WAGO replaced screw terminals with spring clamps and became the connection standard

Electrical terminals used screw connections for a century — reliable but slow, and screws could loosen under vibration. In 1951 Friedrich Hohorst and Heinrich Nagel heard at a card game in Berlin about a patent for a screwless leaf-spring terminal, bought all rights on the spot, and founded WAGO Klemmenwerk in Minden on 27 April 1951.

The first spring terminals met skepticism at the 1951 Hannover Messe, and material problems slowed adoption. The breakthrough came in 1977 when Wolfgang Hohorst developed the cage clamp using chrome-nickel spring steel: the spring itself carried the clamping force with no separate spring element, and the first rail-mount terminal block with Cage Clamp changed connection technology worldwide. In 1973 the VDE had already issued the first regulation for spring-connection terminals and gave its first test mark to WAGO.

When the patent expired in 1995, competitors copied, adapted and improved spring-clamp technology — which confirmed it as the market standard. WAGO kept innovating (the 2003 Push-in Cage Clamp allowed tool-free direct insertion) and reached €862 million revenue in 2017, describing itself as world market leader in spring-clamp connection technology.