Schuler’s Erfurt location celebrates 125th birthday

The plant in Erfurt was built at the end of the 19th century, initially producing blanking presses and shears. © Schuler

It all started 1897 with the distribution of machine tools. Today, the central production plant for presses in Europe is in eastern Germany.

Göppingen/Erfurt, July 5, 2022 – Schuler’s Erfurt location is celebrating a round anniversary: 125 years ago, businessman Henry Pels started selling machine tools there. This was followed in 1899 by the construction of the new factory in Schwerborner Strasse, where Schuler’s central production plant in Europe is still located today. The press manufacturer now celebrated its birthday last Saturday with a large summer party.

The location can look back on a long history. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, the “Berlin-Erfurter Maschinenfabrik Henry Pels & Co.” delivered to the USA as well as to Canada, Brazil and Argentina. In the course of the world economic crisis in 1929, press brakes, spindle presses and forging presses were added to the product range in addition to shears and punches. After the Second World War, the plant became the property first of the Soviet Union and then of the GDR.

The Erfurt plant produces many different presses for the Schuler Group today – from press lines to automatic stamping presses. © Schuler

From 1954, the nationally owned enterprise (VEB) “Schwermaschinenbau Henry Pels Erfurt” produced, among other things, eccentric, crank, embossing and spotting presses, and from 1957 the typical “ERFURT” lettering was emblazoned on the equipment. Four years later, the first mechanized press line for the production of truck wheel discs was delivered to the USSR. In 1970, the name changed to “Kombinat Umformtechnik Erfurt”, which also included the nationally owned companies and die makers Formenbau Schwarzenberg and Auer Werkzeugbau.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Kombinat was transformed into a limited liability company in 1990 and privatized in 1994. In 2001, it was finally taken over by the press manufacturer Müller Weingarten AG, which in turn was acquired by Schuler in 2007. Today, the Erfurt location can cover a large part of the product portfolio – from press lines that take up entire factory halls after assembly, to transfer and forging presses in the medium range, to automatic stamping presses.

The former “Umformtechnik” combine is thus Schuler’s central production site in Europe. © Schuler