WesWorld

Repository for data pertaining to the subject. Includes freight forwarders and warehouse operators.

This concern was formed in 1912 as Badische-und-Rheinschiffahrts AG in Frankfurt to market and operate river shipping and warehousing services. In the years prior to the Great War branches were opened in Basle, Kehl, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Mainz, Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Antwerp and Rotterdam, and a fleet of thirty-four river vessels built up.

In the wake of the Great War the firm gave up ownership of its own river fleet but concentrated on freight forwarding and freight consolidation on behalf of other clients, using its branch network to foster the speedy transit of goods nationally and internationally. By 1928 the firm had no less than twenty-one branches across Germany and Switzerland; in subsequent years additional branches, including a number abroad, were added to the company network. The current style of the company was adopted in 1943.

To take advantage of the opportunities offered by the National Motorways network the firm established in 1938 Rhenus Kraftverkehr GmbH; this subsidiary operates long-distance goods lorries, supplementing the services of river and rail transport operators to reach new markets. In 1945 the firm organised Rhenus Lufttransport GmbH to enter the air cargo business, entering into special arrangements with Lufthansa and other airlines to reserve cargo space aboard regular and special flights.

Headquartered in the town of Kempten in the Allgäu region this firm was founded in 1930 by Thomas Dachser; its original business was the transport Allgäu cheese to the Rhineland region, and in 1934 the firm opened its first branch in Memmingen, a part of the Danube-Iller region. This was followed, four years later, by the opening of a branch in Neuss in the Rhineland; by that time the firm had become the leading road transport and freight forwarding company in the Allgäu region.

With the construction of the National Motorways system the firm was able to expand its operations across Germany, opening consolidation and distribution centres in central Thuringia, Saxony, Franconia, and the Austrian provinces. In 1944 it diversified into air freight forwarding, opening an air freight office at the Munich airport. The refrigerated transport of food products is a particular niche of the firm, which presently employs more than one thousand individuals in fifteen locations across the nation.

This firm was founded in 1890 by August Kuehne and Friedrich Nagel in Bremen, as a freight forwarding commission agency. Its original business was the import of cotton and the consolidation of freight shipments abroad on behalf of smaller firms in the region of Westphalia. Operations were expanded to the city of Hamburg in 1902, and to the Baltic ports in the years prior to the Great War. The firm maintained a network of correspondents in the principal trade centres of Europe and South America. Its activities were sharply curtailed by the Great War and in its aftermath the firm re-oriented its efforts to Nordmark and Russia, being among the first German firms to do business in the Russian Federation in the early 1920s.

In the early 1930s the firm diversified its activities and entered the field of road transport, operating heavy goods lorries both on a contract and a common-carrier basis. It remains one of the larger such firms operating in North Germany.

This concern was founded in July 1872 in Wien by Gottfried Schenker and two business partners, with the backing of the Wiener Bankverein. The firm was a pioneer in the field of freight consolidation or ‘groupage’, the idea of bringing together small consignments to a larger transport unit. Over time this evolved into a new, low-cost, high-speed transport system which made use of the combined strengths of rail, road and water transport.

In 1873, Schenker organized the first groupage consignment service from Paris to Vienna, transporting among others champagne, cognac, Bordeaux wines, fashion and other luxury items for Vienna's society. Subsequently, the service was expanded to include ironware, machinery and textiles from England and Germany. The firm expanded rapidly, with a branch being organised in Budapest in 1874 and through the remainder of the century a further thirty-two branch offices were opened in fourteen countries across Europe. Its fixed rates for carriage of goods established it as a leader in its field and the concern acquired an international reputation.

Such was the volume of the firm’s business that it entered the field of ocean shipping, utilising the port of Trieste to reach markets in North America; in 1912 it organised the Schiffahrts-Gesellschaft Austro-Americana and in 1913 opened its own branch in New York, the first outside Europe.

Though its business was curtailed by the Great War the firm survived, and re-established its network across the Danube basin. With the reunification of the Austrian provinces into the Reich the firm quickly moved into the nationwide market for freight consolidation services, developing close connections with the Reichsbahn.