An inventor and entrepreneur in the Swabian tradition, Alfred Kärcher was one of those inventor/entrepreneurs that Wurttemburg, Germany has produced in great numbers since the beginning of industrialization – illustrious names such as Robert Bosch, Gottlieb Daimler and Count Zeppelin. They fought to realize their ideas with enormous diligence and commitment.

A former employee sees him in retrospect as follows: “When Alfred Kärcher was in his element, when we were running trials and tests, the atmosphere was simply exciting. He just couldn’t be stopped, he had a constant stream of new ideas.”

Founded in 1935, Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG at first produced electric heaters and specialized in industrial heating equipment. Kärcher's development of a submersible heating element portended the company's future, and by 1950 Kärcher had designed and patented his first hot-water high-pressure cleaner, the KW 350. The company, which has maintained its headquarters in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, since 1939, continued to grow and prosper, still focusing its attention on innovative industrial technologies.

But tragedy struck in 1959, when Alfred Kärcher succumbed to a heart attack at age 58; the company had 300 employees and gross receipts of 7 million Deutschmarks. His wife, Irene, took the reins, successfully managing the company's operations for the next thirty years. The company is still family-owned.

From Heat Generators to High-Pressure Cleaners

By the mid 1970s, however, the company found its true calling and began to concentrate solely on the development, production and distribution of cleaning technology and equipment. The product portfolio grew to include high-pressure washers, blasting systems, vacuum cleaners, sweepers and scrubber-dryers as well as cleaning agents, vehicle washes, drinking water treatment and waste water treatment plants. Expanding to the international realm, the company now has more than 6,500 employees worldwide and a sales volume of 1.38 billion Euros per year.

Please click on the years in the timeline on the right side of this page to view the defining moments in Kärcher's history.