The History of

Heinrich Hermann, born in Stuttgart in 1870, founder of HERMA, father and devout Christian, was an entrepreneur with heart and soul. Endowed with visionary flair, not afraid of hard work and prepared to take risks. It is Heinrich Hermann to whom we today at HERMA owe our thanks.

Called to the entrepreneurial life
In 1906 Heinrich Hermann took the jump into self-employment. With a small print shop in Stuttgart-Wangen Heinrich Hermann laid the foundation stone for HERMA - his lifework. The financial support from his warm-hearted mother made a considerable contribution to the flourishing of the company. With several big efforts and long journeys, the company continued to develop and improve. Heinrich Hermann was painstaking in his thinking, taking clear positions, developing sales strategies and obtaining patents. In 1910 the new company building was opened in Ulmer Straße, Wangen.


War and reconstruction
1915 was the beginning of the hardest period in Heinrich Hermann's life. At the beginning of the First World War the company suffered considerable losses in sales. Heinrich Hermann was drafted into military service. His wife Christine took over the management of the company. Always with the support of her husband Heinrich who constantly guided operations from afar and on visits home. In 1918 Heinrich Hermann coordinated the takeover of the Adolph Krüger company whilst still a soldier in the war. He managed to keep the company despite the difficult circumstances. "The evil war is over." The times of reconstruction, characterised by price rises and wage increases. Heinrich Hermann reorganised his company. The sailing ship signet was also developed over the course this reorganisation in order to reinforce the brand concept.


Company on expansion course
Heinrich Hermann expanded the company, planned with foresight and demonstrated his innovative flair with continuous product developments even in the early 1920s. He survived the difficult years of high inflation, whilst also planning and implementing the construction of a new building in Stuttgart-Wangen. Even from 1929 to 1932 business was good in spite of the generally poor economic climate worldwide with 6 million unemployed in Germany.


The last stage of life
Being politically aware and with a social conscience, the by then 63 year old Heinrich Hermann had a mixed view of the National Socialists takeover of power in 1933. On the one hand, he clearly welcomed the new measures implemented to stabilise the economy and fight mass unemployment. On the other hand, the increasing isolation of the country, together with the restriction of liberties and the persecution of the Jews were never compatible with Heinrich Hermann's sense of internationalism and free, Christian beliefs.

Heinrich Hermann continued to manage HERMA up to a few weeks before his death in 1939.

Whatever private time his work allowed him to have, Heinrich Hermann would spend with his wife and children. "Work is fun, but family life is even more fun". Heinrich Hermann had five children, two daughters and three sons.

The history of the photo corner and the history of photography are inseparable. The photo corner was an expression of Heinrich Hermann's creative spirit and of the growing photographic needs of a society, especially as more and more people were becoming dedicated to capturing their world in photographs. The photo corner was, without doubt, Heinrich Hermann's most important product idea and was the main sales earner of his company for several decades.


The first paper variants

It took another three years after 1926 before a standard product was developed from the first steps with the photo corners called "Original" and "Perfekt". It was in July 1929 when they finally obtained a patent for photo corners called "Favorit". Nobody had any idea then of the great significance this would have for the company. The commissioning of the first production machine thus heralded the start of the photo corner's triumphant campaign all over the world.


Breakthrough with Transparol

His unmistakable flair of innovation caused Heinrich Hermann to take notice when the "Wezet" range of transparent photo corners came on the market. He assiduously tried to develop an alternative or an even better version. "On February 18th 1930 I got the idea of embedding the cellophane between two paper layers ..." the new "Transparol" range came on the market in 1931. Extensive patent disputes with Wezet were won. Heinrich Hermann started the production of Transparol immediately on four machines. In 1935 Heinrich Hermann was achieving approximately half the turnover with Transparol photo corners.


Photo corners the world over

The years of the Second World War fortunately spared the machines and raw materials. After the war there were material acquisition problems. Barter transactions were made, for example, with the French occupation zone, when "warehouse goods to a value of 7,200 Reichsmarks were exchanged for four tons of paper for photo corner." In 1954 self-adhesive photo corners could be manufactured thanks to the development of adhesive gum in the HERMA laboratories. Sold under the brand name Transparol, these soon became a great sales success in Germany, the Benelux countries, Spain, Italy and Austria.

Today HERMA photo corners still bear the name Transparol and are part of the HERMA range of mounting aids.

As the eldest son of the company's founder, Heinrich Hermann, Eberhard Hermann succeeded as managing director. His brothers Werner and Heinrich Hermann jr. took over the management of HERMA after he was killed shortly before the end of the war in 1945.


The successors of Heinrich Hermann

In 1945 Werner Hermann returned from the Second World War at the age of 25. A few weeks later he started work in the family business that was from then on to become his lifework. As the managing director of HERMA, Werner Hermann was on his own in finding the way ahead for the company. This he did with resolve and openness to the world and following the Christian tradition of his father.

Heinrich Hermann jr. was held in an English prisoner of war camp until March 1947. In 1953 he decided to join the company as joint managing director at the age of 38. With his critical insight and forethought Heinrich Hermann jr. made a substantial contribution to improving HERMA's strategic position. He was a quiet and reserved man.


Building after the war years

Before Werner and Heinrich took over the management, the responsibility for the company weighed on the shoulders of their mother, Christine. This was particularly during the war years. By the end of the war only 60 employees remained of the original number of around 200. All this changed for the better after the currency reform of June 1948. The increased demand also caused staff numbers to increase beyond 200.

HERMA's fiftieth anniversary was celebrated in 1956.

In 1961 HERMA already had 610 employees. With the continuous expansion of capacity the number of employees grew to over 1,000 by 1970. The growth in the number of employees also called for an increase in working space. In 1950 HERMA completed a new factory building with 1,000 square metres. In 1959 the company purchased two hectares of building land in Bonlanden auf den Fildern and in 1961 the topping out ceremony was held for the new factory with 3,700 square metres of floor space. In 1965 HERMA opened a new production plant in Deizisau and already started planning Bonlanden II where new land had been purchased in Bonladen. Building work was started in 1972.


HERMA worldwide

Werner and Heinrich jr. jointly continued the expansion strategy of their father and were able to draw benefit from the economic developments in Western Europe. They were both in agreement on the importance international expansion course for the company. The first export orders from Switzerland came as early as 1947. In 1949 export deliveries were made to Belgium and Holland. By 1968 the exports already made up 25.8 percent of company turnover. The most important export countries in order were then Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and France. Good business connections were also made in Asia, particularly in Japan. In 1971 HERMA FRANCE started sales operations.

Werner and Heinrich Hermann jr. managed HERMA jointly until the end of 1975 when Heinrich left the company. The human and business qualities of the two brothers complemented each other in an extraordinary way. The energy and vision of Werner Hermann were active features of HERMA until 1981.

In the early seventies the wide range of service areas in operation made it necessary to restructure the company. HERMA was organised into the Paper Goods, Labelling Systems and Self-adhesive Materials divisions, these being based on the existing sales channels. As an outside manager who was close to the family, Werner Röhm started working at HERMA in 1973. In 1976 he took up the post as representative managing director and from 1982 became sole managing director. The divisional managers were later included in the company management.


Practical crisis management
Apart from all the strategic tasks, such as the organisation of the management and the development of the accountancy area, many real challenges had to be dealt with all the time. For example, in 1973 the first joint meeting was held towards the end of the oil crisis, when the central question was how long the oil supply would last in winter before the coating plant had to be shut down. It was also necessary to tackle the first declining area for manual price marking and compensate this with other products. In later years this also applied to continuous computer labels.


New management principles
The introduction of a coordination group that was very unusual for its time and for the company's size of around 1,000 employees is evidence of HERMA's progressive philosophy. This management system, that is still running today, is a broad-based decision-making body with clear areas of responsibility. On the basis of these management and decision making principles, HERMA has successfully continued to develop as a modern, competitive and internationally operating company.


Development into the modern large scale concern
Thanks to a motivated workforce, the new clearly defined management principles and decision-making structures, HERMA was able to master the challenges of commercial globalisation as a self-standing traditional company.

In the eighties and nineties HERMA was able to further extend its leading position as an innovative company. For example, UV acrylic dispersion technology was introduced in 1995. In 1999 HERMA was the first manufacturer of adhesive materials in the world to introduce curtain coating technology.

As a prerequisite and support for continued independent development, the modern legal form was chosen in 2001. The interests of the shareholders are brought together in the HERMA-Holding GmbH + Co KG. HERMA GmbH is responsible as 100% subsidiary for operational business.

HERMA is now internationally recognised with its wealth of know-how. Out of the small workshop in Stuttgart has grown a leading edge specialist for self-adhesive technology.