FIATA Theme For
An Imaginary Centennial

A Special Commemorative Dialogue with Mr. Paul Lehmann, Founder and First President of FIATA, took place immediately after the Centennial General Assembly at Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and was hosted by Publisher Geoffrey Arend.

Geoffrey Arend:  Mr. Lehmann, to look at you, one wouldn't suspect you witnessed the fallout of the First World War or signed documents using a fountain pen dipped in permanent iron gall ink. Yet here you are, sitting in Milan, exactly one hundred years after you and sixteen European delegates gathered to establish the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimilés—FIATA. Welcome back!
Paul Lehmann:  Thank you, Geoffrey. It is a surreal sensation, I must admit. When we sat in that room in Vienna in 1926, we were trying to prevent local Customs agents from seizing timber carts and rail carriages caught in the regulatory crossfire of newly drawn European borders. If you had told me that a century later I would be sitting in a climate-controlled monolith in Lombardy, discussing "digital twins" and "decarbonization," I would have assumed you had consumed too much absinthe.
Geoffrey Arend:  Mr. Lehmann, as we sit here under the banner of the 2026 Milan Congress, the atmosphere is one of polished corporate synergy in the usual genteel FIATA discourse. But looking back at the list of the sixteen original European organizations that gathered in Vienna on May 31, 1926, it feels much more localized, fractured, even raw. Can you tell us about the actual men who shared that, as you put it, ‘smoke-filled room’ with you?  
Paul Lehmann:  Ah, the pioneers! People today read the history and just see a dry list of names: the Zentralverband der Spediteure from Vienna, the Federation Nationale des Entrepreneurs de Transport de Belgique from Antwerp, or the delegates from the Udruženje Speditera in Zagreb, and the other, distinguished delegates. But to me, they were real, desperate men fighting an uphill battle with a shattered continent, with prices going up and down wildly. Europe was still bleeding from the open wounds of the Great War. Traditional empires had collapsed, leaving raw, jagged borders right across the established trade routes that struggled to remain in use.
Arend:  It sounds like the foundation wasn't born out of abstract idealism, but out of absolute survival.
Lehmann:  Utterly so. I remember a heated argument between the Austrian delegates and the Czech representatives from Prague. Before the war, they were part of the Austro Hungarian Empire but in 1926, moving a single household from Vienna to Prague required navigating two entirely different sets of liability laws, probably arbitrary security deposits at the border. The Czech were proud of their new republic, but they also knew that economic isolation meant ruin: they argued that a forwarder shouldn't lose its entire investment simply because a wagon crossed an imaginary line on a map and fell under a different legal code. That argument right there was the exact moment the seed for a uniform, global FIATA Forwarding Instructions (FFI) and standard liability rules was truly planted. It would take decades to see the fruits, but that was the beginning.
Arend:  Did the Nordic or Western European delegates bring a different energy to the table?
Lehmann:  They brought the reality of global maritime trade, different from the rail oriented central Europeans. The delegates from Antwerp and other colleagues from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom looked at the continental Europeans and basically said: "Your border issues are real, but so is the real world, moving across the three oceans, in a different dimension." They were dealing with international shipping lines. In 1926, if a shipping line lost your crate in the middle of the Atlantic, its liability limits were not always certain, at times the forwarder and the merchant risked bankruptcy. The British and Dutch delegates insisted that FIATA could not just be a European continental committee, it had to become a federated global entity that could stand up to the ocean liners and port authorities. They demanded a standard document that carried weight across the ocean. One century later, that demand has evolved into the FIATA Paperless Multimodal Bill of Lading you are celebrating today. The FBL remains the only recognized multimodal document of title!
Arend:  Hearing these anecdotes makes the modern concept of "global collaboration" feel much less like a corporate buzzword and more like a hard-won peace treaty.
Lehmann: It was a peace treaty indeed, Geoffrey. We had Brits, Austrians, Germans, Poles, Croats, Belgians, Italians and more, all sitting at the same table, a mere eight years after their nations had been slaughtering each other on the battlefields and in the trenches of WWI. Logistics was the bridge that forced them to speak to one another again. When we signed that charter, we weren't just creating an association: we were proving that commerce and the shared expertise of moving goods could heal a broken world faster than any politician could.
Arend:  You’ve had a chance to read the Centennial Declaration fresh off the press here at the Milan Congress. What was your immediate visceral reaction to seeing what your creation has become?
Lehmann:  A profound sense of scale, mixed with a strange familiarity. The Declaration talks about the "indispensable architectural pillar of global commerce". We didn't view ourselves as architects of a grand global machine back then; we were more like plumbers trying to fix leaks in a shattered pipe network. The 1920s were defined by fragmentation and distrust. To see FIATA today representing over 40,000 forwarders across 150 nations—standing unified as the absolute voice of logistics—is staggering. But what struck me most deeply about the Declaration is its core admission: despite our brilliant machines, the world remains terrifyingly volatile.
Arend:  The Declaration heavily highlights recent geopolitical disruptions—specifically the ongoing tensions reshaping traditional corridors like the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal, prompting the need for rapid multimodal alternatives. How does that shake your 1926 perspective?
Lehmann:  In 1926, our disruptions were local but utterly debilitating. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had dissolved, the Russian Empire had dissolved, Germany was at a crossroads, etc. The first wave of globalization between 800 and 900 was defunct, murdered by a war without respite. If a train travelled from Budapest to Trieste, it was now obliged to cross multiple jurisdictions, each demanding bespoke paper manifests, differing currencies, and arbitrary tariffs. It was taking days just to clear a single rail wagon! Today, this sounds uncanny, but you face disruptions on a planetary scale. A single drone strike or regional skirmish thousands of miles away forces a ship carrying ten thousand containers to divert around the Cape of Good Hope, altering the retail prices of consumer goods in Chicago or Berlin within forty-eight hours. Yet, the forwarder’s role remains identical: we are still the shock absorbers of history. Our facilitations function despite each and every challenge.
Arend:  Let’s talk about the mechanics of the trade. The Milan Congress featured intense panels regarding the "Digital Age" and "Enabling Better Business Through Digital Trust". FIATA has aggressively pushed its paperless Bill of Lading, aiming for absolute data interoperability. How does this compare to the administrative reality of your presidency?
Lehmann:  Geoffrey, my world was built on the tactile snap of heavy parchment and the distinct scent of ink pads. A freight forwarder’s primary asset in 1926 was his physical archive. A lost Bill of Lading meant weeks of telegrams, affidavits, and ships sitting idle at dockside, accumulating ruinous demurrage fees. We dreamed of a standardized document because every port had its own vocabulary, its own liability rules and sometimes these rules could sound odd or even arbitrary.
Arend:  And now we have the FIATA Paperless Multimodal Bill of Lading . . .
Lehmann: It is spectacular, yet it fills me with an existential irony. The Milan Declaration stresses "digital trust". In my day, trust was an intimate, local commodity. You trusted a man because you knew his family, or because you shook his hand once at the stock exchange. Today, you trade across continents with entities you will never see, relying on cryptographic keys to prove authenticity. It is an astonishing achievement—clearing Customs via a single digital window without a single leaf of paper changing hands. Yet, the vulnerabilities are terrifying: we worried about rain damaging our logbooks or a clerk misplacing a ledger. You have to worry about unseen syndicates halfway across the world locking down entire port terminals with ransomware. Your risks are invisible, which makes them even more threatening. 
Arend:  The Milan Congress also unveiled a new Practical User Handbook on Multimodal Transport Corridors, focusing heavily on the Middle Corridor as a case study. You were highly focused on rail and sea connectivity. Does the modern concept of "multi-modalism" surprise you?
Lehmann:  The concept doesn't surprise me, but the synchronization does. In 1926, shifting cargo from a rail car to a steamship was a chaotic, manual ballet. It required stevedores, cranes, rope nets and hours of physical force. The cargo was loose: barrels of flour, crates of machine components, sacks of grain, tons and tons of coal . . . The idea of the modern intermodal container is the true prodigy of contemporary logistics. In my opinion the container is the change that has enabled our quick progress in the second half of the 20th century. But nothing would move without agreements; the Middle Corridor isn't just a route: it's a testament to diplomatic endurance. We struggled to align three neighbouring countries, but here it is. FIATA today is helping orchestrate harmony across entire continents to bypass geopolitical chokepoints.
Arend:  An important focal point of the Centennial Declaration is the "operationalization of sustainability". The logistics industry is under immense pressure to decarbonize . . . any language would do. In 1926, the industrial revolution was still celebrated without reservation. Was environmental impact even a shadow on your radar?
Lehmann:  Heavily speaking? Not at all. In 1926, black smoke billowing from a locomotive or a steamship funnel was the very symbol of prosperity, employment, and progress. It meant the gears of the world were turning again after the stagnation of the Great War. We burned coal with abandon. The oceans felt infinite, a highway that could absorb whatever grease and ash we threw into it. Now we know how damaging our work can become if not appropriately conducted. Petroleum is still strong, but it is clear enough that those who will be able to tame the wild power of the sun and the other natural elements to produce energy will hold the key to future progress.
Arend:  And today, the industry is confronting its status as one of the largest carbon contributors, striving for net-zero targets.
Lehmann:  It is a profound moral and industrial shift. To read in the Milan Declaration that forwarders must take ownership of emissions and actively choose green corridors is a level of global citizenship we simply couldn't conceive 100 years ago. The modern forwarder must balance the ledger of profit against the ledger of the planet. I walked through the Milan exhibition hall and saw companies presenting electric freight trucks, hydrogen-powered vessels, and mathematical models to minimize empty container repositioning. It is no longer enough to move goods swiftly: you must move them cleanly, i.e. more efficiently. This is the greatest divergence from 1926. We were trying to exploit the earth to rebuild civilization; you are trying to preserve the planet to sustain it!
Arend:  During this centenary, the Young Logistics Professionals (YLP) Global Award was presented right here in Milan. When you look at the human element of logistics today, what do you see?
Lehmann:  I see the exact same spark. Tools change, Geoffrey: we used the telegraph, you use artificial intelligence. We used horses to pull drays from the rail stations, you use electric delivery fleets. But the psychological makeup of a freight forwarder remains entirely unchanged. It requires a specific type of mind to excel in this trade: a restless, problem-solving intellect that looks at a closed border, a stranded vessel, or a cancelled flight, and doesn't see a dead end: it sees a puzzle to be solved.
Arend:  If you could leave the global logistics community of 2126, one hundred years from this moment, with one foundational piece of advice from the architect of 1926, what would it be?
Lehmann:  Do not let machines resolve the human relationship. The strength of FIATA has always been its fellowship, the understanding that an international network of local experts will always outperform an isolated giant. Whether you are tracking cargo across the stars or under the sea, remember that logistics is, at its root, a service to the community. We feed cities, we supply hospitals, we connect cultures. That responsibility is our mission. It cannot change even 100 years on.
Arend:  Mr. Lehmann, thank you for walking across the centuries to join us.
Lehmann:  The pleasure was entirely mine, Geoffrey. Now, if you will excuse me, I notice the delegates are heading toward the Gala Dinner at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum. I hear they are serving exceptional Italian food, and that is one advancement I intend to sample immediately. Please join us!