Heinrich Ehrhardt (17 November 1840 in Zella St. Blasius - 20 November 1928 in Zella-Mehlis) was a German inventor, industrialist and entrepreneur.
Ehrhardt's uncle was the successful locomotive manufacturer and inventor Johann Heinrich Ehrhardt.
Around 1864, he studied and worked at the company Richard Hartmann in Chemnitz, which was the largest Saxon company.
He registered 128 patents in the German Empire. In 1891 he patented the process that became known as the "Ehrhardt's pressing and drawing method" for the manufacture of seamless tubes and used the process to manufacture shrapnel and shell casings from steel instead of cast iron, an innovative at the time.
He founded in 1878, among other things, a metal and arms factory in Zella St. Blasius, in 1889, the Rheinische Metallwaren- und Maschinenfabrik AG in Düsseldorf, in 1896, the Automobilwerk Eisenach and the Blasius 1903 Ehrhardt Automobil AG. He tended to conduct R&D at a small factory in Zella fully controlled by him, personally own the patents and license them to public companies he managed/co-owned, and the firms he was affiliated with made a very loose conglomerate; this fact negated the consequences of a hostile takeover of Rheinmetall by Krupp in 1913.[1]
In 1895, he was contacted former Krupp engineer Konrad Haussner, who patented the idea of an innovative quick-firing gun and wanted to continue designing a real one. Ehrhardt recognized the prospectives of the design, and Haussner's far-reaching hiring in 1896 turned Rheinmetall from an unexceptional ammunition manufacturer (which did not even make the fuses for shell) to a leading European arms manufacturer in a decade.
Despite the fact that the 1896 prototype was turned down by the German Artillery Testing Commission as not yet usable in the war (a simpler 7.7 cm FK 96 was adopted instead),[2] in 1900 Great Britain adopted Haussner's design as the QF 15-pounder gun (even though just as a stopgap measure), to be followed by Norway a year later with a gun which will participate in WWII. Later the United States Army Ordnance Department decided to buy the rights from Ehrhardt in order to combine them with an existing design by Captain Charles B. Wheeler in the 3-inch M1902 field gun, and the Austro-Hungarian Army followed suit with their 8 cm FK M. 5. The Artillery Construction Bureau of the Imperial German Army in Spandau did the same to develop the 7.7 cm FK 96 n.A. in 1904[3] with the only difference that Ehrhardt gave the patents for free in return for "favorable consideration when placing orders" for manufacturing the guns.[4]
In 1920, at the age of about 80, Ehrhardt resigned from the leadership of Rheinmetall.
Heinrich Ehrhardt taught in 1903 in his hometown of Zella St. Blasius. He created the Gustav Ehrhardt Automobile AG for passenger utility vehicles. This automobile factory, which was housed in the Maschinenfabrik has existed since 1878. Since 1903 trucks were built for the imperial army administration. From 1906, subsidized by the German Reich, only trucks were built. Purchasers had to establish that the army would have access to them in case of war. The Ehrhardt truck years had eleven types. Its gross vehicle weight ranged from 2.5 to 6 tons. A balloon defense special vehicle was built with eight tons dead weight at the start of the war. In 1924 two types of trucks were built with 35 hp and 80 hp. In 1925 the commercial vehicle industry was shut down.
Ehrhardt initially had 31.2 percent ownership in the joint-stock company vehicle factory Eisenach (FFE). This was the vehicle factory that became Germany's third auto maker. Guns and bicycles were manufactured under the "Wartburg" brand, and by the end of 1898 car production had begun under the same name. The Wartburg motor car was modeled after the French two-cylinder engine "Decauville". Ehrhardt's son Gustav led the plant in Eisenach. Its 1,300 workers made the firm one of Thuringia's largest.
In order to convince the public and shareholders of the quality of the "Wartburg"-Motorwagens, Heinrich Ehrhardt and a companion drove up a steep road to show that the car could handle the climb.
In 1903, Ehrhardt withdrew after losses and disagreements other shareholders. The Decauville license was taken away. He founded Ehrhardt Automobil AG, making luxury cars, such as the "Emperor class" limousine. A brochure from 1911 shows an output of 50 hp from 8 liters capacity. The price was 26,000 marks.