Kienzle apparatus
The Kienzle Apparate GmbH Villingen was a German industrial company, (v. A. Through its technical tools for the automotive sector tachograph , taximeter ) as well as office machines and computer systems was known. The family company was first taken over by Mannesmann AG in the 1980s , then by Siemens AG . The company has been part of Continental AG since 2007 . At the Villingen-Schwenningen site, the plant continues to be the city's largest industrial employer.
Founding years
Kienzle Apparate GmbH Villingen was founded in 1928/29 as a spin-off of the Kienzle watch factories Schwenningen. The core of the new company formed the operations, personnel, know-how and products of the C. Werner company, a Villingen watch factory that was taken over by Kienzle in 1913. C. Werner had developed and sold his own Argo brand taximeters since 1905 . This business was continued by the Kienzle watch factories and was the starting point for further developments of control and measuring instruments for companies and automobiles. Most important invention was the tachograph (here tachograph ), which represented an important part of Kienzle business for decades. The founder was Herbert Kienzle , one of the sons of Jakob Kienzle , who set up the watch factory in Schwenningen. In the early years the company was owned by other members of the Kienzle family, but from 1934/35 all shares were transferred to the Dr. Herbert Kienzle transferred.
Further development during National Socialism and World War
After the crisis years during the Great Depression, Kienzle Apparate experienced its first boom in the years of National Socialism and World War II. The number of employees rose to over 1,000, including numerous forced laborers in the second half of the war. The company became part of the German war economy. The Wehrmacht was the main buyer of civilian products (tachographs) and customer for armaments projects. At Kienzle Apparate v. a. Manufactured regulators for aircraft engines, in the second half of the war the company switched to its own developments for the Wehrmacht.
Boom in the post-war period
In the post-war period , there were two developments that brought about the renewed rise of Kienzle Apparate GmbH. On the one hand, it was the breakthrough to become an automotive society in the Federal Republic of Germany, which pushed the automotive instrument business. This also includes the introduction of parking meters , of which the company has been one of the most important manufacturers since the 1950s.
On the other hand, the company built up a second large business area with the production of office machines and later computers. Kienzle Apparate was not only one of the most important German providers of mechanical booking machines, but was also one of the pioneering companies in the introduction of small computer systems for commercial office applications. In the years from 1963 onwards there were close collaborations and several - ultimately failed - negotiations regarding a merger with Nixdorf's laboratory for pulse technology . In addition to Nixdorf or Triumph-Adler , Kienzle was one of the major providers of computer systems for medium- sized data technology from the late 1960s . During this time, the company was managed by Jochen Kienzle and Herbert Kienzle, the two sons of the company founder.
From family company to group subsidiary
The economic pressure in the computer business forced the owner family to sell their company to Mannesmann AG in 1981/82 . As Mannesmann Kienzle GmbH, the company experienced another boom in the 1980s with both major business areas. On January 1, 1991, the computer division was sold to the US group Digital Equipment Corporation . The new company Digital-Kienzle Computersysteme GmbH & Co. KG did not survive the deep crisis of the parent company, so that the history of the Kienzle computer ended in the mid-1990s. The attempt to continue in the employee company DITEC Informationstechnologie GmbH & Co. KG was also unsuccessful. The automotive part was continued by Mannesmann from 1991. It was gradually merged with the VDO company and together with it formed the Mannesmann VDO Group. When Mannesmann AG was broken up by Vodafone in 2000, this entire business area was sold on to the Siemens Group and worked as Siemens VDO until 2007 . In December 2007, the Continental Corporation acquired Siemens VDO Automotive AG. Meanwhile, the Villingen part of Continental Automotive GmbH is responsible for the truck division. Tachographs (DTCO), the toll OBU , instrument clusters for trucks, buses and tractors, control units and entire driver workstations for buses are produced here today.
literature
- Hans-Heinrich Schmid : Lexicon of the German watch industry 1850–1980: company addresses, production program, company logos, brand names, company histories. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chronometrie eV, 3rd expanded edition, 2017, ISBN 978-3-941539-92-1
- Armin Müller: Kienzle. A German industrial company in the 20th century. Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 2nd edition, 2014, ISBN 978-3-515-10669-6
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.conti-online.com: Continental officially completes acquisition of Siemens VDO Automotive AG , December 3, 2007, accessed on November 2, 2010
