Werner Genest

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Werner Genest

Werner Genest , with full name Wilhelm Ludwig Werner Genest (born August 18, 1850 in Jerichow ; † March 13, 1920 in Berlin ) was a German engineer and entrepreneur .

In addition to technical improvement as a designer, he played a major role in the rapid spread of telegraphs and telephones in Germany through the introduction of mass production. The company Mix & Genest , which he co-founded, developed into a pioneer for low-voltage technology after the end of the First World War and was one of the companies from which Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (SEL) emerged in 1958 .

Life

Werner Genest was the son of the businessman and innkeeper August Genest and his wife Hulda Genest, nee. Week. He studied mechanical engineering at the Berlin Business Academy from 1869 to 1873 . This was followed by several years of employment with the Royal Prussian State Railways . Werner Genest had a wide range of technical interests. When in 1877 he heard of the experiments that the Postmaster General Heinrich von Stephan had carried out with Bell 's telephones, he immediately recognized the far-reaching significance of these experiments. He renounced the pre-established higher civil service career and founded together with the businessman Wilhelm Mix on October 1, 1879 the open trading company Mix & Genest , with its full name oHG Mix & Genest, Telegraphenbau-Anstalt and Telegraphendraht-Fabrik in Prinzessinnenstrasse 23 in Berlin.

The company grew very quickly in the years that followed, above all thanks to the innovative further development of its products, an increasing number of which were also adopted by Swiss Post. In 1884 Werner Genest had his own factory built in Neuenburger Strasse and changed the company name to Mix & Genest, Telegraphenbau-Anstalt, Telephon- und Blitzabortfabrik . Genest, who had been sole owner since 1886, urgently needed access to more investment capital for further growth. He therefore converted his company into a stock corporation , which was registered on April 16, 1889 with 1.2 million marks under the name Actiengesellschaft Mix & Genest, Telephon-, Telegraphen- und Blitzabler-Fabrik . In 1900 the name changed to AG Mix & Genest, Telephon- und Telegraphen-Werke . More than 200 people were already working in Neuenburger Strasse this year. From 1900 pneumatic post systems were also produced. In 1891 and 1892 Genest established branch factories. In 1894 he had a new four-story building built for up to 1000 employees for his main business and another factory in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1895.

By 1904 the company had 2,200 employees and had several branches at home and abroad. In 1907, Genest left the board of directors and moved to the supervisory board , where he continued to work in an advisory capacity.

family

Little is known about his private life. He was married and had four sons. [Document is missing] From 1885 to 1920 he lived with his family at Boothstrasse 16 in Groß-Lichterfelde , where he had a manorial villa built. So he happened to be a direct neighbor of the aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal , who lived in the property at Boothstraße 17, for a few years .

aftermath

Werner Genest owes numerous inventions and improvements in the further development of the telephone. The decision of the Reich Postal Administration in 1900 to allow private industry to set up private branch exchanges and not to regard the entire telecommunications system as a purely state task is largely attributed to his influence.

The Mix & Genest company was taken over by the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) one year after his death . In November 1921, the shareholders agreed to an offer to exchange their company shares for shares in AEG . In 1929 AEG transferred its shares to the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) , or its subsidiary Standard Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (SEG) , which was renamed Standard Elektrik AG in 1956 and in 1958 with C. Lorenz AG to Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (SEL) was merged. The company name Mix & Genest has not been used since then.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Genest . In: Bayern-Online, accessed on October 7, 2015
  2. ^ Wilhelm Ludwig Werner Genest . In: Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon , online version of the University of Magdeburg , accessed on October 7, 2015
  3. ^ Leonhard Dingwerth: The history of the German typewriter factories , Volume 2 - Medium and small manufacturers, Books on Demand 2008, ISBN 978-3-921913-39-0 . P. 275
    ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  4. ^ Dietrich Seidlitz: Werner Genest, Boothstrasse 16 . In Steglitzer Heimat - Mitteilungsblatt des Heimatverein Steglitz eV , No. 2/2007 (52nd year), p. 45 ( online version ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , (PDF; 729 kB)) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heimatverein-steglitz.de
personal data
SURNAME Well, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Genest, Wilhelm Ludwig Werner (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Jerichow
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1920
Place of death Berlin