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The Company EmblemsThe Arc and the Three Rings
Two emblems, two traditions: the Thyssen arc and the Krupp three rings are among the most famous company logos in German industrial history. Discover how both came about and what they stand for.
The Thyssen Arc
August Thyssen-Hütte AG – the company name readopted in 1953 in memory of the company's founder – introduces a new logo in April 1967, modeled on the pictorial marks common since the 1920s, which are generally based on circles, polygons and letter combinations. An "open T" developed from the first letter of the name Thyssen can be combined with the traditional marks of the companies acquired in the meantime, and thus meets the desire to demonstrate group affiliation externally at a time when most subsidiaries do not yet carry the word Thyssen in their company names. The logo is thus a first step toward making clear that the individual companies belong to the Thyssen group.
When August Thyssen-Hütte AG acquires a majority shareholding in Rheinstahl AG in 1973, it seems a matter of course that the new company will also use the Thyssen frame logo. In the course of a good two years of talks, however, the executive board of August Thyssen-Hütte AG is won over by the modernity and symbolic value of the Rheinstahl arc, and on January 12, 1976, it resolves "to introduce the Thyssen arc as the uniform logo for all domestic and foreign companies of the Thyssen group. It is intended to symbolize, so to speak, the 'arc over all Thyssen activities.'" In March 1976 the new logo appears for the first time on the cover of the employee magazine "Unsere ATH".
While the yellow "Rheinstahl" lettering is replaced by the blue "Thyssen" lettering, the arc is retained as a linking element for a changed, larger group. So it is that in 1976 two company identities are united in a single brand.
Founded in 1871, the Rheinische Stahlwerke has no logo of its own until the introduction of the Rheinstahl arc in 1958. In the early 1950s, the printing of the annual report for the years 1948 to 1953 gives rise to the wish for a company logo. Rheinstahl chooses the design of the Hamburg advertising graphic designer Schierning, who bases his drafts on the distinctive shape of the Rheinstahl pavilion at the German Industry Fair (Deutsche Industrie-Messe) in Hanover. In painstaking detail work, the combined word-and-image mark is then developed on this basis – its arc curves cannot be determined by a simple mathematical formula. As the colors of the logo, blue and yellow, the colors of the city of Essen, are chosen. The yellow Rheinstahl lettering on the blue arc is a tribute to the company's home city and headquarters, Essen.
The Krupp Rings
Since 1875, three rings have identified the products of the Krupp company worldwide – and at the same time they recall Alfred Krupp's invention of the seamlessly forged and rolled railway wheel tire, patented in Prussia in 1853.
Prior to 1875, Alfred Krupp initially marks his steel products with so-called steel marks to distinguish different qualities, and with embossed stamps such as "Krupp zu Essen" (1839), "Fr. Krupp bei Essen" (1840) or "Fr. Krupp bei Essen in Preußen" (1841). In later years the stamps read only "Fr. Krupp" or simply "Krupp". It is only the enactment of the Reich Trademark Protection Act of November 30, 1874, that prompts Alfred Krupp to develop a company mark of his own.
From the designs then drawn up, he chooses the three-ring emblem (Dreiringzeichen). It shows three double rings placed on top of each other in a pyramidal arrangement (not interlinked!), which are interpreted as the wheel tires of railway wheels.
On December 9, 1875, these three rings are registered for the first time with the Royal District Court (Königliches Kreisgericht) in Essen as the factory mark of the firm Fried. Krupp, "for steel and iron as well as steel and iron goods". Before World War I, the three-ring emblem is additionally protected in 56 foreign countries. In 1994 its protection in the original open form comes to an end. Until the merger with Thyssen AG, the more modern version with the solid black rings – which had already been filed under an additional trademark number on October 9, 1934 – is used.