The company was founded under the name
Lang & Co. in 1865 by the German
cement pioneer Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff (1805–1894) in Karlsruhe, Germany. In the early years the company was mainly engaged in the production of
concrete components. In 1866 Dyckerhoff's son Eugen Dyckerhoff (1844–1924) entered the company. He and his father-in-law Gottlieb Widmann changed the company's name to
Dyckerhoff & Widmann and made it one of the leading companies for concrete construction in Germany. Starting in the field of
construction engineering in the 1880s, the company soon got contracts for impressive buildings like the
Centennial Hall (
Jahrhunderthalle) in
Wrocław. The company introduced many innovations in the field of concrete construction. Eugen Dyckerhoff developed the
Stampfbeton, a
compressed concrete that became a standard for concrete construction in Germany in the 19th century. At the end of the 1920s the company developed the
Zeiss-Dywidag-System. For this
concrete shell construction system the company was awarded an
Edward Longstreth Medal of Merit by the
Franklin Institute in 1938. Until the 1960s Dyckerhoff & Widmann built large quantities of buildings with shell constructions. The company Dyckerhoff & Widmann also played an important role for the establishment of
prestressed concrete and the
cantilever method in Germany. In 1907 the company Dyckerhoff & Widmann moved its headquarters to Wiesbaden, and after World War II it finally moved to Munich. The companies Siemens-Bauunion (1972) and Union-Bau AG (1991) were taken over by Dyckerhoff & Widmann. In 2001 the company became part of the Walter Bau AG, a building contractor. With the insolvency of the Walter Bau AG in 2005 the former company Dyckerhoff & Widmann was split up. The biggest part of the business was taken over by the Austrian building company
Strabag. == Nazi Concentration Camps ==