Espelkamp, 12 June 2008 --- It all began with the desire to make people’s everyday life easier. When Wilhelm HARTING, together with his wife Marie, founded the company “Wilhelm Harting Mechanische Werkstätten” in 1945, he laid the foundations for today’s internationally successful HARTING Technology Group. Next Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of Wilhelm Harting’s birth.
Wilhelm Harting was born on 15 June 1908 in Kirchhorsten (Lower Saxony) in
the district of Schaumburg. At the age of 37 – almost immediately after the end of World War II – he decided to establish his own company. The HARTING Group, as it is known today, had its origins in a workshop of about 100 square meters in Minden. Initially, the production range consisted mainly of daily necessities in hot demand after the war, such as cooking plates, electric lighters or irons. With their dedication and commitment, Wilhelm and Marie Harting were among those entrepreneurs lauded as post-war reconstruction pioneers, contributing to what was to become Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle.
The size and volume of orders and the number of employees already rose dynamically in those early years. Consequently, in 1947, Wilhelm and Marie Harting together with their staff first relocated to larger premises in Minden and in 1950 (then 180 employees) to the flourishing town of Espelkamp-Mittwald. Using the premises of several former ammunition storage depots, a modern plant was built on a 50,000 square meter site and equipped with heavy-duty machinery. The HARTING Technology Group since that times has consistently further developed the Espelkamp location. HARTING quality products destined for global markets are nowadays manufactured at a total of five production sites in Espelkamp, with a total floor space of about 250,000 square meters; in addition, HARTING operates five production facilities across the globe.
In the 1950s, the era o