Without printing presses there would be no newspapers. Gutenberg’s invention changed the world. The crisis in print journalism is not making life easy for the printing industry, but Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG – known in the English-speaking world simply as “Heidelberg” – is weathering the storm.

The print room smells of oil and printing ink and damp paper. It’s noisy – unbearably noisy. The machines shake and bang and clatter. But the young trainee journalist seems oblivious of it. He stands in awe beside the monster printing press which is just printing his very first newspaper article – and not just one or two copies, or a few thousand, but hundreds of thousands.

Practically every journalist who started his or her career in print journalism has a similar story to tell. That first article – usually heavily modified by one of the more experienced editors – lives with you for ever. Many a successful journalist still has a copy of their first ever piece even years later, when there’s no longer any need to prove anything to themselves. The printing presses have been the ‘midwives’ for generation after generation of journalists.

There’s a very good chance that that first article was printed on a “Heidelberg”. Almost everyone in the business knows that the company whose German name is almost exactly the same as the place where it has its headquarters is one of the leading makers of printing presses in the world. And if anyone doesn’t know it, they’d better pretend that they do: in the media world, it’s almost a crime not to know who ‘Heidelberg’ is.

Last year the company made around 3.4 billion Euro from the sales of its sheetfeed offset presses. That puts Heidelberg in the top league of printing press manufacturers worldwide. Today’s high-tech offset printing process is a long way from Gutenberg’s movable letters. Heidelberg’s ‘founding father’ was a young miller’s son called Andreas Hamm. Helping his father in the mill had already taught him quite a lot about using machines to convert energy, but his professional training was as a bell-caster. In 1850, at the age of 26, as a young engineer with plenty of ambition, he opened a foundry making bells and a variety of other products, including steam engines. Soon afterwards, the decisive move was taken to add flatbed cylinder presses and “other machines relevant for book printing” to the company’s range of products.

In 1896 came the move to Heidelberg and in 1905 the company’s name was changed to the “Schnellpressenfabrik AG Heidelberg”. The famous ‘Tiegel’ (platen) press, capable of printing 1000 sheets an hour, was introduced in 1914 and went into series production in 1921. The company went from strength to strength. During WWII, printing presses made way for hydraulic equipment for the war effort, but production resumed after the war and in 1962 Heidelberg made the crucial switch to offset printing. The current name was adopted in 1967. Heidelberg has continued to expand and innovate and now produces a comprehensive range of products for the entire printing process.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG has become one of the largest makers of machines in the world. Most publishing houses will have a “Heidelberg”, so the famous presses continue to act as midwives to succeeding generations of journalists, some of whom may find time to stand and admire the printing machine as it so effortlessly reproduces hundreds of thousands of copies of that precious first article.

Contact:

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
Kurfürsten-Anlage 52-60
69115 Heidelberg

Tel.: +49 (0)6221 92 00
Fax: +49 (0)6221 92 69 99
http://www.heidelberg.com