One hundred years ago, on July 11, 1925, Germany’s first escalator was put into operation at the Tietz department store in Cologne. After London and Paris, this put Germany in third place in Europe. The idea came from senior executives at Leonhard Tietz AG who had brought it back from a trip to the USA. There, automated passenger transport had already been tried and tested for many years. As can be seen in the photo, the Cologne escalator was quite narrow, approximately 60 centimeters wide. For many department store visitors, it was a sensation – for the department store, it was a significant increase in efficiency, as the Otis escalator could transport 4,000 people per hour, which was three times as many as the ten elevators in the building could manage. In the beginning, lift boys offered customers assistance in using the escalator. The 1920s saw the triumphant rise of the escalator.
Source for image and text: Kaufhof Warenhaus AG (Hg.): Erlebniswelt Kaufhof – Ein Warenhaus in Deutschland, Wienand, 2001, p. 73-75