Our history—our timeline

On 1 January 1889, 42-year-old Johann Heinrich Dräger founded the company “Dräger und Gerling” in Lübeck with his business partner Carl Adolf Gerling. Born the son of a watchmaker in a small village on the German river Elbe, the gifted and ambitious precision mechanic achieved an exemplary rise to fame. It all started with small repair orders and eventually led to the foundation of the successful Lübeck-based company. The new business was founded as a company for the sale of equipment and innovations, such as beer tap systems. The beer tap systems used compressed carbon dioxide.

Johann Heinrich Draeger was born on 29 July 1847 in Kirchwerder, south of Hamburg, Germany. After training as a watchmaker, he founded the Dräger company in 1889. The invention of the Lubeca valve, a pressure reducing valve, laid the groundwork for the company’s success story. Johann Heinrich Dräger dies on 25 May 1917, in Lübeck.

Though it had been possible since the second half of the 19th century to fill steel cylinders with high-pressure gas, removing the gas in a controlled and safe manner at low pressure was still a problem. Even the equipment sold by Dräger did not live up to its task sufficiently: the flow of the gas, and therefore the beer, was uncontrollable and uneven, and the valves were often faulty.

Johann Heinrich Dräger takes the opportunity to show Hamburg-born Walter E. Mingramm his new breathing apparatus when Mingramm visits the Dräger factory on behalf of a Mexican company. Excited by the new technology, Mingramm returns to Mexico and makes the bargain of his life. With the thought of opening a Dräger subsidiary in the United States, he returns to Lübeck.

Bernhard Dräger was born in Kirchwerder on 14 June 1870 and joined his father’s company in the spring of 1889. In 1912, he became the sole owner of the company. He died in Lübeck on 12 January 1928 after a serious illness.

Heinrich Dräger, the eldest son of Bernhard Dräger, was drafted into the Imperial German Army and served in a field artillery regiment on the Western Front. The young soldier survived several gas attacks—equipped with filter devices produced by Dräger. As early as 1915, Dräger began developing respiratory protection equipment on behalf of the Prussian War Ministry.

In the months of hyperinflation in 1923, the value of German currency fell so rapidly that in many places wages were paid daily. People collected their banknotes in bags and suitcases and rushed to the stores to exchange the money for goods as quickly as possible. Since the German Mark was rapidly losing value almost every day, shopkeepers were constantly raising their prices. Many of them exchanged goods and services only for food and coal, or closed their stores altogether. The situation created serious social tensions.

Heinrich Draeger was born in Lübeck on 2 July 1898. After studying and earning his doctorate, the agricultural economist takes over management of the company in 1928 following the death of his father. He manages the company until 1984, and died on 28 June 1986.

For Drägerwerk, the general economic upswing that started in 1933 led to an increase in sales in the civilian customer areas of mining and medical equipment. However, the share of military production in relation to the civilian sector rose immensely once the Nazi government began forcefully pursuing its rearmament policy in the mid-1930s.

Christian Dräger was born in Berlin on 13 July 1934. He studied business administration and economic history. He joins the company in 1961 and takes over the chairmanship from his father in 1984. In 1997, he hands over the chairmanship to his brother Theo. Dr Christian Dräger passed away on 30 November 2024 at the age of 90.

Theo Dräger was born in Berlin on 19 February 1938. After studying economics and social sciences, he joins the company in 1968. He was Chairman of the Executive Board from 1997 to 2005. Theo Dräger passed away on 19 November 2025 at the age of 87.

Drägerwerk AG went public with the issue of preferred shares. From now on, it was both a family-run company and a corporation. The distinction is drawn quite clearly: the capital stock is divided into half common shares and half preferred shares. The common shares are owned by the family who have sole voting rights. The preferred shares, which carry a higher dividend, are freely traded on the capital market. The good of the company always comes first. This means that at Dräger, decision making and responsibility, sustainable success and liability in the event of failure lie with the CEO.

When Johann Heinrich Dräger founded a company for beer tap systems on New Year’s Eve 1889, he laid the foundation stone of Dräger as we know it today. The Lubeca valve, the first reliable carbon dioxide pressure reducer, revolutionised the world of compressed gases. The basic technique found its way into a wide range of fields, where it made things that had previously been impossible, possible.

Almost two years after the start of construction, Dräger completed its “factory of the future” and put it into operation on schedule. The company now has a central production and logistics site in Lübeck. The project involved the construction of approximately 30,000 square meters of new built-over space and the reworking of approximately 17,000 square meters of existing space.

The worldwide spread of the coronavirus is also a concern for Dräger. Demand for ventilators and personal protective equipment has increased significantly. Dräger’s primary objective is to maintain its business operations and fulfill its social mission to supply these goods.

Dräger strategically anchored the topic of sustainability several years ago. At the beginning of 2024, it became evident that regulatory requirements, customer inquiries and expectations from financial institutions were becoming increasingly complex. In response, it was decided to systematically integrate sustainability into the existing management system—in an area with existing process-related depth. On this basis, a new Executive Board responsibility was created to jointly advance sustainability and quality.