Gottfried Eduard Hofer

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Gottfried Eduard Hofer (born October 20, 1891 in Biel ; † October 20, 1993 in Zurich ) was a Swiss entrepreneur . He was Honorary President of Alcatel STR AG and Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Couronne Belge.

Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Couronne

Life

Gottfried Eduard Hofer was born on October 20, 1891 as the son of Gottfried Hofer in Biel. In the years 1907 to 1910 he completed his training as an electrician at the Technikum Biel. He then went to Antwerp , where he worked for Bell Telephone Manufacturing Comp. , a subsidiary of the American group International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) . On behalf of his Belgian and American employers, he founded Standard Telephon und Radio AG (STR) in 1935 . He got the company until 1958 as Director General (CEO) and President of the Board of Directors before (VPR). From then on G. Muriset became CEO.

Gottfried Eduard Hofer, who was married to Helene Maria Elisabeth (née Widmann) in 1917, died on his 102nd birthday in Zurich.

His son, Dipl. Ing. ETH Eduard Ludwig Hofer, worked for an ITT subsidiary in Great Britain and then worked for STR before becoming head of the sales department (Sales Manager) around 1956. In 1967 he moved to the European headquarters of ITT in Brussels. His successor was Heinrich F. Grieder, who came from Georg Fischer AG , Schaffhausen. When the previous product manager, Werner Thierstein, succeeded G. Muriset as CEO in 1968, he left STR at the beginning of 1971 and Gian Andri Vital, Dipl. Ing. ETH, became sales manager for ITT group systems and director of marketing and corporate development.

Act

GE Hofer made a significant contribution to setting up the telephone network in Switzerland, as his company provided the necessary switchboards , among other things . I.a. the first automatic control center in Switzerland was replaced in 1953 by one built by STR in Zurich.

Around 1954 the company was active in the following areas: capacitor production , telephone system construction, since 1942 own selenium rectifier construction , amplifier construction , pneumatic post (sales) and high frequency technology .

In 1950 she had z. For example, the contract was to equip Zurich-Kloten Airport with an “Instrument Landing System ( ILS )”, which made it possible to land in extremely poor visibility. The main responsible clerk in sales was previously head of the radio and electronics departments at Swiss Air from 1943 to 1949 . Over 10 years later, he was also responsible for the renewal contract.

He was also the point of contact for a very far-sighted project for countermeasures in the “electronic war” in the mid-1960s. Interested partners were sought for cooperation with a confidential circular: The cyber war was seen coming.

ITT Standards Department letterhead

The sales department was not only responsible for its own products, but also sold products from other ITT companies, e.g. B. from the USA, Great Britain, France, Spain and Germany. The ITT Standard department was there for this purpose. a. Sales of flight and weapon system simulators . Around 1968 z. B. Flight simulators for Mirage fighters .

Development of the company

The company started in 1931 in a rented bar in Zurich-Brunau with the production of loudspeakers and electrolytic capacitors . It was the concessionaire of the International Standard Electric Corp. and Bell Telephone Manufacturing Co. and, like them, belonged to ITT.

STR AG letterhead before 1967

So were z. B. until 1939 also built Bell radios. It was not until 1935 that Standard Telephon und Radio AG was named. Until 1966, the STR letterhead bore the bell logo.

From 1936 onwards, STR rented more and more space in the Rote Fabrik industrial building in Zurich-Wollishofen and finally acquired the building entirely in 1940. In 1952, a dome standing on the front left corner of the factory building from 1892 was removed and a larger one-story structure was installed in its place. Some departments were later temporarily housed in other offices in the city. A branch office founded in 1914 by Bell Telephone Manufacturing Co. was located in Bern. In 1959 production facilities were built in Au (ZH) .

Since around 1963, numerous plans to build tunnels in the Zurich area have been circulating. One of them, the so-called "Big Seetunnel", was to be led from the lakeshore in Wollishofen to Tiefenbrunnen . The STR management feared that their company premises at Seestrasse 365 could become interesting for the entry and exit in Wollishofen, because it offered the only large contiguous land area in this area. You might be forced to surrender them, especially since the city had a right of first refusal. Because STR felt a moral obligation to stay in Zurich, a replacement site for the construction of a new office building was sought there. It was found in Wiedikon and so there was an exchange of land with the city in 1972. In 1974, STR AG relocated its headquarters to the new office building at Friesenbergstrasse 75 and in 1976 the rest of the employees moved there from the office building of the Rote Fabrik.

In 1986/87 the company, like Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (SEL) , was sold as part of the communications department of ITT to the French company Alcatel ( CGE (Compagnie Générale d'Electricité) until 1966 ). Alcatel STR AG was created as part of it and Gian Andri Vital became CEO and delegate of the Board of Directors in 1989 until 1996, when the company name was changed to Alcatel Schweiz AG. This in turn merged on December 1, 2006 with Lucent to form Alcatel-Lucent , which was taken over by Nokia on January 14, 2016 . Successor to STR AG: Nokia Solutions and Networks Switzerland Ltd. in the administration building at Friesenbergstrasse 75 in Zurich.

A history of the company possibly written by GE Hofer himself, the manuscript of which - like the staff newspapers from 1945 to 1971 - is in the Zurich City Archives, has not yet been viewed.

literature

  • Interview with 100 year old GE Hofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 13, 1992, p. 51
  • Obituary GE Hofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, October 23, 1993, p. 56

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung October 23, 1993, p. 56
  2. ↑ Bauen, Wohnen, Leben, (1954) 15 p. 13
  3. ↑ Beatrice Bissoli Contin: Memories from the Twentieth Century . 2003, ISBN 3-86516-024-7 , p. 28
  4. ↑ Fritz Menzi, Impulse, house newspaper for STR employees, (1974) 8
  5. ^ Pioneer: Journal for the transmission troops, 34 (1961) 1, p. 19
  6. ↑ Red factory with company signs of STR AG after the renovation of the factory building in 1952. Retrieved on March 20, 2020.
  7. ^ Pioneer: Journal for the transmission troops, 34 (1961) 11, p. 368
  8. ↑ The failed Zuercher Tunnelplaene Tagesanzeiger October 2nd, 2013
  9. ↑ The Swiss telephone network. Cape. The regulator trading newspaper December 31, 1999
  10. ^ Hofer, G. Eduard The History of the Standard Telephone and Radio SA Zurich
personal data
SURNAME Hofer, Gottfried Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Biel
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1993
Place of death Zurich