More than 255 years ago, the Customs Inspector Jan Willem Noot planned to open a “Packhaus”, or packing house, for commodities in the “Royal Gardens” in Ruhrort. He needed the owner’s signature in order to obtain a hereditary lease for the property. This was no lesser person than Frederick the Great. The document, signed personally by the King of Prussia on 10 February 1756, went down in Haniel company history as the “foundation charter.”
