Normag, Germany

Normag, Germany

The name of the company is an abbreviation of Nordhauser Maschinenbau AG, but the beginnings of the company’s production of faming machinery are linked to the company of Schmidt, Kranz und Co. AG, which in early 1930s started to make ‘tractors’ based on a 1920s concept of motorised ploughs.

In 1934, the company introduced a motor vehicle with a plough, equipped with a crude-oil powered Lanz engine of 20–25hp known as the Ackerschlepper. In 1937, the company started to use the abbreviation Normag. By that time, however, it was already producing standard tractors with Deutz block engine or MWM diesel engine, which were sold as NG 22 and NG 10, respectively.

In 1942, the Normag modified its tractors to be powered by wood gas; these new models were labelled NG 25. At the end of the war, the factory was largely destroyed. After the war, the company moved from Nordhausen, which was in the Soviet zone, to Zorge, which was in the British zone. Production was soon restarted: the prewar NG 22 was replaced by a new NG 23 model. In 1947, the Norman–Zorge factory (which adopted this name to distinguish itself from the original factory in Nordhausen) started to develop in its branch factory in Hattingen its own engines, which were fitted into the new NG 23 model. Later, Normag designers started working on modernising tractor equipment: they were the first to use pressurised air to improve break functionality.

In 1949, Normag started to produce the NG 15 model and in the following year the NG 35, with power of 33hp. In 1952, Normag was already making six types of tractors with power of 10 to 45hp. In the same year, it introduced the large tractor NG 45, for which Normag was buying engines and other parts from the Henschel company. Two years later, Normag presented to the farming community Kornet I and Kornet II tractors equipped with two-stroke diesel engines of 12 and 16hp, respectively.

In 1955, the Hattingen-based Normag was taken over by Orenstein & Koppel und Lubecker Maschinenbau JSC. This resulted in a much-needed capital boost but at the cost of gradual dampening of the tractor production programme, which was replaced by escalator production. Spare parts for Normag tractors were since 1 January 1958 provided by the Porsche company. Engineer Koenig, the chief tractor designer of Normag tractors took employment with the KHD company, and Normag as a tractor producer had definitively ceased to exist.