WesWorld

In 1871 invoice book manufacturer and mechanic Louis Leitz established in Stuttgart-Feuerbach a workshop for the production of metal parts for office equipment. In 1911 Leitz improved the invention of Friedrich Soennecken and produced the modern three-ring binder with finger hole to permit the easy removal of the binders from shelves. The firm manufactures a wide variety of office supplies and equipment, including the ubiquitous foldback-klammer (binder clip), which it introduced to Europe in 1912 (the clip having been patented in the United States in 1910 by Louis Baltzley).

By 1913 the firm had branches in Berlin, Leipzig, Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Paris, while the factory in Stuttgart-Feuerbach employed more than one thousand workers. In the wake of the Great War the firm went through a period of retrenchment but emerged in the late 1920s as one of the leading purveyors of office supplies to German commerce and industry. Particular emphasis has been made to win markets in south-eastern Europe in cooperation with local partners.