Zeitenwenden

Just over two years ago, the ground-breaking ceremony for HENSOLDT’s new building took place on the building plot in industrial park Spilburg. Only 14 months later, the company commenced their business activities in the new building. Today, we are back again and note: HENSOLDT has settled in and is already thinking one step ahead.

When selecting the “Word of the Year” in 2022, the Association for the German Language chose the term “Zeitenwende” (“historic turning point”). The geopolitical contexts and impacts associated with this concept should be well known. Michael Menges, the new site director of HENSOLDT in Wetzlar, is often confronted with this issue. Evidently: HENSOLDT ranks among the leading enterprises in the defence technology industry and is currently booming, something that would have been unthought of only a couple of years before. However, Menges says, the decision to invest in a newly constructed building at their site in Wetzlar had already been taken in the spring of 2021. “At that time, the group decided to enlarge the Wetzlar site as part of the growth strategy. With an eye to a future of which nobody knew yet what it would look like. And with an eye to our provenance which is of course closely connected with Wetzlar.”

HENSOLDT in Wetzlar – in retrospect and today

A historical engraving of the HENSOLDT factory in Wetzlar’s Gloelstraße is hung up on one wall of the modern conference room where we meet with Michael Menges. The picture is reminiscent of Moritz Hensoldt who lent his name to the enterprise when he established his optical factory for telescopes and astronomical instruments here in the 1860s. Along with Ernst Leitz and Carl Kellner, Hensoldt was one of the pioneers who contributed to Wetzlar becoming one of the most important centers for optics and precision mechanics in Germany. “This still holds true,” Michael Menges says enthusiastically. “And that’s also why we find the absolutely best conditions as a production site of HENSOLDT Optronics Division here in Wetzlar.”

HENSOLDT’s new building in industrial park Spilburg includes production and administration buildings with a total floor space of 6,500 m2. The climate-neutral industrial complex with photovoltaic and geothermal installations provides a modern work environment for 120 employees. Michael Menges does not only manage the site but also holds responsibility for the business domain “Sights” located there. The domain encompasses hand-held gunner sights and optronic devices as well as optics for armored combat vehicles. It also includes calibrating instruments for aligning gun barrels (so-called boresighting). The product portfolio ranges from residual light and thermal imaging devices for use on handguns to fire control systems for shoulder-launched weapons or panoramic periscopes as well as auxiliary sights and driver vision systems for armored vehicles. All products are developed and produced in Wetzlar.

Enormous technical possibilities and highest requirements

Michael Menges doesn’t have any difficulties talking about such sophisticated defence technology systems. After all, he has served as reserve officer in the German Armed Forces for more than half of his life. For nearly just as long, he has been working in leadership positions at various enterprises of the armaments industry. He regards every product made by his company with the eye of the manufacturer but also from the perspective of the user. In view of the complexity of modern defence technology systems, it is essential to thoroughly understand the functional principle and the interaction of the individual components. A key factor to that is the successful system integration of various technologies, subsystems, and processes.

For the domain “Sights”, this means: Classical optical or optomechanical sighting systems have to endure extreme conditions, for example, when acceleration forces are acting with up to 800g upon launching an anti-tank rocket or over the whole life-cycle of a machine gun which will be fired 50,000 times with a force of 450g each. The drivers of tanks or other combat vehicles view their environment through precision-stabilized electro-optical (EO) or infrared (IR) camera systems. Night-vision attachments or thermal imaging devices, on the other hand, use cameras and laser sensors to gather image information while reflecting valuable data on a display. “The technical possibilities are enormous,” states Michael Menges. “Accordingly, the requirements put on our products for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition are high. In a combat scenario, their quality, excellence, and reliability are essential for survival.”

Long-term prospects at the wetzlar site

To ensure that they are able to dependably provide this quality, HENSOLDT intends to increase the vertical range of manufacture at the Wetzlar site in future. In order to do so, they need qualified and skilled professionals above all else – from mechatronics engineers to development engineers. A major part of the constructional elements and components are purchased from German companies. And of course, HENSOLDT also benefits from the collaboration with partners in the Wetzlar region, as Michael Menges points out: “That way, we succeed in achieving the highest standards in quality assurance and maintenance and can rely on stable supply chains. For, in our extremely sensitive business sector, the origin of components is not only an economic decision but also a highly political one.”

Meanwhile, there is talk of a “second Zeitenwende” – probably not another “Word of the Year”. But it will very likely be registered in HENSOLDT’s book of commissions. Around 8,000 gunner sights per year leave the production halls in Wetzlar. And rising. The company is already entertaining the idea of enlarging the Wetzlar site further. “We cannot take decisions overnight but have to plan far in advance,” Michael Menges points out. “The essential key aspects of our growth strategy rest on establishing a future-proof portfolio, advancing the technological development by means of corresponding centers of competence, and holding the production capacities available in the individual business domains. Also in Wetzlar.”

www.hensoldt.net

HENSOLDT in Wetzlar

Founded in Sonneberg / Thuringia in 1852, Moritz Hensoldt took up residence in Wetzlar with his optical workshop in 1865. Carl Zeiss and his company had already been based in Jena since 1846. Both men are regarded as pioneers and groundbreakers in optics. At the beginning of the 1920s, HENSOLDT was converted into a joint-stock company; from 1928, the foundation-owned company Carl Zeiss acquired the majority of stocks, joining the competencies of two outstanding optical enterprises. From then on, the employees of HENSOLDT Optronics and Zeiss have been working under the same roof in the company building in Wetzlar’s Gloelstraße. With their decision to invest in the Wetzlar site as part of their growth strategy, HENSOLDT writes a new chapter in the company’s history which is so richly steeped in tradition. Business activities commenced in 2024 in the newly constructed building in industrial park Spilburg.