When Andreas Hanitzsch, Managing Director of Hanitzsch GmbH & Co. KG, joined the family business in 2013, the fleet consisted of 70 to 80 trucks, and today there are about 120. These sobering figures alone show the positive development that the company, founded in 1920, has been able to record over the past decades.

"What customers appreciate most about us is our flexibility," Andreas Hanitzsch knows. "We have local access to our team and want to understand the mission of our client in order to deliver the most suitable service. This is precisely why our drivers are from the region, and less than 10% of the drivers are not from Germany."

Furthermore, there are other good reasons to choose Hanitzsch. "When a customer commissions us with a service, they can absolutely rely on us," the managing director promises. "In addition, there is our high diversification. In logistics, there is nothing we wouldn’t handle."

As a transportation service provider for major freight forwarders, Hanitzsch handles both local and long-distance traffic as well as heavy haulage. Now with 14,000 m², the facility is also certified for battery and accumulator storage, providing ample storage space. While the Dresden-based freight company offers only customized solutions in international business, it handles every type of cargo transport (FTL/LTL) domestically, including within partner collaboration networks, as well as hazardous material and temperature-controlled transports.

Founded in 1920

"My great-grandfather Alfred Hanitzsch, who married into a merchant family, founded the company in 1920 in Dresden," explains Andreas Hanitzsch. "With a small truck, he initially took on transports from the market hall to my great-grandfather's colonial goods store. Later, he offered this service to other customers as well, such as craftsmen."

In 1935, the store was closed, and the company thereafter fully concentrated on the freight forwarding business. After the end of World War II, Alfred Hanitzsch, together with his son Christian, virtually started the haulage business again from scratch. When Alfred Hanitzsch died in 1961, Christian Hanitzsch took sole responsibility and was supported from 1976 by his own son, Wolfgang. Throughout the more than four decades of the GDR, the Hanitzsch family managed not to be nationalized and continued to run the business privately.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Wolfgang Hanitzsch took over the management. "After reunification, we were the first branch of Schenker in Dresden and had to start from scratch again," said the manager. In 1996, the company moved from Dresden to its current location in Kesselsdorf, where there was enough space for further expansion.

New Structures

In 2019, Andreas Hanitzsch became the managing director of the family-run business. "My professional career began in 1995 with a study of transport economics at the Berufsakademie Glauchau," he describes. "I completed my studies in 1998 with a degree in Business Administration majoring in Freight, Logistics and Transport. After that, I worked for 20 years at the logistics conglomerate Dachser – among other roles as a freight forwarding manager – and decided in 2013 to join the family company. There, I was able to further develop the existing structures with my knowledge and experience from my time at Dachser and converted the business in 2018 from a sole proprietorship into a GmbH & Co. KG." Today, Hanitzsch GmbH & Co. KG employs 250 staff, with a current annual turnover of 24 million EUR.

Focus on Sustainability

Andreas Hanitzsch places a strong focus on personnel management. "Anyone who works for us must understand how and why we do this job," clarifies the managing director. "This includes co-determination, but on the other hand, also the assumption of responsibility." For Andreas Hanitzsch, the feeling and understanding for the needs and requirements of the customers is particularly important. Equally important to the boss is sustainability: "A strong focus in terms of the mobility shift is directed at the CO2 balance. Thus, we have dealt early with gas-powered vehicles. However, due to the policy of the federal government, the originally set 70, 80 cents per kilogram of gas are currently at 4.50 EUR per kilogram."

Despite this flop, Hanitzsch relies on fuel-efficient engines, the use of biodiesel, and also E-Fuels. As one of the few companies, Hanitzsch also operates a hybrid truck from Scania, which also improves the CO2 balance. "For the future, I wish that the major shippers, for whom secured equipment is an issue, have the courage to work more with us as a medium-sized company and less with large logistics corporations," says the managing director. "Furthermore, I am confident that the current crisis can be managed and I wish our political leaders would provide more reliability to better steer the planning and the associated decisions from a business and commercial perspective."