Bodenseewerk
The Bodenseewerk was an armaments and technology company based in Überlingen in the early 1940s . Even if the original Lake Constance plant no longer exists today, there are still various companies on the site, some of which continue the earlier activities of the former Lake Constance plant.
origin
At the beginning of the 1940s, the armaments activities of the Berlin Askania Werke AG were relocated first to Konstanz and later to Überlingen on Lake Constance. Kurt Wilde, the then head of the aviation equipment plant at Askania-Werke, came to Lake Constance for strategic reasons towards the end of the war . He was supposed to develop an aircraft torpedo here with a small team of engineers .
post war period
After the end of the Second World War , Askania Werke AG Bodenseewerk Überlingen was founded in 1947 . In the same year civil production was started. In order to survive in the difficult post-war period , a wide variety of things were developed and built with the existing knowledge, for which a sales opportunity was seen: vices , marching compasses, ballpoint pens , pencil sharpeners , tape recorders or sunglasses .
After all, optically sophisticated products such as cinema theodolites , i.e. devices for determining the trajectory of rockets or range finders , were also part of the range. In 1949 the company was converted into a GmbH in order to be able to receive its own bank loans and funds from the Marshall Plan .
Analytics activities
In 1954 the American Perkin-Elmer Corporation acquired the majority of the company shares in order to use the company's precision engineering and optical knowledge for the development and production of automation technology and sophisticated analysis devices . From then on, the company operated under the name Bodenseewerk Perkin-Elmer GmbH & Co. KG .
From these activities, the “world's largest museum for instrumental analysis” arose in Askaniaweg in Überlingen, which from 2000 was partially transferred to the Clausthal University of Technology .
After almost five decades, the successful business area was discontinued in 2001, after the US group EG&G bought this business area in 1999, took over the company name Perkin-Elmer , and subsequently ended all activities in the field of instrumental analysis in Überlingen. Parts of the workforce and the building were later taken over by Analytik Jena in Thuringia .
The activities in the field of laboratory automation for biotechnology that began in the mid-1990s at the Bodenseewerk were partially continued in 1999 by the US Applera Corporation or taken over by the German CyBio AG , an offshoot of the Thuringian Jenoptik .
Aviation activities
After the end of the war, all aviation activities were temporarily prohibited in Germany. In 1958, however, the development of flight controllers was resumed, and in 1960 - with the order for the European Sidewinder program - a subsidiary was founded under the name Fluggerätewerk Bodensee GmbH . In 1968 the name was changed to Bodenseewerk Geräteechnik GmbH (BGT). In marine geology , BGT was known for its gravimeters for use on ships.
In 1989 the Diehl Group from Nuremberg , an international family-owned technology company, took over 80% of BGT's shares. The French company Aerospatiale-Matra became a minority shareholder with 20% .
In 2000, the control and navigation division was separated from the BGT and established as an independent Diehl company for aircraft equipment with the participation of the French technology group Thales , which initially went onto the market under Diehl Avionik Systeme GmbH .
Successor companies
The Bodenseewerk and the successor companies that emerged from it at the Überlingen location are now all part of the Diehl Group:
- Diehl Aerospace GmbH , an aircraft supplier
- Diehl Aviation , headquarters of the Diehl subgroup that bundles all aviation activities (until around 2008, then Laupheim)
- Diehl BGT Defense GmbH & Co. KG , a technology and armaments company
- Diehl Defense , headquarters of the Diehl subgroup that bundles all armaments activities
On the company premises in the Alte Nußdorfer Straße there are also some other smaller companies that have mostly developed from the area around the original Lake Constance works and that turn the company premises into a kind of 'technology park'.
Trivia
Although the company has had an eventful history and the company names have changed several times, the companies in the region that still reside here today are often referred to colloquially as 'Bodenseewerke'. This also documents the main gate to the company premises, which remains unchanged under the name “Bodenseewerk”.
The sports activities of the employees of all Diehl companies in Überlingen continue to operate jointly under the name Bodenseewerk Betriebs-Sport-Gemeinschaft (BSG) . The Überlinger Seglerhafen at the Ostbad originated from the sailing department of the BSG.
The street running west of the company premises is named after the first managing director, "Dr. Kurt Wilde".
The building designations that are still used today (e.g. A3, A4, F1, E4) are a relic from the past and document the company's history: 'A' originally stood for 'Analyzegerätewerk', 'F' for 'Fluggerätewerk' and 'E' 'for' extension building '.
The first branch of the Bodenseewerk in Überlingen (then Askania-Werke ) was in Askaniaweg (building 'A1') and today also houses various smaller companies, including Analytik Jena . Another location (building 'A2') was located behind the former Kramer site on Nussdorfer Strasse and no longer exists today. The building numbers from 'A3' as well as all 'F' and 'E' are located in Alte Nußdorfer Straße.
