As a country Germany worked with enthusiasm to achieve an economic miracle and by the beginning of the Fifties was again able to offer high grade products for export to an astonished world. The term "Made in Germany" gained a good reputation once again. STILL was among the companies whose products were arousing interest abroad. With newly developed trucks they were successful in making the step into export markets. The occupying British forces were the first from whom STILL received an important major order. In 1950 they ordered 60 EWL 1500 electric lorries.
Overseas business was part of the company tradition for STILL. As early as 1924, only four years after the founding of the company, STILL was represented at the Leipzig Export Fair with its light stations and electric motors. In those days the electrical mains were still very thin on the ground which is why remote plantations in tropical countries needed their own generating plants. STILL supplied these to all corners of the world.
The attempt to open itself to world markets has remained an important matter for the company right up to the present day. In 1951 STILL exhibited at the Copenhagen Fair in neighbouring Denmark and, perhaps because of this, was regarded by the public as a company open to the world. In any case in the same year the Hamburg press headlined a large pictorial report with the catch-line, "STILL throughout the world".
The orders from German Railways proved to be beneficial for export business. They first installed STILL electric trolleys and forklift trucks (1949) and by doing so strengthened the decision of other railways to likewise equip themselves with newly developed STILL products. Italian Railways began using STILL in 1954, soon followed by railways of the Benelux countries and, along with others, in 1959 an order was received from Japanese Railways. These major export orders meant two things for STILL: on one hand, recovery and a new upswing after the difficult years of the Forties, and on the other hand, a new, forward-looking direction had been taken with the new "trucks" manufacturing branch. As early as 1954 this division was outstripping the established business of electric machinery.
