![]() The Bolshevik government that seized power in Russia in 1917 also seized the assets of theĬompany ’s St. On the balance, however, the war hurt Siemens & Halske badly. It was a highlight for the German navy in a battle from which it otherwise won no advantage. While the main fleets fought to a draw, the German battlecruisers used their superior gunnery equipment to batter their opponents, sinking two British ships and severely damaging several others. There, the battlecruiser squadron of the High Seas Fleet met its British counterpart for the only time during the war. Siemens & Halske also produced explosives, gun locks for rifles, and, later in the war, aircraft engines.īut perhaps the company ’s most successful contribution to the German war effort was the fire control system it produced for the navy ’s battlecruisers, which proved its worth at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. But when World War I broke out, orders for civilian electrical equipment slowed considerably and the company began production of communications devices for the military. In 1909 Siemens & Halske developed an automatic telephone exchange serving 2,500 customers in Munich. In 1903 it established Siemens-Schuckertwerke GmbH, a subsidiary devoted to electric power engineering. Siemens & Halske remained busy as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. He retired after seven years in that post and was succeeded by his nephew Arnold. In 1897 Siemens & Halske decided to go public and reorganized with Carl Heinrich, now Carl von Siemens after being ennobled by the Russian czar in 1895, as chairman of the supervisory board. In 1895 Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the X-ray, and the very next year Siemens & Halske owned the first patent for an X-ray tube. That same year, Siemens & Halske built a power station at Erding in Bavaria and founded an American subsidiary, Siemens & Halske Electric Company, in Chicago. But the House of Siemens continued to prosper. Two years later he retired and his company became a limited partnership shared by his sons Arnold and Wilhelm and his brother Carl-Werner Siemens died in 1892. In 1888 Werner Siemens was ennobled by the Germany kaiser for his achievements. In the next decade, Siemens & Halske also developed and began manufacturing electrical-lighting and power-generating equipment after Werner Siemens discovered the dynamo-electric principle in 1866. Immediately grasping their worth, Werner Siemens quickly patented an improved version of the device and began production. In 1877 Alexander Graham Bell ’s new telephones reached Berlin for the first time. The next year, it laid the first direct transatlantic cable from Ireland to the United States. ![]() In 1874 Siemens Brothers launched its own cable-laying ship, the Faraday, which William Siemens codesigned. In 1871 it linked London and Teheran by telegraph. In 1867 Siemens Brothers received a contract for an 11,000-kilometer telegraph line from London to Calcutta, which it completed in 1870. Its name was changed to Siemens Brothers, still under the direction of Wilhelm, who was eventually knighted as Sir William Siemens. By 1865 the company ’s English operations had become substantial. This led to the tansformation of the London office into an independent company under the direction of Wilhelm Siemens, another of Werner ’s brothers, the next year. In 1857 Siemens & Halske helped develop the first successful deep-sea telegraphic cable. Petersburg under the direction of Werner Siemens ’ brother Carl Siemens. Upon its completion, the company opened an office in St. In 1853, it received a commission to build an extensive telegraph system in Russia. The company received its first major commission in 1848, when it contracted to build a telegraph link between Berlin and Frankfurt.Ĭonstruction of telegraph systems boomed in the mid-19th century and Siemens & Halske was well equipped to take advantage of the situation. Siemens, a former artillery officer in the Prussian army and an engineer who already owned a profitable patent for electroplating, was the driving force behind the company and remained so for the rest of his life. Halske to manufacture and install telegraphic systems. Siemens & Halske was founded in Berlin in 1847 by Werner Siemens and J. But opportunism is not the only interesting facet of Siemen ’s history, which is also a story of a long family tradition and intimate involvement with some of the most important events of the 19th and 20th centuries. George Williamson of Fortune once wrote that “second is best ” might as well be its motto, referring to the company ’s history of achieving success through well-engineered refinements of other people ’s inventions. is an electrical manufacturing giant and West Germany ’s leading technology concern. Stock Index: Berlin Hamburg Dusseldorf Munich Brussels Paris Zurich Basel Geneva Amsterdam Vienna
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