History of the Frontinus Society

In the 1950s and 1960s (i.e. after the end of the Second World War), there was a clear disenchantment with history in Germany, since the memory of recent events was too painful to deal with. Moreover, during these years of economic up-swing, people had their hands full rebuilding the country and creating a degree of prosperity. However, at the beginning of the 1970s, a period of social upheaval began, which was responsible for kickstarting the need to return to history. People began to see that the impact of our actions also had increased significantly.

This famous quote by Wilhelm von Humboldt was adopted by nine scholars who met on 16 October 1976 in the "Professorenstübchen" in the Haus der Technik in Essen. They set up a technical-historical society, the Frontinus Gesellschaft.

The task of the Frontinus Society was to promote knowledge about the history of water and energy supply technology as well as pipeline technology. The Frontinus Society has been successfully fulfilling this task for more than 40 years now.

The history of the Frontinus Society was published in the proceedings of the conference that celebrated its 40th anniversary. This international Frontinus Symposium was held in Trier in 2016 and can be read here .