In the 19th century, the sales strategies of many industrial companies were still based on the idea that high product quality was enough to ensure demand. True to his motto "publicity through performance," Werner von Siemens rejected every form of advertising as disreputable. He likewise assigned no particular importance to the visual consistency of Siemens & Halske's corporate image. It was not until several years after his death that the first Siemens trademark was developed. more

 

The Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) is the world's largest radiology conference. It has taken place in Chicago for decades and, for many medical specialties, is the main event for learning about the latest trends and methods in imaging and treatment. The first meeting was held in a Chicago Hotel in late 1915. Whereas initially the focus was on professional exchange between members, in the mid-1930s individual companies began presenting their products at RSNA. Among them was Siemens' medical engineering division, which began exhibiting its innovations in the field of imaging in 1936. more

 

Who would have thought it: in 1986 the then CEO of Siemens AG Karlheinz Kaske made it quite clear in an interview with the "Spiegel:" "You can be sure of one thing, we will never buy an automobile firm." Perhaps in the back of his mind was the fact that Siemens had once taken over an automobile firm but had given up the business again after a quarter of a century … It is however indisputable that, at least in a small way, Siemens left its mark on the history of the car: the "Protos". more

 

The Siemens Historical Institute, in cooperation with Campfire Media, has produced an audio book about the laying of the transatlantic cable by brothers Werner, William, and Carl Siemens. The exciting tale of pioneering adventure focuses on the events as the cable was laid in 1874/75: Listeners are transported aboard the Faraday steamer and experience the action as it unfolds. more

 

Music lovers have long been familiar with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG). The outstanding technical quality of the label's recordings and, above all, the classical and popular artists under contract accounted for the extraordinary popularity of the company's records. However, the worldwide economic crisis brought the company, which was the undisputed market leader in the 1920s, to the brink of collapse. With the support of a consortium in which Siemens was also indirectly involved, DGG regained competitiveness after being transformed into a limited liability company (GmbH) in 1937. more

 

On April 8, 2013, the largest industrial tradeshow in the world will once again open its doors in Hanover. Construction of the Siemens booth in Hall 9 is already in full swing. Ever since 1947, Siemens has been one of the exhibitors at what was originally known as the Export Fair. To find out how Siemens’ exhibitions at the tradeshow have changed over the past 66 years, take a look here. more

 

Up until 1903, the Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft vorm. Schuckert & Co., Nürnberg (EAG) was one of Siemens & Halske AG (S&H)'s main competitors. During the 1880s and 1890s the company focused mainly on the south German market and was quite often chosen for lucrative public sector contracts in preference to S&H. No-one would have thought at the time that the two competitors would one day merge. more

 

It's that time of year again: on January 23, 2013, the Annual Shareholders' Meeting of Siemens AG was held at the Olympiahalle in Munich. And this occasion has inspired us to compile a photo gallery documenting how this yearly event has evolved over the years since the 1950s. more

 

At the end of the 19th century, Siemens had a global workforce of 6,500 and generated revenue of almost 20 million marks. In order to remain competitive and have the means to invest in future technologies, the company which was founded as a general partnership in summer 1897 was converted into a stock corporation. more

 

Restructuring – for some a taboo, for others a savior, but sometimes simply unavoidable: in 1932, medical engineering at Siemens had its back to the wall. Annually mounting losses in the wake of the worldwide economic crisis of 1929 increased the pressure on the business's managers and forced them at last to act. The result was a success: by 1939, Siemens-Reiniger-Werke, a child of necessity, was a world market leader in many areas. more

 

In the age of e-mail, SMS texting and twitter, it is hard to image that a fast and reliable way to transmit messages was one of the central questions of the 19 ^th century. Werner von Siemens recognized this challenge and focused his physics experiments and studies on electrical telegraphy, starting in the mid-1840s. His efforts were successful. For more than 160 years, the Siemens name has stood for innovative products and solutions. more

 

The award-winning Siemens company film "Impulse of our Time" was premiered on October 16, 1959 in the Film-Casino Munich. more

 

Today, 90 years after Siemens acquired an interest in Osram, the lighting producer is one of the most traditional brands in the world, and a global synonym for light. You can find out how the Osram-Gesellschaft has developed since 1920 with the substantial participation of Siemens in the article here. more

 

Like many entrepreneurial pioneers from the era of German industrialization, for decades Werner von Siemens dominated not just his company's image and identity, but the form and content of corporate communications. After the company founder's death in 1892, as the product range began proliferating, Siemens & Haske's clear corporate profile was in danger of getting blurred. In response, at the beginning of the 20 ^th century corporate management established the company's first organizational units to deal systematically with public relations work and market communications. more

 

At the end of the 19th century, Budapest was the most important city in Europe east of Vienna. As a result of Hungary’s centralized organizational structure, the country’s economic development and industrial progress primarily took place in the capital city of Budapest. In preparation for the Millennium Fair, which was to be held in 1896, the municipal authorities embarked on numerous major projects – including the first electrically powered underground on the European continent, which was built by Siemens & Halske.more

 

About 50 years ago, Siemens introduced microelectronics to automation technology. Suddenly, transistors were being used to control enormous steam turbine sets. It was an advance that marked the beginning of solid-state industrial automation.more

 

In 1867, excited about the possible applications of the dynamo-electric principle he had discovered the year before, Werner von Siemens was already talking about “building railways on iron pillars along the streets of Berlin and operating them with electricity.” Over a decade later, the pioneer of electricity admitted that he didn’t think this vision was really feasible yet. And in fact several more decades were to pass before, in February 1902, Germany’s first elevated and underground railway was ceremonially opened in Berlin.more

 

Everyone remembers the Olympic Games of 1972 (August 26 to September 11) because of the attack on the Israeli athletes. What has almost been forgotten is the fact that the event which had been advertised with the motto the "Happy Games of Munich" had a record participation with around 9,000 athletes from all over the world. Equally forgotten is the challenge of guaranteeing the smooth running of the 196 competitions at 31 locations using innovative technology, which produced new achievements of an "Olympic" dimension. For Siemens the Olympics were an excellent opportunity to demonstrate its competence in the infrastructure area to an international public. more

 

In 1983, Siemens' top management announced that the development and production of megabit memory chips would henceforth be a strategic company goal. The aim was to close the gap to the market-leading Japanese producers by 1989. To achieve its objective, Siemens cooperated with Dutch and Japanese partners. At the end 1987, the first one-megabit DRAM chips went into series production in Regensburg, Germany. In the summer of 1988, Siemens became the first producer on the world market to supply customer samples of a four-megabit DRAM device. The company had joined the ranks of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers. more

 

At the beginning of the 1870s there were three cable links between the Old and the New World. All these transatlantic cables were in the possession of the Anglo American Telegraph Company. Their primary shareholder, John Pender from the UK, resolutely defended his monopoly. To break this domination, many people, especially American businessmen and public figures, decided to install another communication link. The only people who were considered capable of this task were the Siemens brothers. And they took up the challenge. more

 

The German Federal President quoted Goethe and the head of the German national railway company Deutsche Bahn was full of enthusiasm: after the official acceptance at the end of May at the station of Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, the new flagship of the Deutsche Bahn commenced regular service at 5.53 p.m. on June 2, 1991. With the help of Siemens. more

 

Economically transporting energy over distances of hundreds of kilometers was and still is one of the central challenges for electrical engineering. For exceptionally long distances, high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) power transmission has been an especially efficient solution since the 1970s. Forty years ago, Siemens built the first major HVDC line in southern Africa. more

 

130 years ago – on May 16, 1881 – Siemens & Halske put the first electric streetcar in the world into service in the Berlin suburb of Groß-Lichterfelde. The 2.5-kilometer route connected the Lichterfelde station of the Anhalt Railway (today the Berlin station Lichterfelde Ost), with the military institute in Zehlendorfer Straße (today: Finckensteinallee). In the first three months alone the railway carried 12,000 passengers. more

 

On April 29, 1882, an open hunting carriage in Halensee near Berlin caused a stir. The vehicle moved forward without being drawn by horses or running on rails – as was then usual. Observant bystanders however noticed the cables leading up to an electric overhead line which caused the vehicle to move. As the world's first trolleybus, it laid the foundation for an entirely new form of motorized travel. more

 

Back in the 19th century, it took several days for important political and economic news to travel from the superpower of the day, England, to its most important colony, India. The first time a message from Calcutta reached London in "only" 28 minutes, it was a world sensation. The 11,000-kilometer telegraph link, one of the most important "lighthouse projects" of Siemens & Halske, established the young company's global reputation. more

 

In the fall of 1877, Heinrich von Stephan initiates the first telephone experiments in Germany. Excited by the idea of being able to communicate in real-time, Stephan, then the General Postal Director of the German Empire, commissions Werner von Siemens to refine the telephone system invented by American Alexander Graham Bell. In November of the same year, Stephan authorizes the opening of the first telegraph office with telephone service in Friedrichsberg near Berlin (Berlin-Lichtenberg).The first exchange dedicated solely to telephone calls would follow less than four years later. more

 

Only three months after the discovery of "x-rays" by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, the x-ray tube was decisively improved by Siemens & Halske. Thanks to company developments, the vacuum and related gas pressure inside the tube could be regulated, making it possible to increase pressure during the exposure itself in order to produce the most intensive radiation and sharpest images. more

 

In autumn 1866, Werner von Siemens was spending more time on the question of how to improve spinning dynamos as they existed at that time. The only usable sources of electricity at that time were electrochemical batteries and simple spinning dynamos, but they lacked the power to be used for anything but telegraphic purposes and small galvanic applications. more

 

The Swedish engineer Rune Elmqvist was a true pioneer of medical engineering. Together with the doctor Ǻke Senning, he developed the fully implantable pacemaker, the first of which was inserted into a human body over 50 years ago. While the energy of the first pacemakers was used up after only a few hours, present devices last an average of eight to ten years. more

 

Today we automatically reach the individual floors of high buildings by elevator. This was not always the case; for a long time people had to trudge up every flight of stairs. That is certainly one of the reasons why the era of skyscrapers only began at the end of the 19 ^th century. more

 

Some know John Rabe through his portrayal by Ulrich Tukur in the feature film directed by Florian Gallenberger, but this was not the first time his name was known to a wider public. The 1997 publication of John Rabe's unsettling diaries, edited by diplomat and author Erwin Wickert, triggered a public debate about the "good German of Nanjing," whose humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Chinese civilian population during the horrific Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937/38 had been in danger of slipping into oblivion. more

 

Noted German physicist and Siemens researcher Heinrich Welker was born 100 years ago. Welker became a pioneer in semiconductor technology through his discovery of the semiconducting III/V compounds from elements of the third and fifth groups of the periodic table such as gallium arsenide. more

 

Women in management, as topical an issue as ever: of the 190 members of DAX company managing boards only seven are women. They are also under-represented in middle management, comprising only 20 percent of all team leaders in Germany. The career of Dr. Marie Busch, who started work just under 100 years ago with a company that was a forerunner of the present Healthcare Sector and retired after over 40 years as a respected member of the management, is therefore all the more remarkable. On the occasion of International Women's Day, we look at the life of one of the first female managers at Siemens. more

 

In 1847 the 33- year-old precision engineer Johann Georg Halske founded together with Werner von Siemens the company that bore their names. Who was this man, who kept rather in the background by comparison with his world-famous partner? more

 

The President and CEO of Siemens is an important person with an important position. He confers with political leaders and makes decisions that establish his company's strategic orientation and determine its success or failure. For his achievements, he's esteemed and at times also honored. And so it was with Siemens' first head: the more successful the Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske became, the greater was Werner Siemens' personal prestige in Prussian society. One of the highpoints of his public recognition: ennoblement by the German Emperor. more

 

The Siemens AG that we know today was founded in October 1847 as "Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske." Through his inventions, visionary entrepreneur Werner von Siemens, who was born on December 13, 1816, was instrumental in transforming Germany from a backward agricultural country to one of the world's leading industrial nations. His pioneering spirit still influences the corporate culture of our company to the present day. more

 

If one wished to rank the Siemens brothers according to how famous they are, Werner von Siemens would be the undisputed leader by far. Less well known, but still familiar to people who know something about the family would be Werner's younger brothers, Wilhelm (William) and Carl Siemens. Far fewer have heard of Friedrich August Siemens, although in his own field he was one of the most successful inventors and entrepreneurs of his time. more

 

Every year, the Association for Company History (Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte – GUG) organizes a symposium to give fresh impetus to historical research and provide an opportunity to discuss topics of current interest in the field. This year, the main topic was "immigrant entrepreneurs" – that is, business leaders who worked in countries other than those in which they were raised and educated. Carl von Siemens was such an entrepreneur. The youngest brother of Werner von Siemens, he grew up in Germany but worked successfully for decades in Russia and England. Through his achievements as a managing director, an independent entrepreneur and the head of challenging major projects, he made a key contribution to the development of Siemens & Halske into a "worldwide enterprise like that of the Fuggers." more

 

Even before Werner von Siemens founded "Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske" in Berlin in 1847, he began marketing his inventions in the United Kingdom. As early as 1843, he sent his brother Wilhelm (officially William as of 1859) to London with instructions to patent an electrolytic method of gold and silver plating he had patented in Prussia. One year later, in 1844, Wilhelm settled permanently in London as a "civil engineer" and opened a sales agency for Siemens & Halske on March 16, 1850. more

 

Since its establishment in October 1847, the "Siemens & Halske Telegraph Construction Company" in Berlin had been operating at two large locations. However, starting in the 1880s, conditions at these production facilities were becoming extremely cramped due to the rapid growth of the electrical engineering company, first in Markgrafenstraße and later also in Charlottenburg. A comprehensive solution was needed – a new location that would allow for expansion. In the late 1890s, the company began constructing a range of production facilities at the Nonnenwiesen site in the north of Berlin. Starting in the fall of 1904, first housing developments were also built. Within 15 years, a whole new city district had been created – which as of January 1, 1914, was officially named Siemensstadt. more

 

Although Siemens Canada Limited received its federal charter on August 29, 1912, in Montreal, making 2012 the official 100th anniversary of the company, Siemens' roots in Canada go back even earlier to the birth of the nation. more

 

On August 1, Siemens will celebrate the 125 ^th anniversary of its presence in Japan. The company has been longer in Japan than even many Japanese companies. During this time, Japan has seen unprecedented growth and development, and experienced major tragedies such as the Great Kanto Earthquake, the two world wars, and the Great East Japan Earthquake. more

 

The Irish Free State awarded the contract for electrification of the country to Siemens-Schuckertwerke in 1925. The heart of the hydroelectric system on the River Shannon was the Ardnacrusha power plant in southwest Ireland. The contract to build this run-of-the-river rotary current power plant was the largest foreign order received by a German company since construction of the Baghdad railway began in 1903. Following almost four years of construction, the station was officially inaugurated on July 22, 1929, in the presence of William Thomas Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. This major project offered impressive evidence that Siemens was competitive internationally. more

 

The year 2012 is a very special one for Siemens Healthcare's production and development facility in Kemnath. On May 25, the plant, which is located in the Oberpfalz region of Germany, will celebrate its 50 ^th anniversary. In an interview on the history of the facility, Alfred Koch, its current head, looks back with pride: "Fifty years ago, a few pioneers began to develop Siemens' operations in Kemnath. Who'd have thought we'd become a global center of competence for mechatronics?" more

 

Built in 1898 west of a canal branching off the River Spree in Berlin, Siemens' cable factory – the Kabelwerk-Westend – was soon too small to cope with demand from the rapidly growing energy and telecommunications markets. As a result, planning for a new facility was begun in the early 1910s. more

 

In 1998 the fossil fuel power plant business of the Westinghouse Corporation was taken over by Siemens AG. By this time, both electrical engineering companies could look back on a long and successful partnership. The first patent and know-how exchange contract had already been signed in fall 1924. more

 

"We will probably soon get started in China. The ambassador here has reported back to China and as a result the Chinese administration […] has expressed a wish to obtain dynamos from us." With these lines written to his brother Carl in 1879, Werner von Siemens noted the beginning of relationships with China. Siemens had already delivered pointer telegraphs seven years previously. In spite of all the ups and downs resulting from the political situation, a partnership was built up on this basis which has now connected the company with this huge country in the south east for over 130 years. more

 

Every type of business needs "lighthouse projects" – and this was as true in the days of the Siemens brothers as it is now. The permanent electric lighting for the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg provided by Werner von Siemens' brother Carl was just such a project. The successful conclusion of the project marked a breakthrough for Siemens as a supplier of electric lighting in Russia. more

 

Active in Spain for 115 years, Siemens holds a leading position in the country's industry, energy and healthcare sectors. One of Siemens' most important facilities in Spain, its factory in Cornellá near Barcelona, has now belonged to the tradition-rich German company for 100 years. more

 

For decades, Siemens has demonstrated that far-sighted management and a motivated workforce are instrumental in carrying the company successfully through periods of worldwide financial crisis and economic difficulty. Siemens' X-ray tube factory in Rudolstadt, a small town in the German state of Thüringen, is a prime example. The facility's turbulent beginnings are now the subject of a doctoral dissertation. more

 

The Greek company A. Zachariou tops the list of foreign representatives on the cover of the first Siemens News of 1900. In February of that year, Siemens & Halske had signed a general agency agreement with the Piraeus-based enterprise. more

 

Carl von Siemens, the younger brother of the company's founder, was one of the main instigators of the international expansion that began not long after Siemens & Halske was founded. more

 

Between the end of March and the middle of November 1909, the Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (AEG) built a new assembly hall on the premises of their turbine factory in Berlin-Moabit, which made the headlines... more

 

Environmental protection has a long tradition at Siemens AG and is an integral part of the corporate strategy. With the official opening of a corporate environmental protection office 40 years ago, Siemens acknowledged the theme as a key issue for the future more

 

Healthcare was part of the company's social policy right from the beginning. At Siemens it was recognized at an early stage that a targeted health policy had a preventive effect that was beneficial to the company, since it noticeably reduced absences from work due to sickness. Before there was even a state health policy, Werner von Siemens had established medical services at his company. more

 

For decades Werner von Siemens saw no reason to train apprentices. Even in 1885 he is recorded as saying, "I don't think it is appropriate for large factories to be basically involved in apprenticeship training, I […] have thus prohibited it in my factory." Von Siemens was not alone in this opinion; numerous company owners were skeptical about the quality of training for skilled workers in a large factory with series production and piecework rates. Parents were recommended instead to obtain apprenticeships for their sons "at smaller mechanics' workshops where they would be trained more quickly and usually probably also to a better standard." This attitude was however soon to change. more

 

Siemens AG has been offering its employees the opportunity to buy shares at preferential rates since 1969. By issuing employee shares, the company acknowledges the contribution of the workforce to its business success and at the same time encourages their identification with the company's goals. more