Susanna McLeod
Special to Canadian Design and Construction Report
Ancient peoples were innovative, piecing materials together to lift and move weighty things. The Egyptians designed the shadoof, a tall pole with a bucket on the end of a long rope and a counterweight to pull up a bucketful of well water. Greeks developed lifting devices with pulleys and winches. Ancient machinery progressed into high-strength steel cranes. A modern advancement in technology emerged in the mid-1900s when Hans Liebherr invented the mobile tower crane in Germany. Today, mobile tower cranes are the heavy lifters across Ontario and the world.
Considering a pastry chef career, teenage Liebherr’s interests turned to a construction apprenticeship in the family business and to become a skilled bricklayer. Before the war interrupted his career curve, the young man was managing a branch of the family construction concern in Austria. Drafted during WW2, Hans Liebherr (b. April 1, 1915) participated in the German-Soviet war. Twice suffering injuries, he recovered and rejoined the business after the war ended.
“Hans was an innovative man, and many of the ideas he would later bring to fruition were formed ‘during long, lonely days on the Russian front,’” wrote Tom Foley in The Liebherr Story (Killarney 2023).
Liebherr looked for ways to improve his construction operation. Cranes were in use, but there was nothing that was easily moveable from location to location. Liebherr “invented his own and filed his prototype on 19 August 1949 with the West German Patents Office,” noted Castle Island Building Heritage in “No April fool: Hans Liebherr of Kaufbeuren and Killarney.” Efficiency was key, and the mobile crane could be put together in less than three hours.
Exhibiting his pioneering equipment at the Frankfurt Industrial Fair in 1950, Liebherr expected that the distinctive machine would receive good reviews. Praise fell short. The industrialist did not give up, and after a time, received an order for a mobile crane to help with the rebuild of Wiesbaden’s town hall. The reception was much better, even dubbing the crane “a new magic machine.”
Production increased after the Wiesbaden project’s working promotion of the machinery. Transferring facilities to Baden-Wurttemberg, Liebherr’s factory grew rapidly. Within a few years, about 2,400 workers were manufacturing the company’s new cranes.
In the early 1950s, Liebherr had problems sourcing gear wheels for his crane gearboxes. Spotting a business opportunity, Liebherr developed “a gear cutting machine and, in doing so, created a new business area in the manufacture of machines and gear wheels,” according to “100 years of Hans Liebherr” at the Liebherr company site. The inventor and his firm were just warming up.
Hiring a cable excavator for a project, Liebherr observed that the machine had a poor power-to weight ratio. Launching into research, less than a year later he “presents the first hydraulic excavator in Europe.” The L 300 model had improved power-to-weight ratio and featured an “effective tearing-out force.” The machine went into production in 1954, along with a new line of home products.
Learning that only ten percent of households had refrigerators in the mid-1950s, Liebherr noted that demand was growing for the safer food-storage appliances. A fridge company was for sale at the time, but instead, the creative man gathered a team of specialists and developed his own refrigerator. The appliance went into production in southern Germany in 1955.
Although the mobile crane was only four years old, the company was devising advancements. Liebherr’s first hydraulic crane was “a hybrid of modified excavator upper carriage and mobile excavator chassis,” the company website stated. Innovations did not stop at construction and appliances. Liebherr established a division to produce aerospace equipment in 1960, manufacturing flight control systems, landing gear, and on-board electronics systems. The company holds an extensive list of patents awarded over many decades.
Expanding the business, Liebherr established operations in Killarney, Ireland in February 1958. Purchasing 61 acres at Gortroe in County Cork, “Hans launched his Irish venture with a small ceremony using a spade to open a gap in the fence,” wrote Foley. Building accommodations for workers, Liebherr also constructed a hotel for visiting customers. In the first year of operation, the Irish team manufactured and sold 22 tower cranes.
In 1974, Hans Liebherr received the Frank P. Brown Medal by the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for “inventions and discoveries involving meritorious improvements in the building and allied industries,” according to Science, Vol. 88, December 2, 1938. The award was discontinued in 1995.
Presently, a number of companies around the world produce their own versions of mobile cranes. With locations globally and headquarters in Ehingen, Germany, the Liebherr company manufactures all-terrain cranes, “with the biggest product portfolio of 40 different cranes on wheels or on crawler tracks,” stated the firm, all featuring the latest technology,
An inspired pioneer with a tenacious spirit, Hans Liebherr died on Oct. 7, 1993 in Switzerland.
© Susanna McLeod. Living in Kingston, McLeod is writer specializing in Canadian History.
