History (en-GB)

All Lindemann machines were produced exclusively in Osnabrück between 1913 and 1931.

The founding years

Waldemar's father Robert Lindemann was granted permission to build a mechanical workshop as far back as 1893. The apple did not fall far from the tree: For his Lindemann company, Waldemar worked together with his father to develop various baling presses for paper and cardboard, both mechanically and electrically driven, from 1913 onwards. In 1919, Waldemar began the development and construction of baling presses independently of his father.

Hydraulic scrap baling press "Asper"

The world’s first metal recycling machine entered the market

Waldemar tried to gain a foothold in the scrap processing industry a few years later. His father's hydraulics expertise was invaluable in this respect. This expertise was successfully put to use when the world's first hydraulically operated scrap press was developed. Lindemann delivered it to a customer in England in 1923, five years following the death of Robert Lindemann. It helped the company make its international breakthrough. With the rise of industrialization, the volume of scrap metal that needed to be packaged for transport to the smelting furnace also increased. This was followed by the first mobile scrap press in 1926 and the first end press. Lindemann began building its first large machines at the end of 1928. The "Asper" hydraulic scrap press already measured six meters at the time.

Assembly hall scrap press

LINDEMANN represented on each Scrap Yard Europe-wide

LINDEMANN machines could be found in all the scrap yards of Europe in the 1930s. Among other things, Lindemann built and supplied "chip mills" as well as various sized scrap baling presses - for scrap yards as well as for steel mills or small, metal processing companies. These were used, for example, for briquetting sheet metal strips and metal chips. Furthermore, the first scrap shears came into the market. Alligator shears, as they were called, constituted the first model of shears, of which 1,200 were sold worldwide over the next 30 years. 1931 saw Lindemann move production from Osnabrück to Düsseldorf to the premises of Oeking AG, on Erkrather Strasse.

Old drawings made a new start possible

The time shortly before and particularly during World War II was traumatic, as it had been for many manufacturing companies in Germany. The company in the form that Waldemar founded it no longer existed. The LINDEMANN factory found itself being misused for the production of munitions. It was closed by the Allies at the beginning of 1946. It was initially supposed to be dismantled, a decision that was abandoned. Instead, all construction drawings were confiscated.

Thankfully, Waldemar's brother Kurt Lindemann's company in Cologne still had drawings that made a new start possible. They founded the Gesellschaft zur Konstruktion Bau Hydraulischer Pressenanlage Lindemann mbH between 1947 and 1948, which was renamed Lindemann Pressenbau GmbH Köln in 1949.