History

The name Humboldt Wedag refers to the two original companies which merged in 1972 to form a single vigorous and efficient company. HUMBOLDT, so named by its founders in honour of Alexander von Humboldt, the great German scientist, to whom the mining industry also owned a lot, was formed in 1856 as a factory for the manufacture of mining machinery, under the ownership of Sievers & Co. at Kalk near Deutz on the Rhine. In 1930, Peter Klöckner combined this undertaking with Motorenfabrik Deutz AG, which had been founded in 1864 by Nicolaus August Otto, the inventor of the four-stroke engine, together with Eugen Langen – the world’s first factory for internal combustion engines.

WEDAG evolved from the engineering workshop which Franz Dinnendahl established in 1800, from Eisenhütte Westfalia (an iron-works established in 1872) and from Maschinenfabrik Fr. Gröppel ( an engineering firm formed as an offshoot of a consultants firm set up in 1864). In 1930 these undertakings merged to form Westfalia Dinnendahl Gröppel AG, or WEDAG, at Bochum. The activities of the KHD works HUMBOLDT and of WEDAG were combined in 1972 under the name KHD Industrieanlagen AG and this was changed into KHD Humboldt Wedag AG in 1979.