Orenstein and Koppel GmbH
Encyclopedia
Orenstein & Koppel was a major German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 company specialising in railway vehicles, escalators, and heavy equipment. It was founded on April 1, 1876 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel.

Originally a general engineering company, O&K soon started to specialise in the manufacture of railway vehicles. The company also manufactured heavy equipment and escalator
Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...

s. O&K pulled out of the railway business in 1981. Its escalator-manufacturing division was spun off to the company's majority shareholder at the time, Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...

, in 1996, leaving the company to focus primarily on construction machines. The construction-equipment business was sold to New Holland Construction
New Holland Construction
New Holland is a global full liner manufacturer of construction machinery.The company was founded in 1895 in New Holland, Pennsylvania; in 2005 New Holland Construction Brand was created with a global full-liner product offering...

, at the time part of the Fiat Group, in 1999.

Founding and railway work

The Orenstein & Koppel Company was a mechanical-engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

 firm that first entered the railway-construction field, building locomotives and other railroad cars.

First founded in 1892 in Schlachtensee
Schlachtensee
Schlachtensee is a lake in the south west of Berlin, in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough , on the edge of the Grunewald forest. The lake lends its name to the surrounding area and to the nearby Studentendorf Schlachtensee, a student residence...

, in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin, and known as the Märkische Lokomotivfabrik, the O&K factories expanded to supply the Imperial German Army
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...

 under Kaiser Wilhelm II with field-service locomotives, or Feldbahn
Feldbahn
A Feldbahn is the German term for a narrow gauge railway, usually not open to the public, which in its simplest form provides for the transportation of agricultural, forestry and industrial raw materials such as wood, peat, stone, earth and sand...

. O&K supplied all manner of railway equipment to the Army. Because of strained capacity at the Schlachtensee shops, work transferred in 1899 to a site in Nowawes, later Babelsberg, near Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

. Around 1908, O&K acquired the firm of Gerlach and König in Nordhausen, building petrol and diesel locomotives there under the trade mark "Montania".

Diversification

O&K expanded to build freight and passenger cars, and above all, excavators for construction. The company also built other heavy equipment, including grader
Grader
A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, a blade, a maintainer, or a motor grader, is a construction machine with a long blade used to create a flat surface. Typical models have three axles, with the engine and cab situated above the rear axles at one end of the vehicle and a third...

s, dump trucks, forklift truck
Forklift truck
A forklift is a powered industrial truck used to lift and transport materials. The modern forklift was developed in the 1920s by various companies including the transmission manufacturing company Clark and the hoist company Yale & Towne Manufacturing...

s, compressors, crawler loaders, wheeled loaders, road roller
Road roller
A road roller is a compactor type engineering vehicle used to compact soil, gravel, concrete, or asphalt in the construction of roads and foundations, similar rollers are used also at landfills or in agriculture.In some parts of the world, road rollers are still known colloquially as steam...

s, and truck cranes.

The company also began manufacturing escalators, transmissions, rapid-transit railway lines, buses, tractors, and cargo ships. Passenger liners, shipboard cranes, and shipbuilding enterprises rounded out the company's profile. Because of the company's thriving export business, a worldwide system of branch offices was created.

In the early years of the 20th century, O&K built bucket chain trencher
Trencher (machine)
A trencher is a piece of construction equipment used to dig trenches, typically for laying pipes or cables, or for drainage. Trenchers may range in size from walk-behind models, to attachments for a skid loader or tractor, to very heavy tracked heavy equipment.-Types:Trenchers come in different...

s, at first from wood, and—after 1904—completely from steel. These were propelled by steam or oil engines. O&K also made railway trenchers for work in heavy soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

s.

In the First World War, O&K built railway engines and cars of all sizes for the German government. With the collapse of Imperial Germany in November 1918, the victorious Allies
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...

 put further restrictions on German manufacturing and military capacity, seizing all army Feldbahn engines as per the terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the First World war. The treaty also removed access to export markets; at the end of 1925, work stopped for three months as a result of the lost business. By 1935, business had recovered and the company produced 5,299 locomotives. After the war, O&K's American subsidiary, the Orenstein-Arthur Koppel Company, was seized by the Alien Property Custodian
Alien Property Custodian
An Alien Property Custodian was an office within the Government of the United States during World War I and again during World War II, serving as a Custodian of Enemy Property to property that belonged to US enemies.-World War I:...

 and sold at an auction where only United States citizens were allowed to place bids.

Besides the Feldbahn contacts, the company produced Series 50 steam locomotives and standard rail gauge
Rail gauge
Track gauge or rail gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the heads of the two load bearing rails that make up a single railway line. Sixty percent of the world's railways use a standard gauge of . Wider gauges are called broad gauge; smaller gauges, narrow gauge. Break-of-gauge refers...

 vehicles in the 1930s. The company produced diesel locomotives, and Series 44 and Series 50 steam engines, for the national railway company, Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft
The Deutsche Reichsbahn – was the name of the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the German Empire following the end of World War I....

.

In 1922 they manufactured their first continuous-track steam shovel
Steam shovel
A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. They played a major role in public works in the 19th and early 20th century, being key to the construction of railroads...

. In 1926, diesel engines replaced steam engines; the company converted earlier steam units to diesel power as the need arose. O&K merged with a kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

-engine builder, selling the engines under the O&K banner.

Nazi era and the Second World War

At the Spandau
Spandau
Spandau is the fifth of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. It is the fourth largest and westernmost borough, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and along the western bank of the Havel, but the least populated.-Overview:...

 factory, O&K built cable-operated excavators and bucket-wheel excavators for use in the lignite coal mines of eastern Germany. Under the Aryanisation
Aryanization
Aryanization is a term coined during Nazism referring to the forced expulsion of so-called "non-Aryans", mainly Jews, from business life in Nazi Germany and the territories it controlled....

 scheme of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's Nazi Germany, the Orenstein family's shares in the company were forcibly sold in 1935; Orenstein and Koppel was placed under trust administration, and the Babelsberger works were taken over and renamed in 1941. O&K existed in name only, but more commonly used the abbreviation MBA (Maschienenbau und Bahnbedarf AG).

After heavy bomb attacks on Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 caused a fire in the company's plant-administration buildings, factory production minister Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

 redistributed work and factories around the country to lessen the risk from a single attack. For the remainder of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, no more locomotives were built in Berlin. Four hundred and twenty-one locomotives already under construction were shifted to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 to protect the existing factories. During the war, O&K provided 400 Class 52 locomotives.

East Germany

After the end of the war, the locomotive plant in Nordhausen went idle. Under the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

, O&K changed its name to the VEB Company, and resumed heavy mechanical manufacturing at Nordhausen, producing cable-operated excavator shovels, among other things.
By 1946, the Babelsberg factory resumed production of locomotive boilers, and one year later the plant delivered its first postwar locomotive.

The German Democratic Republic nationalised the railroads and rolling stock
Rolling stock
Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

 manufacturers. The O&K plants in Babelsberg were renamed the LOWA Lokomotiv Plant Karl Marx (LKM). The LKM became the sole manufacturer of diesel locomotives for the GDR, such as the large DRG V180. In the late 1950s, the plant developed steam and diesel engines for the Deutsche Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

 narrow-gauge railways, building approximately 4,160 engines.

Construction of steam locomotives ended in 1969, leaving diesel-hydraulic locomotives as the company's priority. The company's last diesel locomotive was the DB Class V 60
DB Class V 60
The DB Class V 60 is a German diesel locomotive operated by the Deutsche Bundesbahn and later, the Deutsche Bahn AG , which is used particularly for shunting duties, but also for hauling light goods trains. Seventeen locomotives were bought used by the Norwegian State Railways and designated NSB...

D, manufactured until 1976.
Over the course of 30 years as LKM, the company produced approximately 7,760 locomotives; about a third of that number were manufactured for export.

By 1964, the company had expanded into air-conditioning and refrigeration technology.

West Germany

In West Germany, the enterprise resumed operation after World War II in 1949 under the name Orenstein & Koppel AG, with headquarters in Berlin. In 1950, it incorporated under that name after merging with the Lübecker Crane Company. After the construction of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 in 1961, the head office moved to Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

.

By the mid-1970s, the enterprise had grown steadily. In 1972, O&K had five working plants: West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

, Dortmund, Hagen
Hagen
Hagen is the 39th-largest city in Germany, located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne, Volme and Ennepe meet the river Ruhr...

, Hattingen
Hattingen
Hattingen is a German town located in northern part of the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis district, in North Rhine-Westphalia.-History:Hattingen is located on the south bank of the River Ruhr in the south of the Ruhr region. The town was first mentioned in 1396, when the Duke of Mark granted permission to build...

/Ruhr, and Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

; it maintained a central spare-parts service in Bochum
Bochum
Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...

. That year, the company had 8,530 employees. The company had 24 business and sales offices in West Germany, and agencies on all five populated continents.

The West German company emphasised the manufacture of railroad cars and construction equipment, particularly excavators. In 1961, O&K manufactured Europe's first series of fully hydraulic excavators. They manufactured over 55,000 hydraulic excavators; more than 700 of those were rated at over 100 tons' service weight. O&K also manufactured the world's largest hydraulic excavator, at 900 tons' service weight with a shovel capacity of over 52 cubic metres (68 cu yd) and an engine output of 2,984 kilowatts (4,055 HP).

The company also diversified into escalator
Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...

 manufacturing.

Decline

After 1964, the railway-manufacturing unit was separated from the other production units.

The railway business was transferred to Bombardier
Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation is the rail equipment division of the Canadian firm, Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Transportation is one of the world's largest companies in the rail-equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. Its headquarters are in Berlin, Germany....

, which continues to manufacture rolling stock in Berlin. The Babelsberg site became an industrial park
Industrial park
An industrial park is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development...

.

The escalator-manufacturing division was sold to the company's majority shareholder at the time, Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...

, in 1996.

The construction-equipment business was sold to New Holland Construction
New Holland Construction
New Holland is a global full liner manufacturer of construction machinery.The company was founded in 1895 in New Holland, Pennsylvania; in 2005 New Holland Construction Brand was created with a global full-liner product offering...

, at the time part of the Fiat Group, in 1999.

External links

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