Otto Lummitzsch was the founder and first Director of the THW. During his tenure as Director, the THW became a federal agency, thanks to an Establishment Decree from the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In the same year, the THW had already carried out its first foreign operation, performing repair works after the storm-surge flooding in the Netherlands in 1953. This marked the beginning of its long history of providing technical assistance internationally.

THW operations in Germany

The storm-surge floods in Hamburg in 1962, the mining accident in Lengede in 1963, or the 100-year flood of 2002 on the Oder and Elbe rivers: in the wake of all of these, THW operatives have provided reliable relief. The year 2021 saw the largest operation in THW history: all 668 local sections took part in operations to deal with the consequences of catastrophic flooding in the Ahr Valley and other parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. Tasks included: clearing roads, building bridges, securing houses and taking care of the local population.

THW operations abroad

In its more than 70-year history, the THW has provided humanitarian assistance in the wake of droughts, civil wars and earthquakes in Africa, Europe and South America, as well as the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the THW provided technical assistance in the United States for the first time ever. The earthquake in Haiti in 2010 marked another chapter of humanitarian aid abroad: the THW supplied the population with drinking water and assisted the German embassy in coordinating German aid efforts.

Anniversary at the THW

In 2020, the 70th anniversary of the THW was celebrated by its 80,000 volunteers and 2,000 full-time employees. In addition to countless operations in Germany in those 70 years, the THW had also been deployed some 300 times to 130 countries on four continents.

THW now

Currently, 88,000 volunteers are active in the THW: around 11,800 of them are women. The main focus of operations in 2022 was providing assistance related to Ukraine, both in Germany by setting up emergency shelters for refugees and abroad in the form of procurement and logistics for aid transports. THW volunteers were in action for a total of over one million operational hours and took part together in more than 240,000 hours of exercises to rehearse for emergency situations.

Good cooperation is essential to provide a broad range of appropriate civil and disaster relief. To this end, in 2023 there are some 2,100 paid employees – 40 per cent of whom are women – working together with the 88,000 volunteers to ensure that civil protection in Germany works well into the future.