“Hertwig Heat Treat”-On the Road to Cologne
As most heat treaters know this week sees the two largest heat treat shows of 2026, “Furnaces North America” in Indianapolis, IN, USA and “HK26” the European heat treat show in Cologne, Germany.
Because of this conflict Jordan Montgomery of “The Monty” headed west to “FNA” and Gord Montgomery headed east to Cologne, Germany.
As it turns out the trip to Cologne was interrupted by a very interesting visit to “Hertwig GmbH” one of the larger commercial heat treaters in Germany and a heat treat which bears the distinction of processing more heat treat orders in a single year than any other heat treater on the continent-a true fact.
This family owned business was founded in 1993 and now has two locations in Germany with the main one being in “Lüdenscheid”, the facility which Gord Montgomery and Joern Rohde of furnace builder “Rohde” visited October 12th.
One of the most recent additions which caught our eye was a very new, automated sealed quench (batch IQ) line provided by Ipsen of Kleve, Germany. In total, the system has 3 high heat furnaces each with larger than average working dimensions (in particular height) and multiple tempers, washers and 2 endothermic generators.
The first part of the install was completed in 2019, with an additional furnace added in 2020 with further additions planned for the near future.
While we all hear stories about the industrial slowdown in Germany, it would appear that Hertwig, by a lot of foresight has found business to be good-mainly because the firm has a customer base covering many industries and because of their continuing investment in new, state of the art equipment.
How does the company compare to other European commercial heat treaters in terms of annual sales? That is not a question we can answer with certainty but we can say that with two locations and over 100 employees it is will certainly rank amongst the 10 largest in Germany and in the top 20 in Europe.
