Brunsviga machine works

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Company view Grimme, Natalis & Co (around 1910)

The Brunsviga Maschinenwerke (founded as Grimme, Natalis & Co. ) were known for a line of mechanical calculating machines from the Brunsviga brand . This line was so successful that the manufacturing company was renamed "Brunsviga Maschinenwerke AG".

Historical data

On November 3rd, 1871 the company Grimme, Natalis & Co., Commanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (GNC) was founded in Braunschweig . In 1921 the company was converted into a stock corporation ( Grimme, Natalis & Co. AG ). In 1927 the name was changed and the company was now called Brunsviga Maschinenwerke, Grimme, Natalis & Co. AG .

Franz Trinks was responsible for the technical development of the Brunsviga machines until 1925; he died in 1931.

The organ contract concluded in 1957 with Olympiawerke AG was intended to provide the capital required to bring the calculating machines up to the latest technical standard for the rapidly changing sales market. Obviously, this project did not succeed because the assets of Brunsviga Maschinenwerke AG were transferred to Olympiawerke AG on January 16, 1959.

The company was located at Kastanienallee (then street name "Zum Exerzierplatz") 71 for a century. From 1936 a second production facility was built on Hamburger Strasse. In 1967, both plants began to move to a new building on Gifhorner Strasse, and the technology academy (formerly the “technical school”) and later the vocational school V moved into the old main building . In 1979 the factory was closed by AEG as the parent company of Olympia-Werke.

development

Brunsviga 15 calculating machine without cover plates
Brunsviga calculating machine, advertisement 1905

GNC made sewing machines , household machines and the like. In March 1892, the GNC company was offered the license rights to the calculating machine of Willgodt Theophil Odhner for Germany, Belgium and Switzerland for 10,000 marks plus 10 marks per machine. The engineer and operations director Franz Trinks pushed through the acquisition of these license rights in April 1892 against great opposition in the supervisory board. The first calculating machine was delivered in July 1892 under the name "Brunsviga" for 150 marks and exhibited by Germany in 1893 at the world exhibition in Chicago . A ten-digit calculating machine by the German Arthur Burkhardt , which resembled a Thomas arithmometer , cost 675 marks at the time.

By the end of 1892 around 60 machines had been produced as exact copies based on a model supplied by Odhner. As early as next year, the machines were continuously improved. In contrast to America, the market for calculating machines in Germany first had to be developed. Land surveying offices were almost the only government buyers. Arousing the need for calculating machines in Western Europe is probably to be seen as the main merit of Grimme, Natalis & Co.

Experience gained in sewing machine manufacturing helped set up an international sales organization. The Brunsviga calculating machines were advertised intensively. The advertising slogan was "brains of steel". Potential customers were selected from telephone books and received advertising brochures. The advertisement from Grimme, Natalis & Co promised that you could learn to use the machine in 10 minutes.

Sales were carried out by representatives who had to go through a six-week training course in the main factory, whereby the emphasis was not only placed on quick operation, but the representatives were also trained so that they could present the optimal solution for the customer's calculation types. In the early years, the solution also included the most efficient control calculation possible, as the machines were considered unreliable.

The representatives were well paid, but also put under strong pressure to succeed, as they were quickly dismissed if unsuccessful. From the beginning, attention was paid to intensive and quick customer service. To this end, a dense network of sales outlets and repair workshops was set up. If problems arose with the machines, a representative visit could be requested from each customer. In this way, targeted reports on machine defects and customer requirements were sent to the main plant. This was the most important source of information for the efforts to make the Brunsviga calculating machines more user-friendly and in this way to enlarge the sales market.

Furthermore, GNC organized operational training courses on the existing calculating machines and on new models. Like the sewing machines previously manufactured, the calculating machines were manufactured industrially in large numbers without pre-ordering.

In the early years of production, the adding machines were more of a by-product. It was only after the cash register machine business was sold in 1901 that there was greater concentration on the calculating machine business, as evidenced by the sharp increase in sales (1892–1901 around 4,000 machines, 1902–1911 around 16,000) and the increasing variety of types. In addition, pure adding machines were developed from 1903 onwards. A wide variety of models were derived from the original Odhner machine in order to meet customer requirements. The up to 18 different versions required high production resources, which in 1925 led to the "Nova" series, which was manufactured in interchangeability . With the renaming from GNC to Brunsviga-Maschinenwerke, Grimme, Natalis & Co. AG in 1927, the company concentrated almost entirely on the construction of calculating machines.

The two world wars, which restricted the building of calculating machines, were important cuts in the company's development. In the Second World War , the production facilities were only insignificantly damaged, and by 1946 two thirds of pre-war production was restored. By the company's anniversary in 1952, a total of around 260,000 calculating machines had been built. In the years that followed, the function of the calculating machines was continuously refined and production was further rationalized, but due to strong competition and high price pressure, the company found itself in financial difficulties, which in 1957 led to the takeover by the Olympia-Werke, which made its own newly designed calculating machine Looking for manufacturing capacities. Olympia also took over the complete distribution, but due to the emerging models with tube or transistor technology, which were superior to the mechanical models in terms of speed and computing capabilities, from 1963 only the 13 RM model remained, which was still manufactured in Spain until 1969. This ended the history of Brunsviga calculating machines after a total of more than 500,000 units had been produced.

Grimme, Natalis & Co didn't just build sprocket machines . From 1932 the "Brunsviga 10" calculating machine was built, which worked with subdivided staggered rollers .

  • Brunsviga calculating machines

  • First generation (including bell, 1893)

  • Trinks-Brunsviga ( BLM )

  • Brunsviga with trademark GN & C.gaA (BLM)

  • Four species calculator from the 1950s to 1960s

Web links

Commons : Brunsviga Maschinenwerke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Erhard Anthes: On the dating of Brunsviga calculating machines. In: Space bar, No. 6, August 1982, pp. 9-11.
  • Peter Faulstich: "Brain made of steel" - Brunsviga 1892–1959. In: Historical office world. In: Zeitschrift des IFHB , March 1994, No. 37, pp. 10-39.
  • Ernst Martin: The calculating machine and its development history - calculating machines with automatic tens transmission . 1st volume. 1st edition. 1925.
  • Hartmut Petzold : Computing machines - A historical study of their manufacture and use from the German Empire to the Federal Republic (=  history of technology in individual representations . Volume 41 ). VDI, Düsseldorf 1985.
  • Jürgen von Platen: The Brunsviga calculating machines . In: surveying survey. - Journal for surveying, number 1/1955, special edition.
  • Jasmin Ramm: The brain of steel - calculating machines from Braunschweig. Exhibition catalog of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, 2008, 38 pages.
  • Jasmin Ramm-Ernst: Steel brains: Mechanical calculating machines as a new form of technology (approx. 1850–1930) using the example of the Brunsviga brand . In: Braunschweiger Publications on the History of Pharmacy and Science , Volume 54, Deutscher Apotheker-Verlag, Stuttgart 2015
  • Franz Trinks: Historical data from the development of the calculating machine from Pascal to Nova-Brunsviga . In: The Braunschweiger GNC monthly , 14 year., 1927, issue 7/8 Brunsviga Maschinenwerke. Grimme, Natalis & Co., Braunschweig, pp. 249-289.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ramm 2008
  2. ↑ a b Martin Reese, Herbert Schneemann: A new Brunsviga table. Secured by 1600 serial numbers and current facts. In: Historical office world. No. 84, April 2011. Journal of the International Forum Historical Office World IFHB , Essen.
  3. ↑ Ramm-Ernst 2015 p. 97.
  4. ↑ Martin 1925 p. 155.
  5. ^ Peter Faulstich: Brunsviga (1892–1959) - Mechanical calculating machines as a world success . In: Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992, pp. 101–114. ( Online version ).
  6. ↑ see Brunsviga 20 on rechnerlexikon.de.

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 45 ″  N , 10 ° 32 ′ 27.2 ″  E