German-Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Deutsch-Atlantische Telegraphengesellschaft (DAT) was a company that laid submarine cables to enable telegraphy between the German Empire and the United States . It was founded on 21 February 1899 an independent foreign operators overseas cable between Emden via the Azores to New York to lay.
A subsidiary of the Cologne-based company Clouth Gummiwerke AG received the order . The first cable went into operation on September 1, 1900. A second cable was laid and put into operation as early as 1904 due to the growing volume of traffic. When the First World War broke out , the cable was interrupted by the British ; only in 1925 did it go back into operation. On January 27, 1926, DAT put two more cables between Emden and the Azores into operation.
When the Second World War broke out , the DAT cables were interrupted again. Only in 1954 could operations be resumed. The DAT head office was relocated from Emden to Cologne (Hansaring) as early as 1952 . In the post-war period, DAT's cable capacities were leased on a long-term basis.
DAT was a 100% subsidiary of the Gerling group. Around 1970 a software company was founded in Cologne and a data center was taken over in Koblenz (Gefa). The main customers at that time were Gerling Insurance ( IBM ), Herstatt-Bank ( Honeywell Bull ) and TUI in Hanover .
Since it was foreseeable in the 1980s that the cable business would soon end, the restructuring of DAT began. Various companies (software products: rhv, software projects: AGS, COMPAC) were bought up or newly founded (consulting: INTELDAT, electronic mail: MAXDAT) in order to create a new basis for business. In the 1990s, DAT then concentrated on its new core business, software projects, and separated from the other business areas.
literature
- Michael Wobring, The globalization of telecommunications in the 19th century , Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 9783631536223
- Michael Weisfeld, Transatlantik, via cable in: TransAtlantik 01/91, Munich 1991, Ed. Heinz van Nouhuys