The excitation winding arrangement for an electric machine with salient poles includes flat, disc-shaped coils wound of flat conductors in a single layer with insulated turns. The flat conductors are impregnated with a hardenable compound and are hardened so that the coils form self-supporting structural components which are placed over the insulated pole shank without additional mounting devices and are held with spacing relative to each other as well as to the yoke and pole shoe.