In a smaller setting and over shorter distances, we came together all the more quickly this year. This year, discussions with our customers and business partners focused primarily on the topics of transformation and sustainability as well as the development of our industry in the current challenging political and economic situation. 

We are particularly pleased about this year's Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Award winner, Dr.-Ing. Joachim Georg Wünning (Managing Partner of WS-Wärmeprozesstechnik GmbH in Renningen near Stuttgart). The Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Prize honors his development of flameless oxidation (Flox). Together with his father, Dr. Joachim Alfred Wünning, he developed this technology to series maturity and subsequently introduced it into practice (e.g. in recuperative burners with high combustion efficiency).

In numerous groundbreaking lectures and contributions, Dr. Wünning has presented concrete approaches to decarbonization (including "Emission-free heating of heat treatment furnaces"). He also contributes his scientific knowledge through his extensive involvement in the AWT's technical committees and in the Forschungsgemeinschaft Industrieofenbau FOGI.

Overview of the award winners

The war and the resulting great suffering in Ukraine prompted us to make our annual donation to the affected local people. BURGDORF and NUSSLE support with € 5,000 each the aid organization STELP e.V.  in Stuttgart, which helps the people in need with aid activities under very difficult conditions.

Happy to be able to talk to each other in person again, standing together and exchanging ideas. That was also the unanimous feedback we received from the trade fair. It was great!

We are very happy about this year's Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Award winner, Mr. Dipl.-Ing. Wolfram Schmid from the Berufsgenossenschaft/ Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung e.V.! As a member and head of the AWT's Fachausschuss 8 "Safety in Heat Treatment Plants", Wolfram Schmid played a major role in revising the "Safety Recommendations for the Operation of Industrial Furnaces with Process Gas Atmospheres", which are very important for the industry. In addition, he and his management team support heattreatment shops in the implementation of occupational and operational safety through seminars, training courses and practical aids such as checklists and action aids. This valuable work, in which theoretical knowledge is put into practice anew every day and heattreatment shops are made safer, is highly deserving the Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Award.

Overview Award winner

After a break of 2 years, this year's HärtereiKongress will return to Cologne as a presence trade fair from October 11 - 13, 2022. We are again represented with a booth with the bonGroup and look forward to your visit!

You will find us in hall 10.2 at booth C-040 / C-042.

Also we would like to welcome you again to the reception of the AWT and the ceremony of the Karl-Wilhelm-Burgdorf-Award on the evening of October 12 at 6 pm.

Another exceptionally challenging year comes to an end with great uncertainty. As in the previous year, hopes and worries alternated. More than ever, we are challenged to stand up for our social coexistence and solidarity. The economic and social turbulence has also accompanied us through 2021 and will probably remain with us well into the coming year 2022.

A year ago, we asked ourselves what the following weeks might hold for us in the new year 2021. Weeks have become months; a year and the uncertainty has remained.

Nevertheless, we are in good spirits and very confident that we can successfully master the challenges.

We wish you a merry and blessed Christmas and a new happy year 2022 - stay healthy!

Instead of presents and gifts we donate and support with € 7.500,- the Stuttgart Johannes Falk Haus (residential home and help center for young people in need) and with € 5.000,- the Youth Research Center in Nagold.

In this exceptional year, instead of gifts, we are once again supporting two institutions in the Stuttgart and Nagold regions with a donation of €5,000 each.

The association "fürs Käpsele e.V.- Freunde helfen Kindern aus Stuttgart", which was founded in 2020, supports children from financially underprivileged families with the aim of giving them hope and the chance to be an equal part of our society.

For 9 years, the "Förderverein Stationäres Hospiz Region Nagold e.V." has made it its task to create a home for seriously ill people in their last phase of life, in which they can be cared for medically and pastorally according to their needs in a familiar environment.

Due to the infectious disease COVID-19, the HärtereiKongress 2020 takes place from 21 to 22 October as an online event.

The series of lectures can be attended on both days as webinars. In parallel, a freely accessible virtual trade fair will be set up on the website www.hk-awt-2020.de. We are represented on this trade fair platform and look forward to your contacting us via chat or video.

We are promoter and sponsor of the AWT and are pleased to be able to support our association in difficult times.

At the member's conference of the AWT on October 20, 2020, our managing partner Dipl.-Ing. Rainer Braun was appointed to the managing board of the AWT. This is a great honor and a huge leap of faith in challenging times.

Unfortunately, the Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Prize will not be awarded in 2020, as the events accompanying the trade fair cannot take place in the usual form and we want to give the recipient of the prize the honor of receiving his prize at an official ceremony. The award ceremony will therefore be postponed until 2021.

Just in time for the HK 2020 we are pleased to supply the new heat treatment furnace at the IWT with our High-Performance Quenching Oil DURIXOL W72. 

We miss you personally! We would like to meet you virtually at our digital booth, via chat or video as you like.

We support the Stuttgart Child Protection Centre (KISZ) and the Child Protection Association in Nagold as part of the annual Christmas donation campaign.

The Child Protection Centre in Stuttgart is a counselling and crisis centre for children and young people affected by violence. The donation of 7.500,- € will be used for the design of a "Snoezelen room" in the new shelter in the therapy garden of the KISZ, which is also new. There the children and adolescents will find a place of retreat to relax and recover in addition to their therapeutic work.

At the Child Protection Association in Nagold, children and youths between the ages of 6 and 16 are looked after in socio-pedagogical day groups on behalf of the youth welfare office and their parents. The existing rooms in the Old Mill are being renovated as part of an enlargement. With our donation of 5.000,- € the rooms can be equipped with new furniture. In addition, we support the existing media pedagogical concept by purchasing digital equipment such as laptops and printers.

This year's 75th HärtereiKongress 2019 in Cologne fully met our expectations, but was also affected by current global economic and political uncertainties. A time in which it is all the more important to conduct an intensive and above all personal dialogue with our customers, partners and companies in the industry. Our stand presence at a new location was very well received by the visitors and demonstrated the continuing importance of the event for our company group.

We are very proud about this year's winner of the Karl-Wilhelm-Burgdorf-Prize, Dr.-Ing. Volker Heuer from ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH. His numerous publications and work on the subject of low-pressure carburizing technology and high-pressure gas quenching as well as the practical implementation within the framework of the development of corresponding modern plants make Dr. Heuer a worthy prize winner.

The Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Prize, named after our company founder and donated for the first time in 2007 by his successor Dipl.-Kfm. Hannes Burgdorf is awarded to AWT members who have put scientific discoveries into practice in an extraordinary way and who have given impulses to materials technology and heat treatment. The prize which has meanwhile been taken over by our company BURGDORF GmbH & Co. KG is endowed with 5,000 euros and is handed over by the chairman of the AWT at a ceremony during the HärtereiKongress in Cologne.

This year's award winner is Dr. Volker Heuer, ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH.

Overview of the previous award winners / Award certificate