxon Industrial Museum Chemnitz (Ed.): Myth Hartmann. For the 200th birthday of the Saxon locomotive king Richard Hartmann . Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-910186-72-9 .

Web links

Commons : Richard Hartmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chemnitz pays tribute to railway pioneers - locomotive transport with horses for Richard Hartmann's 200th birthday .
  2. ↑ Short biography of Richard Hartmann, accessed on April 20, 2020
  3. ↑ Saxony Industrial Association
personal data
SURNAME Hartmann, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mechanical engineering entrepreneur and railway pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Barr , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1878
Place of death Chemnitz