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Siemens AG
Table of Contents
Siemens AG

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SIEMENS AG

German company
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Also known as: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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locomotive; Siemens, Werner von
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Category: History & Society
Date: 1966 - present ...(Show more) Headquarters: Munich ...(Show more) Areas Of
Involvement: telecommunication manufacturing electronic system ...(Show more)
Related People: Werner von Siemens Güler Sabancı ...(Show more)
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Siemens AG, in full Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, German energy technology and
manufacturing company formed in 1966 through the merger of Siemens & Halske AG
(founded 1847), Siemens-Schuckertwerke (founded 1903), and
Siemens-Reiniger-Werke AG (founded 1932). Operating in more than 200 countries
and regions, it engages in a wide range of manufacturing and services in areas
such as power generation and transmission, energy management, transportation,
telecommunications systems, and medical engineering. The company invests heavily
in research and development and ranks among the largest patent holders in the
world. Headquarters are in Munich.

The first Siemens company, Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske
(“Telegraph Construction Firm of Siemens & Halske”), was founded in Berlin in
1847 by Werner von Siemens (1816–92), his cousin Johann Georg Siemens (1805–79),
and Johann Georg Halske (1814–90); its purpose was to build telegraph
installations and other electrical equipment. It soon began spreading telegraph
lines across Germany, establishing in 1855 a branch in St. Petersburg for
Russian lines and in 1858 a branch in London for English lines, the latter
headed by Werner’s brother William Siemens (1823–83). As the firm grew and
introduced mass production, Halske, who was less inclined toward expansion,
withdrew (1867), leaving control of the company to the four Siemens brothers and
their descendants.

Meanwhile, the company’s activities were enlarging to include dynamos, cables,
telephones, electric power, electric lighting, and other advances of the later
Industrial Revolution. In 1890 it became a limited partnership, with Carl
Siemens (Werner’s brother) and Arnold and Wilhelm Siemens (Werner’s sons) as the
senior partners; in 1897 it became a limited-liability company, Siemens & Halske
AG.



In 1903 Siemens & Halske transferred its power-engineering activities to a new
company, Siemens-Schuckertwerke (having absorbed a Nürnberg firm, Schuckert &
Co.); from 1919 on, the two companies were usually chaired by the same officer,
always a member of the Siemens family. In 1932, after seven years of
collaboration, an Erlander firm, Reiniger Gebbert & Schall, merged with the
Siemens interests to form Siemens-Reiniger-Werke AG, which engaged in the
production of medical diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, especially X-ray
machines and electron microscopes.

The House of Siemens, as the companies were collectively called, expanded
greatly during the Third Reich (1933–45). All plants ran at full capacity during
World War II and were dispersed throughout the country to avoid air strikes in
1943–44. At the war’s end, Hermann von Siemens (1885–1986), the head of the
group, was briefly interned (1946–48), and Siemens officials were charged with
recruiting and employing slave labour from captive nations and associating in
the construction and operation of the extermination camp at Auschwitz and the
concentration camp at Buchenwald. As much as 90 percent of the companies’ plants
and equipment in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany were expropriated. The
Western powers also removed and destroyed some facilities until the Cold War
sparked Western interest in West Germany’s economic reconstruction and
cooperation. During the 1950s, from its base in West Germany, the House of
Siemens gradually expanded its share of the electrical market in Europe and
overseas so that by the 1960s it was again one of the world’s largest electrical
companies.



In 1966 all constituent companies were merged into the newly created Siemens AG.
The company gradually expanded its operations globally through the remainder of
the 20th century. During the early 21st century its products ranged from
diagnostic imaging systems, mobile telephones, and hearing aids to mass transit
systems, ground movement radar for airfields, and power generating equipment.
The company also designed, built, and operated telecommunications networks.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.


Werner von Siemens
Table of Contents
Werner von Siemens

Table of Contents
 * Introduction

Fast Facts
 * Facts & Related Content

Read Next
 * Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution

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Related Biographies
 * Edward Weston
   American engineer and industrialist
 * Sir William Siemens
   British inventor
 * Gottlieb Daimler
   German engineer and inventor
 * Thomas Edison
   American inventor
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Science & Tech


WERNER VON SIEMENS

German electrical engineer
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Also known as: Ernst Werner von Siemens
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and edit content received from contributors.

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Last Updated: Article History
Table of Contents
Werner von Siemens
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Category: Science & Tech
Born: December 13, 1816 Germany ...(Show more) Died: December 6, 1892 (aged 75)
London England ...(Show more) Founder: Siemens AG ...(Show more) Inventions:
self-excited generator ...(Show more)
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Werner von Siemens, in full Ernst Werner Von Siemens, (born Dec. 13, 1816,
Lenthe, Prussia [now in Germany]—died Dec. 6, 1892, Charlottenburg, Berlin,
Ger.), German electrical engineer who played an important role in the
development of the telegraph industry.

After attending grammar school at Lübeck, Siemens joined the Prussian artillery
at age 17 for the training in engineering that his father could not afford.
While in prison briefly at Magdeburg for acting as second in a duel between
fellow officers, he carried out chemistry experiments in his cell. These led, in
1842, to his first invention: an electroplating process. His appointment about
1841 to the artillery workshops in Berlin gave him an opportunity to do
research, which in turn set the direction of his life’s work.

Britannica Quiz
Inventors and Inventions

When Siemens saw an early model of an electric telegraph, invented by Sir
Charles Wheatstone in 1837, he realized at once its possibilities for
international communication and invented improvements for it. A specialist on
the electric telegraph, he laid an underground line for the Prussian army in
1847 and, at the same time, persuaded a young mechanic named Johann Georg Halske
to start a telegraph factory with him in Berlin. In 1848, during hostilities
with Denmark at Kiel, Siemens laid a government telegraph line from Berlin to
the National Assembly of Frankfurt, and supervised the laying of lines to other
parts of Germany. In 1849 he resigned his commission to become a telegraph
manufacturer.

The firm of Telegraphenbauanstalt Siemens & Halske prospered rapidly, carrying
out large telegraphic projects and expanding into other electrical fields as new
applications of electricity were developed. Werner and his brother Carl
(1829–1906) established subsidiary factories in London, St. Petersburg, Vienna,
and Paris. Werner’s continued research efforts and his inventions in electrical
engineering resulted in many new products. His use in 1847 of gutta-percha to
insulate telegraphic cables against moisture was later widely applied to
electric-light cables and also made the first underground and submarine
telegraph cables possible. Under Werner’s direction, the firm of Siemens &
Halske laid cables across the Mediterranean and from Europe to India. In 1866 he
invented the self-excited generator, a dynamo that could be set in motion by the
residual magnetism of its powerful electromagnet, which replaced the inefficient
steel magnet.

In 1888 Siemens was raised to the rank of nobility (with the addition of von to
his name).



Siemens’ Lebenserinnerungen (1892; Personal Recollections, also translated as
Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections) gives interesting details of his
family relationships and industrial enterprises.

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