As far back as 1866, on January 6, 22 entrepreneurs from Baden started the “Gesellschaft zur Ueberwachung und Versicherung von Dampfkesseln mit dem Sitze in Mannheim” – “Association for the Control and Insurance of Steam Boilers with headquarters in Mannheim”.

Factory owner Karl Selbach became the first president of the Association. The association was created in response to the accident that took place a year earlier in the “Zum Grossen Mayerhof” brewery. A crack in the steam boiler used at the time led to an explosion in which one person lost his life and even several people were injured.

A trained technician could, very simply, have found the defect and prevented the accident. However, there was no regular control, and the working staff was not aware of the dangers that may arise when using the boiler. Unfortunately, this was not the only such case, and the number of workers who used steam boilers grew rapidly.

The then government of the Grand Duchy of Baden, as well as potentially affected industrialists, supported the establishment of the Association. Their goal was to prevent future accidents by introducing regular control. This model proved to be successful and the foundation of the Association in Meinheim became, in fact, only the starting point of the entire technical control in Germany.