GERMANY 03War and the East–West Division
In the 1930s Germany made and exported nearly half of all the machine tools traded in the world. From 1933 rearmament diverted this output to the home market, and through war, air raids and postwar dismantling (Demontage), Saxony (Chemnitz, Leipzig) and Berlin, the heart of the machine tool industry, ended up on the East German side. In the West, firms that had moved from the East and small and medium-sized makers in the southwest regained first place in world exports, while in the East companies were grouped into state people-owned enterprises (VEB) and combines. With reunification in 1990, most eastern plants shrank or were taken over by western or foreign companies. This chapter traces these 57 years, checking each point against the reports of the US Strategic Bombing Survey, documents of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), research books and makers' histories, with a source for each event. For the Nazi period and the war, we give only facts on record.
The factories were wrecked,
but the machines survived.
People and machines
moved from East to West
The beginnings of German machine tools and the age of science are covered in Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and the NC story in Chapter 4. For lathes, milling machines, gear machines and the like, how the machines themselves changed is covered in the machine-type chapters (Chapter 5: Lathes, Chapter 6: Milling machines and MCs, Chapter 7: Grinders, Chapter 8: Gear Machines, Chapter 9: Other Machines). This chapter follows the story from the side of factories, companies and borders.
Rearmament and state control (1933–1939)
Background: the standardized lathe and the "Russian orders"
Before 1933, two things in the German machine tool industry shaped the next era. One was standardization. In 1927 four lathe makers, Boehringer of Göppingen, Franz Braun of Zerbst, Heidenreich & Harbeck of Hamburg and Wohlenberg of Hannover, formed the VDF (Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken, "United Lathe Works"). They jointly designed a "standardized lathe" limited to nine center heights (the height of the spindle axis), and allocated which company would make which size. It was presented at the 1929 Leipzig spring fair and won many orders[3]. Sharing parts and making them in batches lowers costs, and users can obtain spare parts more easily. Ikegai of Japan built unitized engine lathes modeled on this VDF lathe[4] (for details, see Chapter 5).
The other was exports to the Soviet Union. When domestic orders collapsed in the Great Depression, Pfauter, Reinecker and Wanderer of Chemnitz kept their plants running with exports to the USSR (the "Russian orders")[2], and NILES in Berlin was also supported by large orders from the Soviet trade agency[1]. Gildemeister of Bielefeld is also said to have kept producing through the Depression years thanks to Soviet orders[15].
Factories swollen by rearmament
As state rearmament advanced from 1933, orders piled up for machine tools as the "machines that make machines" for weapons production. According to VDW (German Machine Tool Builders' Association) statistics, machine tool sales in 1936 were about 413 million Reichsmarks and orders about 646 million Reichsmarks, orders exceeding sales by as much as 35%[3]. At a single plant, Boehringer's workforce grew from 350 in 1933 to more than 2,100 from 1942 to February 1945[3]. In 1935 Heller of Nürtingen built special milling machines to face the light-alloy crankcases of Messerschmitt aircraft[5].
Even so, Germany did not stop exporting. In the comparison compiled by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Germany accounted for 48% of world machine tool exports in 1913 and again 48% in 1937, ahead of the US (33% and 35%) as the world's largest exporter[10]. Japan also bought German machines in this era. Gauge makers and others installed thread grinders and jig borers by Lindner of Berlin, and a thread grinder bought in 1937 still survives in Seki, Gifu Prefecture[6][7].
Research drawn into rearmament
University research was part of the same trend. Herwart Opitz, who became director of the WZL (Laboratory for Machine Tools) at the Aachen technical university in 1936/37, researched tool steels using less of the imported alloying elements, ceramic tools, and methods for machining difficult materials such as armor plate. A biographical dictionary writes that research in this period put "quantities usable right away" ahead of cost[8]. After the war Opitz was dismissed in 1946, owing among other things to his membership of the Nazi Party and the SA (storm troopers), and he returned as professor in 1948[8].
What did the standardized lathe change on the shop floor? Limiting sizes to set steps and building headstocks and feed units from common parts let makers produce the same parts in batches, and let users manage with the same spare parts and the same operation even on different machines. This idea of "standardizing parts" paid off both when machines had to be added quickly in wartime and when damaged machines were repaired after the war.
Wartime production and air raids (1939–1945)
Forced labor
When the war began, many machine tool makers also made weapon parts, and filled labor shortages with forced labor. Here are figures recorded in company histories and research. At Trumpf in Stuttgart, a third of a workforce of just over 100 were forced laborers brought from France (company history)[11]. At Boehringer in 1943, 415 of 1,651 workers were foreign workers (forced labor) and 108 were prisoners of war[3]. At NILES in Berlin, war production ran 60 hours a week from the end of 1941, and forced laborers were also made to work[1]. Wanderer in Chemnitz centered on war production from 1936 to 1945, with about 9,000 people working there during the war[9]. In 1942 the carmaker Auto Union bought a foundry in Chemnitz and cast tank engine housings there. The building is today's Chemnitz Industrial Museum[12].
What the air raids destroyed, and what survived
In 1944 air raids on industrial cities intensified. The raid of September 11 almost completely destroyed Wanderer's plant in Chemnitz, and production there could not continue[9][2]. Grob's plant in München was also badly damaged in a 1944 raid[14], and Gildemeister's plant in Bielefeld was destroyed by bombing[15]. When the Red Army entered Berlin-Weißensee in April 1945, 80% of the NILES plant had been destroyed[1]. The WZL in Aachen also moved its institute to Eupen because of the 1944 raids[8].
Yet the conclusion reached by the US Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), which examined the factories after the war, was surprising. Even when air raids destroyed factory buildings, the damage to machinery and machine tools was far less than to the buildings, and production recovered sooner than expected. The Survey also wrote that much of German industry ran only one shift a day during the war, leaving unused capacity[13].
Why did the machine tools survive? Machine tools of that time had heavy cast-iron beds and columns, so even when roofs and walls fell the machines themselves rarely cracked; once the rubble was cleared and power and belts (or individual motors) were connected, they ran. Scratches on ways or screws could be repaired by scraping or grinding. That is exactly why, after the war, "dismantling" (removing machines from factories wholesale) was a heavier blow than the air raids.
✂Dismantling and seizure, the East–West split (1945–1949)
The "11.4%" ceiling
The victorious Allies set ceilings on the size of German industry so that Germany could not make weapons again. The first Level of Industry Plan of 1946 limited machine tool production for all of Germany to 74 million Reichsmarks, just 11.4% of the 1938 level, with capacity above that to be reduced by dismantling plants[3]. Boehringer, in the US zone, was banned from making machine tools in November 1945 and got by making machines for knitting women's stockings and, in 1948–51, the small all-purpose Unimog truck (about 600 units)[3]. INDEX in Esslingen saw its plant turned into US Army barracks; in January 1946 complete dismantling of the old plant was decided, and the equipment went to BSA in Britain. BSA built INDEX automatic lathes in Britain from 1948, and INDEX did not get back the site of its old plant until September 1954[3]. Gildemeister was also put on the dismantling list, but was taken off it and restarted production with 25 people in 1948[15].
Because the ceilings hampered economic recovery, the second Level of Industry Plan of August 1947 for the US and British zones (the Bizone) raised the machine tool ceiling to 170 million Reichsmarks, 82.5% of the 1936 level. Even so, a list of plants to be dismantled was published in October that included a Stuttgart machine tool maker (written "Schmidt und Schaudt" in the source; we cannot tell whether this is one company or two), INDEX, Hüller and others. Actual output in 1948 was only about 60 million Reichsmarks (29% of 1936), and after the currency reform the Bizone had only 670,000 machine tools against an estimated need of 1.1 million[3]. At the Washington foreign ministers' conference in April 1949, 159 firms were taken off the dismantling list, and the Petersberg Agreement of November halted dismantling in the West[3].
In the East, whole factories were carried off
Dismantling was far heavier in the Soviet zone. About 35% of prewar German machine tool output by value came from Saxony and Thuringia and 18% from Berlin, so about half of the total lay in the Soviet zone. Some studies put the loss of capacity from dismantling at about 70% for the Soviet zone as a whole and 91% for Berlin[3]. In Chemnitz, the machine tool city, dismantling continued from June 1945 to the summer of 1946, and the machine tool plants of Pfauter and Reinecker were among those targeted. In July–August 1945, 12,000 people were put to work on dismantling, and carrying off Wanderer's machines alone is said to have taken 509 railway wagons[2]. After the Saxon referendum of June 30, 1946, 70 companies in Chemnitz were transferred to "public ownership"[2].
Research and the industry association start again
In 1948 Opitz, back as professor, started the Aachen Machine Tool Colloquium (AWK). Its purpose was to pass research results quickly to a machine tool industry that had fallen behind international standards during the war, and by 1953 it drew more than 900 participants[8]. On October 5, 1949, the VDW, founded in 1891, was re-established in Königstein, West Germany[3][19].
West Germany's recovery and world export lead (1949–1989)
43 firms that moved from East to West
In the Soviet zone, many owners of large companies had their property confiscated, and many managers fled west before the Wall went up in 1961. According to a study that followed directories of machine tool makers from 1936, 43 makers moved to the West as whole companies, 23% of the firms that had been in the East in 1938. Half of them (21) settled in Baden-Württemberg and Nordrhein-Westfalen, which do not border the East. The same study shows that relocated firms survived longer than firms newly founded after the war, carrying prewar technology and people to their new locations[17].
Some examples: the brothers of Pfauter, the Chemnitz gear machine maker, moved west in 1949 and rebuilt the company (Ludwigsburg; for details, see Chapter 8)[17][3], Pittler of Leipzig carried on in Langen near Frankfurt from 1945 and built a new plant in 1949–51[18]. People from Reinecker of Chemnitz founded a tool grinder company near Ulm around 1948[16], and EMAG, founded in Bautzen in 1867, was re-established in Eislingen in the West in 1952[23]. The center of the machine tool industry thus shifted from Saxony to the southwest, and by 1960 Baden-Württemberg accounted for 38% of West German output[3]. Proximity to the auto industry is also thought to have helped the region grow[3].
The "economic miracle" and exports
In the West the ban on making machine tools was lifted in 1950/51, and Boehringer resumed production of the VDF standardized lathe (the VDF was now down to three members, as Franz Braun had remained in the East)[3]. Machine tool output grew from 387 million marks in 1950 to 9,888 million marks in 1980, an average of 11.4% a year, supported by the Korean War boom, the domestic "economic miracle" (Wirtschaftswunder) and exports[3]. The number of makers peaked at 804 in 1955, most of them family-run small and medium-sized firms[17].
In exports, West Germany held 28% of world machine tool exports in 1965, overtaking the US (20%) to become number one again[10]. From 1978 to 1989 it led the world in export value every year; in 1989 West Germany exported $4.3 billion and Japan $3.8 billion[10]. In 1988, 65% of West German exports were lathes, grinders and machining centers, and West Germany accounted for 40% of Europe's gear machine exports[10]. Its strengths were high accuracy and machines built to order.
Trade fairs: from EEMO to EMO
After the war the European machine tool industry, under the cooperation committee CECIMO formed in 1950, held the “European Machine Tool Exhibition” (EEMO), open to makers only, from 1951. The first was held on September 1–10, 1951, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition grounds in Paris[20]. Until 1971 it was a show for makers from member countries only, but from the 1975 show in Paris it was opened as “EMO” to makers from outside Europe[21]. The first show in Hannover under the EMO name was in 1977, and the 1979 show was in Milano[3]. Today it rotates in odd-numbered years in the order Hannover, Hannover, Milano, with the Milano show organized by the Italian industry association[31] (for the Italian side, see Italian Machine Tool Archive, Chapter 2). At the 1960 Hannover machine tool show, 11 West German firms displayed NC machine tools, opening the NC era; that story is told in Chapter 4[3].
Japan catches up
In 1969 Japan's machine tool output overtook West Germany's to rank third in the world[24], and in 1982 it overtook the US as well to become number one[26]. A 1983 article put West Germany third, with output of $3.46 billion behind Japan and the US, but exports made up 65% of its sales[27]. Japanese machines also increased within West Germany: Japan's share of West German machine tool imports rose from 3% in 1975 to 17.6% in 1989[25]. Even so, in 1989 West Germany, with about 300 firms, 94,000 employees and output of about $6.8 billion, ranked second in the world and kept first place in exports[10].
East Germany's VEBs and Kombinate (1949–1989)
Into people's enterprises (VEB)
In the East, the surviving plants became state enterprises. NILES in Berlin-Weißensee became "VEB Deutsche NILES Werke" in February 1949, joined the machine tool association of enterprises VVB WMW Chemnitz in July 1950, and received about 17 million marks of investment in new factory buildings. In November 1952 it was renamed "VEB Großdrehmaschinenbau „7. Oktober“ Berlin," but its products kept the NILES brand[1]. Wanderer in Chemnitz was split into office machines and milling machines, and the milling machine plant became "VEB Fritz Heckert" in 1951. The First Five-Year Plan (1951–55) gave priority to engineering, and the workforce grew from 357 in 1950 to 865 in 1952[2].
East German machine tools were exported mainly to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. NILES was East Germany's only maker of gear grinders; in 1958 demand was twice its production capacity, and its main export markets were the USSR, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia and North Korea[1]. In 1976 it also exhibited a gear grinder at IMTS, the machine tool show in Chicago, USA[1] (for the machines themselves, see Chapter 8).
Labor shortages also troubled the eastern plants. In the 1950s NILES struggled with material shortages and inexperienced workers; it built a training center for up to 400 apprentices a year, and opened a nursery next to the plant so that women could keep working[1]. Under the planned economy the state decided what to make, so in the 1960s and 70s products the plant excelled at were dropped from the production plan, and it was even made to stop building large vertical lathes so that the Soviet Union could make them[1].
combines
From the late 1960s East Germany grouped plants making similar products into large groups called "Kombinate" (Kombinat) under the ministries. VEB Fritz Heckert became the parent plant of the Kombinat of the same name in 1969[2]. According to UNIDO, machine tools were finally divided among three Kombinate: Fritz Heckert (Karl-Marx-Stadt, today's Chemnitz) for machines that cut prismatic (box-shaped) parts, 7. Oktober (Berlin) for machines that cut rotational parts, and Umformtechnik „Herbert Warnke“ (Erfurt) for presses and other metal-forming machines, each making everything from components to finished machines[10].
On the technical side, the computer-controlled machining system prisma 2 went into operation in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1971. Starrag, which descends from Heckert, calls it "the world's first FMS (flexible manufacturing system)"[9][2]. In the 1980s Union of Chemnitz built the CBFK machining center (1983), and NILES unveiled a gear grinder with an electronic gearbox and CNC (1984)[2][1]. In 1989 East Germany's machine tool industry had about 80,000 employees and output of about $1.4 billion, eighth in the world, and was fifth in exports; foreign trade was handled by the state trading company WMW[10].
Reunification and the Treuhand (1990–)
With the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the currency union of 1990, eastern plants lost two markets at once: the Eastern Bloc countries could not pay in western marks, and at home eastern products no longer sold. In spring 1990 the Treuhandanstalt (trust agency), which took over East Germany's state property, began work, and after reunification it pushed privatization by selling companies. In Chemnitz alone 1,094 companies were involved, and the city's engineering workforce fell from 42,000 to 5,000 by 1993[2].
The machine tool companies met different fates. Fritz Heckert became Heckert Chemnitzer Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH under the Treuhand, and in 1998 Starrfräsmaschinen of Switzerland took it over as a company of 198 people (today Starrag's Chemnitz plant)[9]. The 7. Oktober Kombinat was split into 24 companies; NILES shrank to 1,600 people by late 1990, merged with Fritz Werner in the West, filed for bankruptcy in 1996, and in 1997–98 came under KAPP, the gear grinder maker in Coburg[1]. In Chemnitz, the large-lathe maker VEB „8. Mai“ was bought by German-American businessmen and became Niles-Simmons, and the NC maker VEB Numerik was taken over by Siemens. Union, founded in 1852, went through several failed privatizations; in 1996 its workers founded their own company and made a fresh start, but it closed its Chemnitz plant at the end of 2019[2].
There are also cases where companies split between East and West after the war came together again. In 1994 EMAG bought WEMA in Zerbst, the town where VDF member Franz Braun had been, and made it its main plant[23][3], and in 1999 it brought into the group Pittler-Tornos of Leipzig and Reinecker, which had moved from Chemnitz to Ulm[23][16]. Across 40 years of division, names and technology carry on within the same company.
Links with Japan
In this chapter's era, Japanese and German machine tools crossed paths many times.
- 1935–: the VDF lathe. Ikegai built unitized engine lathes modeled on the VDF standardized lathe (timeline of Chapter 1 of the Japanese archive)[4].
- 1936–37: Lindner's precision machines. Thread grinders and jig borers by Lindner of Berlin came to Japan and were used to grind thread gauges and taps (Chapter 3: Grinders, Chapter 5: Drilling and boring machines)[6][7].
- 1961–: technical tie-ups with West German gear machine makers. Postwar Japan brought in West German technology to prepare for mass production of automotive gears; Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, for example, tied up with Lorenz of West Germany for gear cutting machines (Japanese Archive, Chapter 4).
- 1969 and 1982: overtaking in output. Japan's output overtook West Germany's in 1969 and the US's in 1982 (History in numbers)[24][26].
- 1975–89: Japanese machines inside West Germany. Japan's share of West German machine tool imports rose from 3% to 17.6%. Even so, West Germany led the world in export value until 1989[25][10]. Japanese–German cooperation and competition in NC controls appear in the Chapter 4.
⑂Family tree of makers
The changing names and owners of the main makers in this chapter. Breaks in a bar mark changes of name or owner, and red arrows show where a business went. East German companies passed through VEB (people's enterprise) status and from 1990 looked for new owners under the Treuhand. The Pfauter line (VEB Modul in the East and Ludwigsburg in the West) appears in the Chapter 8 family tree.
Places to visit
Check opening days, whether visits are possible and changes to the displays with each facility before you go.
⌛Timeline
All the events confirmed in this chapter. Numbers refer to the sources; clicking one opens that source (at the page, where known). "p." is a page of a book, paper or PDF (for PDF sources, the PDF page), and "frame" is the scan number of National Diet Library materials. Events before 1933 are included as background in the "Rearmament and state control" table.
Rearmament and state control1933–1939 (including background)
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1926–1932 | Around the Great Depression, NILES in Berlin keeps going with large orders from the Soviet trade agency Stankoimport, and Pfauter, Reinecker and Wanderer of Chemnitz with exports to the USSR (the "Russian orders")Background before 1933 | NILES, Pfauter, Reinecker, Wanderer | [1][2, p.6] |
| 1927, 1929 | Four lathe makers form the VDF (Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken) and share the production of a "standardized lathe" limited to nine center heights. Presented at the 1929 Leipzig spring fairBackground before 1933. Wissert draws on Haederle's VDF commemorative publication (c. 1938). Boehringer's company history gives 1928 as the year the VDF was formed (Chapters 2 and 5 follow that) | VDF (Boehringer, Franz Braun, Heidenreich & Harbeck, Wohlenberg)VDF Einheitsdrehbank | [3, p.233][3, p.234] |
| 1933→1942 | The workforce of Boehringer, the Göppingen lathe maker, grows from 350 in 1933 to more than 2,100 from 1942 to February 1945. Machine tool orders for rearmament enlarged the plantFigures from company records. Gehrig (1996) counts 1,651 in 1943 | Gebr. Boehringer | [3, p.234] |
| 1935–56 | Ikegai of Japan builds unitized engine lathes modeled on the German VDF lathe (one built in 1937 survives at the Nippon Institute of Technology) | Ikegai | [4] |
| 1935 | Heller of Nürtingen builds special milling machines to face the light-alloy crankcases of Messerschmitt aircraft | Gebr. Heller | [5] |
| 1936 | According to VDW statistics, machine tool sales are about 413 million Reichsmarks and orders about 646 million Reichsmarks. Orders exceed sales by 35%, showing how orders for rearmament were piling upSome sources give 1936 sales as 476.4 million RM (Glunk 1991) | — | [3, p.94] |
| 1936–37 | Japanese gauge makers and others buy thread grinders and jig borers by Lindner of Berlin. Type FS1 and FS2 thread grinders bought in 1937 survive in Seki, Gifu Prefecture | — | [6, frame 72][7] |
| 1936/37 | Herwart Opitz becomes director of the WZL (Laboratory for Machine Tools) at the Aachen technical university. Under the policies of rearmament and self-sufficiency, he researches tool steels with fewer alloying elements, ceramic tools, and the machining of armor materials | — | [8] |
| 1937 | ★Germany accounts for 48% of world machine tool exports and the US for 35%. In 1913 too it was Germany 48%, US 33%: Germany was the world's largest machine tool exporter before the war | — | [10, p.51] |
Wartime production and air raids1939–1945
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1936–45 | Wanderer in Chemnitz centers its production on war materiel; during the war about 9,000 people work for it in Chemnitz | Wanderer-Werke | [9] |
| 1939 | When the war begins, Trumpf in Stuttgart makes aircraft parts as well as electric hand shears and other products; a third of its workforce of just over 100 were forced laborers brought from France (company history) | Trumpf | [11] |
| 1941 | NILES in Berlin-Weißensee builds its 500th gear grinder (type RS). From the end of 1941 war production runs 60 hours a week, and forced laborers are also made to work | Deutsche Niles-Werke | [1] |
| 1942 | Auto Union buys the foundry on Zwickauer Straße in Chemnitz and casts tank engine housings there. The building is today's Chemnitz Industrial Museum | Auto Union | [12][2, p.6] |
| 1943 | Of Boehringer's 1,651 workers, 415 are foreign workers (forced labor) and 108 are prisoners of war (as counted by Gehrig 1996) | Gebr. Boehringer | [3, p.234] |
| 1944 | ★Later conclusion of the US Strategic Bombing Survey: even when air raids destroyed factory buildings, the damage to machinery and machine tools was much less, and production recovered quickly. During the war much of industry ran only one shift a day | — | [13, p.6][13, p.7][13, p.2] |
| 1944 | The plant of Grob in München (founded 1926) is badly damaged in an air raid | Grob | [14] |
| 1944 | Because of the air raids, the WZL in Aachen moves its institute to Eupen | — | [8] |
| September 1944 | The raid of September 11 almost completely destroys Wanderer's plant in Chemnitz, and production there cannot continue | Wanderer-Werke | [9][2, p.7] |
Dismantling and seizure, the East–West split1945–1949
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | About 35% of prewar German machine tool output by value came from Saxony and Thuringia and 18% from Berlin. About half lay in the Soviet zone, where dismantling was especially severe (studies put the loss of capacity from dismantling at about 70% for the Soviet zone as a whole and 91% for Berlin)Shares based on regional output in 1939 (Kappel 1966) and on Schwab 1996 and Glunk 1991 | — | [3, p.98] |
| 1945–48 | Gildemeister of Bielefeld, damaged in air raids, is put on the Allied dismantling list. It is taken off the list and restarts production with 25 people in 1948, growing in the 1950s with multi-spindle automatics and other machines | Gildemeister | [15] |
| April 1945 | When the Red Army occupies Berlin-Weißensee on April 22, 80% of the NILES plant has been destroyed | Deutsche Niles-Werke | [1] |
| June 1945 – summer 1946 | ★The Soviet dismantling (Demontage) of factories in Chemnitz. The machine tool plants of Pfauter and Reinecker were also targeted, and in July–August 1945, 12,000 people were put to work dismantling. Removing Wanderer's machines took 509 railway wagons | Wanderer, Pfauter, Reinecker | [2, p.7] |
| Nov 1945 | The US military government bans Boehringer from making machine tools. The company gets by making machines for knitting women's stockings and, in 1948–51, the small all-purpose Unimog truck (about 600 units) | Gebr. Boehringer | [3, p.93][3, p.234] |
| 1946 | ★The Allies' first Level of Industry Plan limits machine tool production for all of Germany to 74 million Reichsmarks (11.4% of 1938), with surplus capacity to be reduced by dismantling | — | [3, p.93][3, p.94] |
| 1946 | At Wanderer's plant in Chemnitz, after the bombing and dismantling, 38 milling machines are built with makeshift arrangements | Wanderer-Werke | [9] |
| January 1946 | Complete dismantling of INDEX's old plant in Esslingen is decided, and the equipment goes to BSA in Britain. BSA builds INDEX automatic lathes in Britain from 1948, and the site of the old plant is returned in September 1954 | INDEX | [3, p.94] |
| June 1946 | Following the Saxon referendum (June 30), 70 companies in Chemnitz are transferred to "public ownership" | — | [2, p.7] |
| August 1947 | The second Level of Industry Plan for the US and British zones (the Bizone) raises the ceiling on machine tool production to 170 million Reichsmarks (82.5% of 1936). In October a list of plants to be dismantled is published, including a Stuttgart machine tool maker (written "Schmidt und Schaudt" in the source), INDEX and Hüller | — | [3, p.94] |
| 1948 | Western machine tool output is only about 60 million Reichsmarks (29% of 1936). After the currency reform, the Bizone has only 670,000 machine tools against an estimated need of 1.1 million | — | [3, p.95] |
| 1948 | Opitz, dismissed by the Allies in 1946, returns as professor and starts the AWK (Aachener Werkzeugmaschinen-Kolloquium, Aachen Machine Tool Colloquium) in Aachen. A conference for passing research results quickly to industry, it draws more than 900 participants by 1953 | — | [8] |
| November 1949 | At the Washington foreign ministers' conference in April, 159 firms are taken off the dismantling list, and the Petersberg Agreement of November 22 halts dismantling in the West. The building of heavy machine tools is also allowed under license | — | [3, p.95] |
West Germany's recovery and the "economic miracle"1949–1969
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1948 | People from Reinecker of Chemnitz found J. E. Reinecker Maschinenbau GmbH in Einsingen near Ulm, making tools and tool grinders | J. E. Reinecker | [16] |
| 1949 | The brothers of Pfauter, the Chemnitz gear machine maker, move west after the dismantling and seizure and rebuild the company (later in Ludwigsburg)Buenstorf and Guenther give the new location as Stuttgart. Ludwigsburg is the neighboring town just north of Stuttgart. See Chapter 8 for details | Pfauter | [17, p.3][3, p.98] |
| 1949–51 | Pittler of Leipzig carries on from 1945 in Langen (near Frankfurt) in the West, builds a new plant in 1949–51 and becomes Pittler Maschinenfabrik AG. The Leipzig plant stays in the East | Pittler | [18] |
| October 1949 | On October 5 the German Machine Tool Builders' Association VDW (founded 1891) is re-established in Königstein (Taunus), West Germany | — | [3, p.157][19] |
| 1949–62 | ★43 machine tool makers move from East to West as whole companies, 23% of the firms that were in the East in 1938. Half (21) settle in Baden-Württemberg and Nordrhein-Westfalen | — | [17, p.13] |
| 1950/51 | The ban on making machine tools is lifted in the West, and Boehringer resumes building the VDF standardized lathe. The VDF is down to three members, as Franz Braun (Zerbst) remained in the EastWissert's text says 1949; his note says the turn of the year 1950/51 | Gebr. Boehringer | [3, p.93][3, p.235] |
| 1950 | ★West German machine tool production is 387 million marks. After the Korean War boom, it grows with the domestic “economic miracle” and exports, reaching 9,888 million marks in 1980 (11.4% average annual growth) | — | [3, p.95][3, p.96] |
| 1951 | CECIMO, the European machine tool industry's cooperation committee formed the year before, holds the first “European Machine Tool Exhibition” (EEMO), open to makers only (September 1–10, 1951, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition grounds in Paris). Until 1971 only makers from CECIMO member countries exhibitedThe 11th show, in 1969, was also held in Paris | — | [20, p.474][21][22] |
| 1952 | EMAG, founded in Bautzen, Saxony, in 1867, is re-established in Eislingen in the West as a maker of lathes and special-purpose machines (moving to Salach in 1969) | EMAG | [23] |
| 1955 | The number of West German machine tool makers peaks at 804 (still 798 in 1969). Most are family-run small and medium-sized firms | — | [17, p.11] |
| 1960 | Baden-Württemberg accounts for 38% of West German machine tool output (39% in 1964). With Saxony, the prewar center, lost, the southwest near the auto industry becomes the new center | — | [3, p.19][3, p.99] |
| September 1960 | 11 West German firms show NC (numerically controlled) machine tools at the Hannover machine tool show (see Chapter 4 for details) | — | [3, p.121] |
| 1965 | ★West Germany holds 28% of world machine tool exports and the US 20%. West Germany is the world's top exporter | — | [10, p.51] |
| 1969 | Japan's machine tool output overtakes West Germany's, ranking third in the world after the US and the USSR (JMTBA business report) | — | [24, frame 3] |
World export leader and Japan's catching up1970–1989
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Heidenreich & Harbeck of Hamburg, a VDF member, is partly sold to Gildemeister (fully in 1972), and the VDF's joint NC lathe company is dissolved after two years | Heidenreich & Harbeck, Gildemeister | [3, p.237] |
| 1975 | ★The European Machine Tool Exhibition is held in Paris as “EMO” and opened to makers from outside Europe. 1977 in Hannover, 1979 in Milan | — | [21][3, p.175][3, p.194] |
| 1975→1989 | ★Japan's share of West German machine tool imports rises from 3% in 1975 to 17.6% in 1989 | — | [25, p.36] |
| 1978–89 | West Germany leads the world in machine tool export value every year. In 1989: West Germany $4.3 billion, Japan $3.8 billion, Switzerland $1.6 billion | — | [10, p.90] |
| 1982 | Japan's machine tool output overtakes the US to become the world's largest (a position held for 27 years, until 2008). In export value West Germany remains number one | — | [26, frame 21][10, p.90] |
| 1983 | According to a West European press article, West German machine tool output was $3.46 billion, third in the world after Japan ($3.89 billion) and the US ($3.62 billion). Exports were $2.3 billion, 65% of sales, and employment was 100,000. Japan's share of the domestic market fell from 3.9% to 3.1% in 1982The English translation of the article wrongly gives the unit of output as “million”; from the surrounding figures we read it as billions of dollars | — | [27, p.35] |
| 1989 | The West German machine tool industry has about 300 firms and 94,000 employees, with output of about $6.8 billion, second in the world | — | [10, p.64][10, p.52] |
East Germany's people's enterprises and Kombinate1949–1989
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 1949 | NILES in Berlin becomes the people's enterprise (VEB) "VEB Deutsche NILES Werke." In July 1950 it joins the machine tool association of enterprises VVB WMW Chemnitz | Deutsche Niles-Werke | [1] |
| 1951 | ★Wanderer's plant in Chemnitz is split into office machines and milling machines, and the milling machine plant becomes "VEB Fritz Heckert." The workforce grows from 357 in 1950 to 865 in 1952 | VEB Fritz Heckert | [2, p.7][2, p.8] |
| May 1951 | NILES delivers the DWK 10, a large vertical lathe with a 10 m faceplate, to a state-owned heavy electrical plant in Berlin | Deutsche Niles-WerkeDWK 10 | [1] |
| November 1952 | The NILES plant is renamed "VEB Großdrehmaschinenbau „7. Oktober“ Berlin" (the NILES brand is kept) | VEB 7. Oktober | [1] |
| 1958 | NILES is East Germany's only gear grinder maker, and demand is twice its production capacity. It exports to the USSR, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia and North Korea | VEB 7. Oktober | [1] |
| 1969 | VEB Fritz Heckert becomes the parent plant of the Kombinat (a group of state enterprises) of the same name. In East Germany, Kombinate grouping plants with similar products were formed from the late 1960s to the early 1970s | Werkzeugmaschinenkombinat „Fritz Heckert“ | [2, p.8] |
| 1971 | ★The computer-controlled machining system prisma 2 goes into operation in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today's Chemnitz). Starrag, which descends from Heckert, calls it "the world's first FMS" | Werkzeugmaschinenkombinat „Fritz Heckert“prisma 2 | [9][2, p.8] |
| 1976 | NILES of East Berlin (7. Oktober Kombinat) exhibits the ZSTZ 630 C1/Z gear grinder at IMTS, the machine tool show in Chicago, USA | VEB 7. OktoberZSTZ 630 C1/Z | [1] |
| 1983, 1984 | CNC machines appear in East Germany too. Union of Chemnitz builds the CBFK machining center (1983), and NILES unveils the ZSTZ 06 EG-CNC gear grinder with an electronic gearbox and CNC (1984) | VEB Union, VEB 7. OktoberCBFK, ZSTZ 06 EG-CNC | [2, p.8][1] |
| 1989 | ★The East German machine tool industry has about 80,000 employees in three Kombinate (Fritz Heckert for prismatic parts, 7. Oktober for rotational parts, Umformtechnik Erfurt for metal forming), with output of about $1.4 billion, eighth in the world, and fifth in exports. Foreign trade is handled by the state trading company WMW | — | [10, p.64][10, p.52][10, p.89] |
Reunification and the Treuhand1990–
| Year | Event | Maker / model | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | ★In spring the Treuhand agency (Treuhandanstalt), set up to take over East German state property, starts work and pushes privatization after reunification. In Chemnitz alone 1,094 companies are affected, and employment in Chemnitz's machinery industry falls from 42,000 to 5,000 by 1993 | — | [2, p.8] |
| 1990 | Heckert Chemnitzer Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH is formed under the Treuhand. In 1998 Starrfräsmaschinen of Switzerland takes it over as a company of 198 people, and it becomes StarragHeckert | Heckert Chemnitzer Werkzeugmaschinen | [9] |
| 1990s | In Chemnitz, German-American businessmen buy the large-lathe maker VEB „8. Mai“ from the Treuhand and make it Niles-Simmons, and Siemens takes over the NC maker VEB Numerik | Niles-Simmons, Siemens | [2, p.9] |
| May 1990 | The 7. Oktober Kombinat is split into 24 companies, and NILES Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH is formed under the Treuhand. Machine sales to the East stop, and the workforce falls from 2,250 to 1,600 by late 1990 | NILES Werkzeugmaschinen | [1] |
| 1994 | EMAG buys WEMA Zerbst in the East and makes it the group's main production site. Zerbst is the town of Franz Braun, one of the prewar VDF members | EMAG, WEMA Zerbst | [23][3, p.235] |
| February 1996 | Having lost its eastern markets, Fritz Werner & NILES (merged in 1995) files for bankruptcy. NILES comes under KAPP of Coburg in 1997–98 | Fritz Werner & NILES | [1] |
| October 1996 | Union of Chemnitz, founded in 1852, goes through several failed privatizations, and its workers found their own company and restart with 13 people (later joining the Herkules group in 2011 and closing the Chemnitz plant at the end of 2019) | Union | [2, p.9] |
| 1999 | EMAG brings Pittler-Tornos of Leipzig and Reinecker of Ulm into the group. Two renowned names split between East and West after the war carry on within the same companyThe NDB dates Reinecker's entry into EMAG to 1995. We follow EMAG's company history (January 1999) | EMAG, Pittler-Tornos, Reinecker | [23][16] |
FAQ
- Were most German machine tools destroyed in the wartime air raids?
- No. The US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that even when air raids destroyed buildings, the damage to machinery and machine tools was much less than to the buildings, and production recovered quickly. The heavier blows after the war were rather the Allied dismantling of plants and the production ceilings (11.4% of 1938 in the 1946 plan). In the Soviet zone in particular, dismantling was so extensive that carrying off Wanderer's machines in Chemnitz took 509 railway wagons.
- Where did East Germany's machine tool makers go?
- In 1949–62, 43 firms moved to the West as whole companies (including the lines of Pfauter, Pittler and Reinecker). The plants that stayed in the East became VEBs (people's enterprises): Wanderer became VEB Fritz Heckert and NILES in Berlin became VEB 7. Oktober, later grouped into three Kombinate. After reunification in 1990 the Treuhand looked for buyers; Heckert came under Starrag of Switzerland and NILES under KAPP.
- When was West Germany the world's top machine tool exporter?
- Before the war, in 1913 and 1937, Germany held 48% of world exports. After the war it overtook the US with 28% in 1965, and in UNIDO's tables it led the world in export value every year from 1978 to 1989. Japan became number one in output from 1982, but West Germany kept the lead in exports. Germany still exports more than 70% of its output today.
- Since when has EMO been held in Hannover?
- The European machine tool exhibition began in 1951 and rotated among countries (it was held in Hannover in 1967, too). From the 1975 show in Paris it was opened to makers outside Europe as "EMO," and the first Hannover show under the EMO name was in 1977. Today it is held in odd-numbered years in the order Hannover, Hannover, Milano.
What's next and related pages
Sources
Research books, papers, documents of international organizations, and the histories of makers and museums were checked on their pages in October 2026. Page numbers for PDF sources are PDF pages (Wissert 2023: printed page + 12; Uhlmann 2020: printed page = PDF + 143; Fleischer 1997: printed page + 2). National Diet Library materials use the same frame numbers as the Japanese Archive. Forced labor figures are given only where stated in company histories and research. Where the text says a maker "calls" something a "world first" or "writes" so, that is the maker's own statement. Years may differ by one or two between sources; which one we adopted is noted in the timeline.
- KAPP NILES, "Historie von KAPP NILES" (NILES timeline from 1898)
- Wolfgang Uhlmann, “Chemnitz – die Industriestadt in Sachsen. Ein Abriss zur Industrie- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte,” Sächsische Heimatblätter, Vol. 66, No. 2 (2020), pp. 144–152p. 6, 7, 8, 9
- Thomas Wissert, Einführung der numerisch gesteuerten Werkzeugmaschinen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zwischen 1950 und 1980, Logos Verlag Berlin (2023; doctoral thesis, University of Stuttgart; open access)p. 19, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 121, 157, 175, 194, 233, 234, 235, 237
- National Museum of Nature and Science, HITNET Industrial Technology History Common Database: Engine lathe (collection of the Nippon Institute of Technology Museum of Industrial Technology)
- HELLER, "HELLER history"
- Kuroda Seiko: Shoryokuka ni idomu seimitsu kiki meka (Kuroda Precision Industries: A precision equipment maker taking on labor saving) (1970)Frames 72
- National Museum of Nature and Science, Industrial Technology History Database: Thread grinder, Herbert Lindner (Germany), Types FS1 and FS2
- Manfred Weck and Hans Starck, “Opitz, Herwart Siegfried,” Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 19 (1999), pp.550–552
- Starrag Group, "History" (company history including the Wanderer and Heckert lines)
- UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization), The World Machine-Tool Industry. Background paper, ID/WG.516/4 (June 28, 1991, Fourth Consultation on the Capital Goods Industry, Prague)p. 51, 52, 64, 89, 90
- TRUMPF, "History 1934–1949"
- Industriemuseum Chemnitz, "Standortgeschichte – Von der Gießerei zum Museum"
- United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (European War) (September 30, 1945; transcription on HyperWar)p. 2, 6, 7
- GROB-WERKE, "Historie"
- International Directory of Company Histories, “Gildemeister AG” (on Encyclopedia.com)
- "Reinecker, Julius Eduard," Neue Deutsche Biographie (Deutsche Biographie)
- Guido Buenstorf, Christina Guenther, "No place like home? Location choice and firm survival after forced relocation in the German machine tool industry," Jena Economic Research Papers 2007-053 (2007)p. 3, 11, 13
- "Pittler, Wilhelm von," Neue Deutsche Biographie (Deutsche Biographie)
- VDW (German Machine Tool Builders' Association), "125 Jahre VDW: Ein Verein mit Tradition"
- International Railway Congress Association, Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 7 (July 1951), “First European Machine Tool Exhibition”p. 474
- CECIMO (European Association of the Machine Tool Industries), “EMO History”
- Industrial Diamond Review, Vol. 30 (1970), index: “European Machine Tool Exhibition, Paris, 11th”
- EMAG, "History"
- Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association (JMTBA), Jigyo hokokusho Showa 44 nendo (Business report, FY1969) (1970)Frames 3
- Manfred Fleischer, The Inefficiency Trap: Strategy Failure in the German Machine Tool Industry, edition sigma / WZB (1997) p. 36
- JMTBA, Seicho, henkaku: 10-nen no kiroku 1982–91 (Growth and change: a 10-year record, 1982–91) (1992)Frames 21
- US JPRS, West Europe Report: Science and Technology, JPRS-WST-84-001 (January 4, 1984; English translations of European press articles on the German machine tool industry), pp.35–36p. 35
- Industriemuseum Chemnitz, "Die Sammlung"
- Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, "Dauerausstellung Werkzeugmaschinen"
- Deutsches Museum, "Werkzeugmaschinen – Grundlage für die Produktion von Gütern"
- VDW, "Messen des VDW" (order of the EMO Hannover and EMO Milano shows)