Progress through impressive personalities

According to Aristotle, an industrial furnace is actually more than the sum of its parts. It is the result...

... of requirements that our customers place on us,

... from experience that we have gained, 

... and from ideas that we implement together with our customers.

Behind all our industrial furnaces are our founders, managing directors, employees, trainees, students, interns and business partners, who make our products what they are in the first place...

...the perfect and individual solution for your requirement to us!

Adolf and Ernst Ruhstrat...

...founded together in 1888 in their parental home the company Gebr. RUHSTRAT as an electrotechnical business for the construction of telephone systems, lightning conductors, fire alarms and anti-theft devices.

Ernst Ruhstrat recognized early on the importance and future of electricity when it was still at home in the lecture halls of the university. "You could invent something new every day," he once said. The word fits him. He was the motor, the pacesetter of the young company, which soon grew into a formidable enterprise. 

In addition to the electrification of the city of Göttingen, the main focus was on cooperation with the University of Göttingen. The production of the first wire-wound regulating resistors and the development of the high-temperature furnace were the result of cooperation between university professors Walther Nernst and Gustav Tammann with Ernst Ruhstrat. 

At the suggestion of the physicists and professors Riecke, Simon and Reich, the production of switchboards was added - that was in 1896. The development and expansion of the new "Physical Institute" and the "Institute for Applied Electricity" were further highlights in the history of the still young company. 

Adolf Ruhstrat retired from the company in 1911 for health reasons. Ernst Ruhstrat took over sole responsibility. In 1929, Ernst Ruhstrat passed away after a busy and successful life after traveling to America to meet the famous inventor Thomas A. Edison. ^[1]

Source: ^[1] Brochure "Göttinger Stadtgespräche", Andrea Ruhstrat, April 7, 1988

Professor Walther Nernst...

...graduated from the Graudenz Gymnasium, studied in Zurich, Berlin, Graz and Würzburg, obtained his doctorate in physics in Vienna in 1887 and his habilitation in Leipzig in 1889. Prof. Nernst was active in Göttingen from 1894 to 1904, from 1896 as head of the Institute of Physical Chemistry.

Prof. Nernst worked - around 1896 - on the development of the Nernst lamp, which was later named after him. For the pre-firing of the luminous bodies for this lamp a furnace was needed for which temperatures up to max. 3000 degrees Celsius were required. At the time, this could only be achieved with coal heated by electric currents. Therefore, the first so-called "coal tube short-circuit furnace" was built in the simplest form at the Institute of Physical Chemistry for our own needs. A tube of retort coal was clamped at the ends in strong coal jaws, which were provided with connection facilities. A material of pulverized charcoal served as insulation, then a fairly thick layer of anhydrous magnesia, and asbestos as the outer casing. This furnace was operated by a transformer available at the Institute. 

The strong interest prompted Prof. Nernst in 1898 to assign the construction of such furnaces to the "Elektromechanische Werkstätten Gebrüder RUHSTRAT in Göttingen", founded in 1888. Between Prof. Nernst and the co-founder of the company Ernst Ruhstrat a long lasting cooperation developed. ^[1]

Source: ^[1] Walther Nernst Memorial Website, 11 December 2020

Professor Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann...

...was the son of a physician. He studied chemistry in Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) and became a lecturer in 1889. In 1890 he received his doctorate there with a thesis on the metamerism of metaphosphates. In 1892 Tammann became an associate professor and in 1894 a full professor in Dorpat. In 1903 Tammann was appointed to the University of Göttingen as director of the newly founded Institute of Inorganic Chemistry. In 1907/1908 he became director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry, succeeding Walther Nernst and Friedrich Dolezalek (until 1929).

In 1910 he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and in 1919 a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Since 1912 he was a corresponding and since 1927 an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1925 Gustav Tammann received the Liebig Medal of the Association of German Chemists. In 1926, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Technical University of Dresden. On his 75th birthday on May 28, 1936, Tammann was honored with the Eagle Shield of the German Empire (dedication: Dem Altmeister der deutschen Metallurgie). In 1936 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

He was particularly interested in the physics and physical chemistry of metals, and is considered the founder of modern metallurgy. He wrote important papers on intermediary compounds, especially the intermetallic compounds, and on crystallization and melting processes. The "Tammann rules" and "Tammann temperatures" on self-diffusion processes in crystals as well as the "Tammann equation" are named after him. He developed the "Tammann furnace" with resistance heating to generate temperatures up to 3000 degrees Celsius. He is considered the founder of modern metallography and thermal analysis. His publications include a "Textbook of Metallography" and the monograph "The State of Glass" (1933). ^[1]

Source: ^[1] Gustav Tammann Memorial Website, 26 June 2011

Eugen Eisenmann...

...born in Stuttgart in 1911, has always attributed vitality, assertiveness, a sense of tinkering and a will to independence to his ancestors, Swabian farmers and craftsmen. Since his father died as a result of a war-related illness, he had to assume responsibility for the family at an early age. After attending school, he completed a locksmith apprenticeship and an engineering internship at Daimler. He completed the subsequent studies at the Esslingen School of Mechanical Engineering in 1936 with an engineering degree. At that time Eugen Eisenmann was one of the best alpinists of his time. He planned, organized and led a German expedition to the Kilimanjaro and Rwenzori regions and wrote a book about it. Extreme climbing came to a voluntary end when he decided to start a family, from which two daughters and a son were born.

Even in his first position as an engineer in a piston factory, he optimized series production through design improvements, many of which lasted for many years. At the beginning of the war, he was technical manager of a malleable iron foundry. In order to avoid being drafted into the Waffen SS, he volunteered for a Mountain Infantry Division. Returning wounded, he found his parents' house and his own household in ruins, his family evacuated and his professional existence shattered. 

The new start began as a sales engineer for tools and machines. Groundbreaking research into artificial wood drying and constructive ideas for putting them into practice led almost inevitably to the founding of an engineering office and, soon after, to the establishment of his own manufacturing company called Eisenmann. In 1951, Eugen Eisenmann began to manufacture wood drying systems in Stuttgart-Gaisburg with a few select employees. After only a short time, painting equipment was added, initially for the wood sector and later also for the metal sector.

In 1977, Eugen Eisenmann handed over the management of the company to his son, Peter Eisenmann. 

Eugen Eisenmann died in 1991.