Hahnemühle celebrates 437th birthday
While a well-known cola brand keeps its recipe safely in a safe, the papermakers at Hahnemühle use their old recipe books every day. The paper manufacturer celebrates its 437th birthday this year, making it more than 300 years older than the American beverage company.
Magic formula: Pure spring water
But at Hahnemühle, too, everything began with water on 27 February 1584, with pure spring water. Hahnemühle is the oldest paper mill in the world that has been producing at the same location with water from its own wells since its foundation. On 27 February 1584, the Duke of Brunswick granted the founding father Merten Spieß the right to set up a paper mill in Reylingehausen (Relliehausen) near Dassel in southern Lower Saxony. In the time that followed, the "Reylingehäusische Papiermühle" (Reylingehausen Paper Mill) grew at the foot of the Solling, and since 1886 it has borne the euphonious name Hahnemühle.
More than four centuries of passionate papermaking
In more than four centuries of uninterrupted manufacturing history, Hahnemühle has repeatedly invented new products and demonstrated entrepreneurial flair in the wide field of paper applications. It all began with writing and document papers, followed by artists' papers and, since 1883, high-purity papers for technical applications such as filtration. In the 1960s, Hahnemühle pioneered vegan artist papers without animal glues and in the 1990s invented FineArt inkjet papers for photo prints in museums and galleries, which are still the world leaders today. These days, the company is a system-relevant supplier of high-purity paper components for Covid19 tests and brings the finest stationery products to market with their unique papermaking DNA. With this long tradition and its firmly anchored claim to quality, innovation and culture, Hahnemühle has been represented in the "Brands of the Century" register since 2015. The paper manufacturer thus proudly joins the list of other world-famous brands - such as soft drink manufacturers.