MAN Roland: 100 years of precision from Offenbach
A brand has a birthday. It is recorded in Offenbach's economic history in capital letters. In 2011, one hundred years have passed since the first printing press with the type name "Roland" left the manufacturing plant. Its name would later be adopted by the entire plant.
This factory had already been in existence for around 40 years at the time. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War had driven the technicians Louis Faber and Adolf Schleicher out of Paris. The following year, they founded their "Associationsgeschäft zur Fabrikation von lithographischen Schnellpressen". They set up in Frankfurt, but they built in Offenbach, and from here they were soon in international business. The first export machine, which left for the Russian capital St. Petersburg in 1875, bore the type name "Albatros".
When the first "Roland" came onto the market in 1911 and was immediately awarded a gold medal at the Turin trade fair, the company changed its name to "Faber & Schleicher AG". In 1957, the successful product became part of the company name. This was now "Roland Offsetmaschinenfabrik Faber & Schleicher AG".
Faber had already died in 1896. Schleicher died in 1910. In 1979, their names were also to be buried in the archives. The name was changed again following the merger of the Offenbach-based company with the printing press division of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg, which had held a large shareholding for years. The company was now called "MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG Offenbach am Main". It remained so until 2008, since when we have known the name "manroland".
Only the technical literature remembers the romantic type names that preceded "Roland": Albatros, Faust, Gretel, Odin, Brunhild or Delfin. These were still lithographic presses, still very close to the technology that the inventor Alois Senefelder had developed for the music printer André in Offenbach around 1800. Faber and Schleicher were not the only ones to expand and push forward with new techniques and ever new designs, but they and their successors were always at the forefront of innovation. Their machines conquered the world. Many of the innovations that came out of this process bear the name "Roland" in their designation.
It was a nod to its origins that the company paid tribute to the 200th birthday of lithographic printing inventor Alois Senefelder rather than to itself on its centenary in 1971. Roland established an International Senefelder Foundation. Every three years, it awards an international Senefelder Prize for artistic achievements in the field of lithography and for its further development in planographic printing.
On a complicated path from lithography to high-tech offset, printing technology has moved away from the old Mr. Senefelder. It is also a long way from the "Roland" of 1911, but its name can be found on literally every continent in the print shops where Offenbach machines are in operation.
By Lothar Braun
published in the Offenbach Post