Edmund Heckler

Edmund Heckler (1906 to 1960) was a German engineer and weapons manufacturer born in Tuttlingen. After an apprenticeship at the Mauser company in Oberndorf he studied at the Württemberg State Higher Mechanical Engineering School in Esslingen from 1925, then worked at Hugo Schneider AG, a metal processing and armaments company with about 50,000 employees. He began there as a senior engineer, soon became one of the firm's authorized officers and was tasked with setting up branch plants in Leipzig, Berlin, Taucha and Altenburg. On 28 December 1949, together with two other Mauser engineers, Theodor Koch and Alex Seidel, he founded Heckler and Koch, which grew into one of the most important German arms manufacturers of the postwar period.