Jam \ry i, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



109 



The German Rubber Industry. 



THE india-rubber industry in Germany had its beginnings not 

 long after the discovery of vulcanization, and in advance 

 of several other countries in Europe in which rubber 

 goods are now made. It will not be attempted to point out here 

 the pioneer in the German rubber field, but only to mention some 

 of the important early workers in it. A lively interest in rubber, 

 in fact, was manifested in German scientific circles years before 

 the industry had a practical basis. It is worth while to mention 

 the pamphlet brought out in Berlin in 1832 by Dr. F. Lueders- 

 dorff, the English edition of which bears the title, "The Solution 

 and Reproduction of India Rubber." Luedersdorff treated of the 

 action of sulphur on india-rubber, and there were not lacking 

 those, in Charles Goodyear's lifetime, who held that in his pub- 

 lication the German chemist had anticipated the basic principle 

 of vulcanization. Luedersdorff's pamphlet, in fact, was offered 

 as evidence by the defendants in Charles Goodyear ct al. v. Bev- 

 erly Rubber Co., a patent infringement suit tried in Boston 

 in 1859. 



The history of the rubber industry in Germany, if written in 

 detail, would embrace a reference to the Englishman, Mr. Elliott, 

 who in 1849 founded on the Spree a small factory from which 

 has developed the important Vereinigte Berlin-Frankfurter 

 Gummiwaren-Fabriken, now capitalized at 3,500,000 marks 

 [=$833,000]. There is to be mentioned, too, the late Senator 

 Carl Maret, who in 1856 returned to Germany from a sojourn 

 in America during which his attention was attracted to rubber, 

 and he cooperated in starting, in the same year, the now great 

 Vereinigte Gummiwaren-Fabriken Harburg-Wien, the largest 

 rubber manufacturing establishment in Germany. It is not so 

 long since The India Rubber World (October 1, 1909 — page 15), 

 upon the occasion of the death of Dr. Heinrich Traun, outlined 

 the founding of the hard rubber industry' at Hamburg, at the 

 same time it was being developed in America, and by interests 

 then practically identical. 



There is no intention here to deal with all the rubber fac- 

 tories in Germany, but only to illustrate the enterprise and pro- 

 gressiveness which ever have characterized the industry in that 

 country. The rub- 

 ber trade has 

 shared in the gen- 

 eral industrial 

 growth which in 

 Germany followed 

 the establishment 

 of the empire, and 

 today the Germans 

 hold first rank 

 among European 

 rubber manufac- 

 turers in respect to 

 volume of business 

 done. 



But there are 

 other considera- 

 tions. The in- 

 grained love of 

 science in the Ger- 

 man has brought 

 the resources of 

 chemistry to bear 

 upon the rubber 

 industry to a nota- The Late Senator Dr. Heinrich Traun. 



ble extent not ' in [Founder of Dr. Heinrich Traun u. Sonne, Ham- 

 burg. Distinguished in the hard rubber 

 industry.! 



that countrv, but 



in general. While rubber factory superintendents elsewhere were 

 chary about using African sorts, for example, when they were 

 first introduced, German experts discovered and pointed out how 

 good results might be obtained from them. The broad effect 

 of such investigations is seen in the general use in the industry 

 of all sorts of rubber, instead of the manufacturers being con- 

 fined practically to Para rubber alone, as in the beginning. 

 Otherwise it is possible that the better grades of rubber might 

 ere this have figured at twice the highest prices ever reached, 

 or even more. 



The importance of the chemist in the rubber factory was first 

 appreciated to an important extent in Germany, and today the 

 influence of such recognition is felt in every country where 

 rubber goods are made. It is true that Charles Macintosh, the 

 pioneer English rubber manufacturer, was a scholarly man, and 

 notably a chemist, which fact doubtless aided him in his rubber 

 researches. But many of his successors in the industry, in 

 England and elsewhere, not only possessed no knowledge of 

 chemistry, but there was a period when "practical" men dealing 

 in rubber evinced a lack of respect for the scientist. Charles 

 Goodyear, for example, was wholly without a knowledge of 

 chemistry when he set about the work which ended with his 

 accidental discovery of vulcanization. And for nearly a half 

 century there was hardly one head of an important American 

 rubber company who had a scientific training. 



Compared with this situation, one may refer to the late Hein- 

 rich Traun, who, 

 before taking a 

 position in the 

 German rubber 

 factory which 

 later he made 

 famous, com- 

 pleted a scientific 

 course in a lead- 

 ing German uni- 

 versity, after 

 which he did pro- 

 fessional work as 

 a chemist in dif- 

 ferent countries. 

 Again, mention 

 may be made of 

 P r o f e ssor Dr. 

 Adolf Prinzhorn, 

 lately retired 

 from the man- 

 agement of the 

 Continental 

 Caoutchouc - und 

 Gu t tapercha - 

 Compagnie, upon 

 whom the two 



titles he now wears were conferred from a high source, in recog- 

 nition of his scientific work in connection with rubber. 



In connection with this subject mention must be made, also, 

 of the late Carl Otto Weber, ph. d., whose fame as a rubber 

 chemist became worldwide. 



The "technical director" now has an established position in 

 every German rubber factory of importance, to which policy is 

 due, no doubt, much of the success of the industry in that 

 country. And the example of the Germans has been followed 

 in other countries, notably in the United States, where the old- 

 time "rubber kings" seemed rather proud than otherwise of their 



The Late Senator Carl Maret. 



[First president of the Verein Deutscher Kautschuk- 



waren-Fabriken. Director of Harburg and 



Vienna India-Rubber Works.] 



