BLG Logistics

BLG Logistics Group AG & Co. KG is a seaport and logistics company with headquarters in Bremen (Germany). The operative divisions offer services for automobile, industry and trading customers. The company has nearly 100 locations in Europe, America, Asia and Africa.

History 1877 to 1933

65 merchants founded Bremer Lagerhaus-Gesellschaft -Aktiengesellschaft von 1877- (BLG) in February 1877. A key factor in the company's creation was the desire of Bremen cotton traders to obtain an improved warehousing and trading infrastructure, including the option of issuing warehouse receipts and warrants.List of merchants in Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 287 f. Explanation of the preliminary steps for incorporation in Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 41–51. Company statutes in Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 297–302. The business was restricted to handling and storage; it did not include the transport of goods. The company's own initial five warehouses went into operation in 1878 on the left bank of the Weser in the SicherheitshafenBrief reference to the Sicherheitshafen Heinrich Flügel: Die Häfen von Hamburg und Bremen im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. 1st edition. (Reprint of the edition) Jena 1914. Europäischer Hochschulverlag, Bremen 2010. P. 166, – referred to since approx. 1900 by locals as Hohentorshafen.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 137.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 57. BLG itself provided for the early connection to the railway line.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 60. In the first decade of operation, the company stored mainly grain and legumes, lard, bacon and pork, tobacco, cotton, sheep's wool and coffee.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 67.

In 1888, BLG expanded its operations to the Europahafen (Free Port I) on the right bank of the Weser, which following Bremen's accession to the Customs Union (October 1888) was conceived as a free port;Hans Schackow: Brücken nach Übersee, Bridges to the world across the seas. In: Das Buch der bremischen Häfen. The Book of the Bremen Ports, p. 48–151, here p. 100–102. the relevant operating agreement between Bremen and BLG dates back to May 1888.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 115. Reprint of the contract provisions, Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 116–118. BLG played a seminal role in the development of port facilities on the right bank of the Weser up until World War I.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 127. Details there on p. 127–137. With its completion in 1906, the company also became active in the Free Port II, the operating agreement was amended for this purpose.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 177–184 and p. 303–306. Moreover, from 1897, the company ran the Getreideverkehrsanlage (grain transport system)Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 158–162.Lagerhaus-Gesellschaft, Bremer. In: W. Kloos, R. Thiel: Bremer Lexikon. Ein Schlüssel zu Bremen. p. 205. and in 1929, it took over the Weser Railway Station.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 213. As a reaction to the ramifications of the Great Depression, BLG introduced the so-called "Krümpersystem" in the beginning of April 1932, intended to prevent unemployment through staggered furloughing of workers. The system remained in force until the end of April 1935.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 217 and p. 225.Herbert Schwarzwälder: Geschichte der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, Band 3. Bremen in der Weimarer Republik (1918–1933). Erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. , Bremen 1995, p. 543.

1933 to 1945 During the course of the seizure of power by National Socialists in Bremen, the long-standing Chairman of the management board Kurt Dronke, a member of the German State Party group in the State Parliament of Bremen,Dieter Fricke: „Freiheit und Leben kann man uns nehmen, die Ehre nicht “. Verfolgte Abgeordnete der Bremischen Bürgerschaft in biographischen Skizzen, p. 40. was forced out of office in April 1933. His successor was an NSDAP member.Fritz Peters: Bremen zwischen 1933 und 1945. Eine Chronik (Nachdruck). Dogma, Bremen 2013, p. 21, .Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 219 and p. 293. A similar fate befell Carl Krüger, who had been a member of the management board since 1931: Under political pressure, he requested a six-month leave of absence in September 1933, and on May 31, 1934, he retired.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen. p. 294. Based on National Socialist legislation, also in Bremen all temporary workers of the port were hired in an overall port operating company (in Bremen since June 25, 1934: Hafenbetriebsverein in Bremen e.V., a port operating association). This association assigned workers to the port operators, also to BLG.Löbe. Seehafen Bremen, p. 227 f.Herbert Schwarzwälder: Geschichte der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, Vol. 4. Bremen in der NS-Zeit (1933–1945). Erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, p. 240. After the beginning of World War II, these laborers also included foreign workers, prisoners of war, slave laborers from Central and Eastern Europe, and occasionally also prisoners and concentration camp inmates.Kriegsgefangene und Zwangsarbeiter. Information in the digital history of Horn-Lehe. Retrieved on July 23, 2017.Herbert Schwarzwälder: Geschichte der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, Vol 4. Bremen in der NS-Zeit (1933–1945). Erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, p. 475–479.

In early January 1941, a fire set off by incendiary bombs ravaged the administrative offices of BLG.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 230. Explosive and incendiary bombs destroyed a large part of the port and its facilities by the end of the war (warehouses, silos, enclosures, cranes, hydraulic equipment, rails, lines, grain facilities, Weser Railway Station etc.).Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 187 and p. 231–234.For US aerial photos of the destroyed port complex see Arnold Agatz: Die Hafenanlagen im Spiegel der Zahlen. Facts and Figures about the Port Installations. In: Das Buch der bremischen Häfen. The Book of the Bremen Ports. P. 152–177, here from p. 176.

1945 to 1998 The authorities in the American Zone of Occupation dismissed ten executive employees of BLG on September 17, 1945.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 202. The company obtained a renewal of its operating permit on November 29, 1945.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 235. As repairs to the port progressed, the activities of BLG were revitalized. Initially, the business was focused mainly on the Überseehafen, then repairs began on the Europahafen. In 1951, the Weser Railway Station resumed operations. In the first half of the 1950s, operations also began in the cold storage warehouse at the Holz- und Fabrikenhafen.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 234–239, p. 242 and p. 245–247.

From mid-1953, BLG was also directing operations in the Ports of Bremerhaven. This involved the Kaiserhafen, Columbuskaje, the Neuer Hafen and the Verbindungshafen. The Nordhafen was added later.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 241 f.Bremer Lagerhausgesellschaft. In: Schwarzwälder: Das Große Bremen-Lexikon, Vol. 1, A–K. In 1959, the municipality of Bremen and BLG concluded an operating agreement, which provided that the city maintain the majority of shares.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 253–255. Reprint there p. 313–317. In 1961, the company moved into the newly built port high-rise structure at the head of the Überseehafen.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 247. Two years later, the City of Bremen and BLG signed a contractual agreement that allowed the company to assume third-party loans in the capital market for additional projects. This is how it financed the significant expenditures for the building and operation of the Neustädter Hafen (operating from 1965/1966) as well as for the building and operation of the container terminals in Bremerhaven (construction from 1968; operation from 1971).Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 272. Already in 1966, the first container vessel appeared in Europe, the Fairland, and called on the Überseehafen.Löbe, Seehafen Bremen, p. 277. Since 1967, there was a temporary facility for RoRo vessels in this port; at the end of 1973, there was one available on a permanent basis in the Europahafen.

From 1970 on, Bremerhaven was regularly frequented by LASH mother ships. From February 1974, a floating bargeConcerning the term barge, refer to the term kombinierter Verkehr in Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, retrieved on July 23, 2017. Moreover the lemma Barge Carrier. In: Peter Klaus, Winfried Krieger, Michael Krupp (Hrsg.): Gabler Lexikon Logistik. Management logistischer Netzwerke und Flüsse. 5. Auflage. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden 2012, , p. 41. moorage was located at the head of the Überseehafen.Karl-Heinrich Müller, Günter Gerdes, Gerhard Thoms, Klaus-Peter Rehm: Die Hafenanlagen in Bremen. In: Jahrbuch der Hafenbautechnischen Gesellschaft. Vol. 35 (1975/76), p. 41–55, here p. 41. In 1979, BLG took over the Cape Horn handling facility from Anker Schiffahrtsgesellschaft with access to the Weser as well as to the Industriehafen. In the same year, the RoRo facility in the Neustädter Hafen was ready for operation.Bremer Lagerhausgesellschaft. In: Schwarzwälder: Das große Bremen-Lexikon, Vol 1, A–K.

BLG participated in the booming container business in the 1980s, which completely reshaped the port economy and in Bremerhaven, in particular, led to the expansion of the terminals in several phases.For more information, refer to

The stiff competition put downward pressure on the margins at BLG. The recession of the world economy at the beginning of the 1980s led to layoffs of BLG employees in the industrial and commercial sector. Through business contacts to Volkswagen and later to Daimler-Benz, the company began with logistics services for the automobile industry and in doing so, improved its value added, initially per dispersion of supplier material to German factories, then per Semi Knocked Down and Completely Knocked Down.Please see a detailed account by Heinz Bamberger, former BLG Manager, in an interview: BLG – „Logistiker mit eigenem Hafen“, interview by Frauke Wilhelm with Heinz Bamberger (2013), digitales-heimatmuseum.de, retrieved on July 23, 2017. BLG also took over logistical services with improved value added since 1980 for Minolta.Eckhard-Herbert Arndt: Logistik ohne Kopiereffekt. BLG Logistics Group arbeitet seit 27 Jahren mit Konica Minolta zusammen. In: FM Fracht + Materialfluß. Volume 3, 2007.

The fall of the socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s meant significant cargo losses for BLG in the conventional business. The company experienced a crisis.

Since 1998

At the beginning of the 1990s, the objective was to develop from a local port company into an international logistics group, according to Detthold Aden, who as Chairman of the Management Board promoted this change from 1999 to 2013.Aden: Seehafenlogistik. In: Peter Klaus, Winfried Krieger, Michael Krupp (Hrsg.): Gabler Lexikon Logistik. P. 510. Already in 1998, the organizational structure was revamped: The BLG Group was created with Bremer Lagerhaus-Gesellschaft -Aktiengesellschaft von 1877- as the general partner and the new BLG Logistics Group AG & Co. KG as the limited partner. As a holding company, the KG focused on the strategic orientation and growth of the Group. Since that time, several branch subsidiaries and affiliates have operated under the Group umbrella in corporate independence. They fall under the three operative divisions: automobile, contract and container.

In 1999, the container business was merged with Hamburg's Eurokai into Eurogate. Today, this joint venture operates container terminals on the North Sea, on the Atlantic, and in the Mediterranean Sea.See the site overview on the Website of Eurogate, retrieved on March 10, 2025.