Schuler’s Erfurt production facility recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. It all began when Henry Pels started selling machine tools in 1897 and this was followed in 1899 by the construction of a new factory in Schwerborner Strasse, where Schuler’s central production plant in Europe is still located today.

The site has a long history and has delivered machines around the world. To help the company navigate the world economic crisis in 1929, press brakes, spindle presses and forging presses were added to the Erfurt site’s product range, as well as shears and punches. When the Second World War ended, the plant became the property first of the Soviet Union and then of the German Democratic Republic.

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 eqipment was branded as ‘Erfurt’. Four years later, the first mechanised 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 company became a limited liability company in 1990 and was then privatised in 1994. In 2001, it was taken over by the press manufacturer Müller Weingarten AG, which in turn was acquired by Schuler in 2007.

Today, the Erfurt site manufactures press lines, transfer and forging presses, and automatic stamping presses.