1949, Order of the first forklift truck
1949, Order of the first forklift truck
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40 Years ago - 1979

A Revolution in Logistics

On December 28, 1949, Th. Goldschmidt AG ordered the first forklift for todays's Goldschmidtstrasse site. Today it is impossible to imagine logistics without themat the Evonik sites .

As so often happens, this revolutionary development also began with an administrative process, in this case a purchase order. On December 28, 1949, Th. Goldschmidt AG ordered a “Clark Truclift” with a load capacity of 900 kg for its Essen plant, today’s Goldschmidtstrasse site, for the princely sum of 15,000 Deutschmarks. This first forklift evidently proved worthwhile, revolutionizing transportation technology in such a positive way that by 1954 another four units had been purchased in Essen.

Around the mid-1950s, forklift trucks became an increasingly common sight at the sites of all companies. A lot has happened since then: Forklift trucks have become much larger and more powerful, as well as indispensable for Evonik’s warehouse logistics at sites around the world. Incidentally, forklift trucks had been invented in the USA in 1917 by the very company Clark that delivered the first one to Essen in 1949. However, by 1945 the technology had not yet gained acceptance in Germany.

More about the history of Evonik: