<p>Press release dated 25 August 2011 111 years specialty steel in Krefeld Deutsche Edelstahlwerke GmbH celebrates its anniversary this year</p><p>It was 1900 when Franz Burgers, Peters Glöckner, Carl Spaeter and August Thyssen set up Crefelder Stahlwerke AG for the production of tool steel. 111 years later the company is called Deutsche Edelstahlwerke GmbH, a modern high-tech enterprise that produces for the worldwide market. The product range of the Krefeld site includes so-called breaker plates for transmission components in wind turbines, dental alloys for metal frames in dental technology and cold rolls for producing films. Today, the 180,000 square meter large site in the Oberschlesienstraße has approx. 660 employees.</p><p>Even the company name reflects the long-standing tradition of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, as it had already been used in the company's past. In 1927 the Krefelder Stahlwerke AG merged with six other specialty steel companies to form Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG. For 48 years this name was kept and only changed in 1975 after the merger of the Krefelder and Wittener Edelstahlwerk to form Thyssen Edelstahlwerke AG. In 2007 the company was then given the name Deutsche Edelstahlwerke GmbH, following the merger with the Edelstahlwerke Südwestfalen GmbH. But it is not only the name that connects past and present. Today as much as back then the forging business forms the heart and core competency of the Krefeld site. Already back in 1901 the company with its 80 staff laid the foundation for the modern forging business of the 21st century in Krefeld with the investment into a volcanic forge with five steam-operated hammers. Today, the site of the press hall set up in 1957 is home to the forging machine RF70, one of the largest long forging machines in the world, and the open-die forging press. Both produce bar steel out of the cast raw block. In 2010 alone, around 100,000 tons of specialty steel were formed at these units.</p><p>Specialty steel - a material with past and future Not only the forging, but also the remelting operations were of great importance for the economic success of the Krefeld site. Renewed remelting of the steels in a vacuum arc remelting furnace (VAR furnace) or an electroslag remelting furnace (ESR plant) increases the purity and thus product quality. The first remelting steelwork with VAR furnace was commissioned in 1964 in Krefeld. This was followed in 1970 by the first ESR plant. The increased demand of high-quality specialty steels in this field resulted in an expansion of the production plants, so that currently, three VAR furnaces and three ESR systems are in operation in the Krefeld remelting steel plant. Up and down of the steel industry Economic ups and downs have repeatedly left their mark also in Krefeld. During the production of arms in the Second World War, the number of employees rose to 3,200. The demand of quality steel increased so rapidly that from 1930, crude steel was also produced in Krefeld. This is very different today: Once steel production was stopped again in the early nineties, crude steel is only melted now in the factories of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke located in Witten and Siegen. The steel crisis in the seventies also resulted in redundancies and restructuring. Only following takeover of the company by Schmolz + Bickenbach AG 2006, continuous investment politics were implemented, which also benefits the Krefeld site. For example, Deutsche Edelstahlwerke invested in two new VAR furnaces in 2008, in a new heavy-duty lathe for bar steel in 2009 with dimensions up to 1,250 mm diameter and seven metres length as well as in a new gun drilling machine. </p><p>Despite large investments in technology, Deutsche Edelstahlwerke GmbH are no longer a pure steel shop in 2011. Topics like environmental protection, occupational health and safety and training are integrated firmly into the corporate culture.</p>