75 Years HTM - Retrospect on a long success story

摘要

In May 1942 the first edition of Harterei-Technische Mitteilungen was issued. In hard times, but this did not put the leading experts off from covering a remarkable demand of industry. The first issue of this journal comprised the presentations of the 1. Harterei-Kolloquium, taken place shortly before in Berlin. "Heat treatment of metal as the way to bring out the utmost strength, is highly developed in many leading companies of metal-working industry, but knowledge and experience are uneven distributed, depending on the specific tasks and targets of the plants, and new problems always have to be solved again for each factory. ... Yet it definitely will be possible to gain an increase of overall performance and even a simplification of work in highly developed companies, if a general and intensive exchange ... is organized in wider circles.", as the initiator of the first Hartereikolloquium, Prof. Paul Riebensahm, mentioned in the invitation letter. At that time Riebensahm was full professor of mechanical engineering at Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg. From his long engineering career in industry, as a technical director of Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach and member of the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in Stuttgart, he knew exactly what the heat treaters were lacking of; scientifically based fundamentals which in cooperation with practical experience only could fulfil the high quality demands on processes and products.