1904: Offset printing - a piece of Offenbach's economic history

The anniversary

It is often said that the year 1904 belongs to science and technology. In this year, William Rubel invents the offset printing process in New Jersey, although it is not clear whether this was a deliberate or accidental discovery. In any case, Caspar Herrmann introduces the process in Germany in 1907. He had emigrated to the USA at the age of 18. From 1913 onwards, he drove forward the construction of web and sheet-fed offset presses at a company in Plauen.

From the end of the 19th century, the aim was to further accelerate text production and replace manual typesetting with mechanical processes. Various printing press manufacturers were formed in Germany. Among other things, two machine factories from Augsburg and Nuremberg merged in 1908 to form MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG).

When MAN wanted to introduce offset machine construction in 1920, Caspar Herrmann came to Augsburg as an instructor and specialist for this process. With his help, MAN's first web offset press was built in 1921. In 1931, Herrmann also solved the problem of offset printing without dampening: he bought a lithographic high-speed press from Offenbach-based Faber & Schleicher AG for printing trials, which he converted for his own purposes.

The beginnings

Born in 1771, Johann Nepomuk Franz Alois Senefelder writes plays in his free time as a young man. Publishers for his work were hard to find and printing was expensive. Senefelder decides to reproduce his plays himself. It was not the desire to develop a new printing process, but material necessity that forced Senefelder to look for a way to print his own plays quickly and cheaply.

He experimented with various possibilities. After many attempts, he practiced the etching technique on a smoothly polished Solnhofen limestone slab using a self-developed "black ink made from wax, tallow, soap, pine soot (derived from resinous components of spruce bark) and rainwater". These stone slabs are often used in Munich to cover hallways. By chance, he discovered that the stone surface not covered with his wax ink could be etched away with cutting water (nitric acid). The highly etched writing can be blackened with a letterpress pad and printed on paper.

In 1797, Senefelder drew on the polished stone with soap, poured gum water (gum arabic solution) over it and blackened the drawing with oil paint. The greasy areas caused by the soap take on the color, the rest of the stone remains white. Lithography, chemical lithography (planographic printing) is invented.
Senefelder's invention is used commercially for the first time from 1799 in Anton Andre's Offenbach "Notenfabrique" with great success.

The offset printing process

Offset means equalization. The offset printing process is an indirect flat printing process. The printing substrate is a metal plate to which the original is applied by means of photochemical coating. The print run is printed on a single or multi-color offset sheet-fed machine or an offset web press. First, the plate is attached to the plate cylinder and set up. By rotating the cylinders, the surface of the mounted printing plate is moistened by wiping rollers and inking rollers provide the inking. As with Senefelder's lithography, the printing process is based on the mutual repulsion of grease and water, i.e. the marked areas absorb ink and repel water, while the unmarked areas are moistened and do not absorb ink.

Offenbach's industrial history

In 1871, Louis Faber and Adolf Schleicher founded an "association business for the production of high-speed lithographic presses." In the same year, the Offenbach-based company develops its first printing press, the Albatros (photo above).

In 1911, Faber & Schleicher AG built the world's first sheet-fed rotary press for offset printing: the "ROLAND". Its name would later shape the MAN Roland brand - and become almost synonymous with offset. This model already used the principle of three cylinders of equal size. This system can be found in every modern offset press today. 1979 sees the merger of Roland Offsetmaschinenfabrik Faber & Schleicher, Offenbach, and the printing press division of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg to form MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG, Offenbach/Main. Today, the company is the world's second largest manufacturer of printing systems and world market leader in web offset.
In Offenbach, one of the company's main sites, the "Roland 700" is produced, a sheet-fed offset press for advertising and business stationery as well as packaging.

In memory of the pioneer

The International Senefelder Foundation is established in Offenbach on November 6, 1971 to mark the 200th birthday of Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography. Its purpose is to preserve the memory of the ingenious inventor, promote young artists and technicians, collect documents, objects and lithographs and organize or support exhibitions that serve the technology of lithography and its further development.