Lorenz

The story of C. Lorenz begins in the Berlin of telegraphy and electric lighting. Carl Lorenz, born in 1844 and deceased in 1889, opened a mechanical workshop in 1870; in 1880 he established his own business for telegraph apparatus, electric lighting and industrial applications. With thirty to fifty mechanics he built Morse equipment, bells and arc lamps. In 1890 his widow sold the business to Robert Held, a twenty-seven-year-old textile merchant who introduced a more systematic division of labour, piecework and a nine-hour working day. The acquisition of C. F. Lewert in 1893 brought another thirty mechanics and expertise in Morse telegraphy and telephony for the Reichspost. A branch opened in St Petersburg in 1900; in 1906 the company became C. Lorenz AG and obtained the Poulsen arc system licence for Germany and Austria-Hungary from the Amalgamated Radio Telegraph Company. The new radio department worked on undamped high-frequency oscillations, adding voice and music transmission to telegraphy. Contributors to the research included Hahnemann, the first head of the department, Rein, Pungs, Harbich, Scheller, Goldschmidt and Nesper. Poulsen arcs and high-frequency machines were tested at Eberswalde; around 1910 automatic telephone exchanges and private installations were also being developed. The Wilhelm Gurlt telegraph factory, founded in 1853, was absorbed in 1915. The new Tempelhof complex on the Teltowkanal was gradually occupied between 1917 and 1918: the start of construction should not be confused with the actual transfer of production. The step-by-step alphabetic telegraph led, around the mid-1920s, to the Springschreiber, one stage on the path towards the teleprinter.

By 1920 Lorenz was already making experimental broadcasts with the Poulsen arc, while receivers for radio amateurs and employees were being built at Eberswalde and Tempelhof. Its entry into domestic radio took shape in 1923 with the audion Liebhaber-Empfänger, nicknamed Sprottenkiste, “box of sprats”, and sold for 250 Rentenmark. Tuning varied the inductance by moving a short cylindrical iron-powder core. Two crystal receivers were joined by a two-valve audio amplifier and then a preselector: the adjoining modules formed the famous D-Zug, or “express train”. The codes described the equipment: E meant receiver, D crystal detector and R valve receiver; W denoted resistance coupling, T transformer coupling and N the neutrodyne circuit. Until 1932 the first digit of three-digit numbers normally indicated the valve count; between 1932 and 1935–36 names predominated, followed again by various numerical systems. At Held’s death in 1924 the company had about 3,000 employees, but radio was only part of its business: in 1926 high-frequency activities accounted for less than 20%, compared with the weight of telephony, signalling and low-frequency equipment. Lorenz Radio Vertriebsgesellschaft was established in Berlin on 1 April 1926. Huth patents and part of its Hanover premises were acquired in 1927, and cooperation with Tefag also developed. Production of Philips sets begun in 1929 ended in 1930 following litigation with Telefunken.

In May 1930 a majority holding in Lorenz passed to Standard Elektrizitätsgesellschaft through the Standard Telephone and Telegraph corporate network of the ITT group. Tefag, which joined ITT in 1929, retained its brand until the war, while Lorenz maintained considerable operational independence until 1945. Private telephone installations were concentrated at Mix & Genest, also within the SEG sphere from 1929–30, like Schuchhardt. In 1932–33 radio technology reached 45% of Lorenz’s business, its highest internal share before the war: this was not its share of the German market. In receivers, Lorenz’s market share had peaked at 10.8% in 1928; it stood at 6.3%, in fifth place, in 1933, falling to 3.7% in 1934 and 3.3% in 1935. From the mid-1930s orders for the police, Reichspost and armed forces grew. Valve development and manufacture, suspended in 1932, resumed in 1937 with a Berlin laboratory for transmitting and receiving valves and a factory at Mühlhausen in Thuringia, mainly serving military requirements. At Eisenacher Straße 40 it occupied the former Riebel cigar factory, built in 1914 for a business founded at the Untermarkt in 1894. In 1935 Lorenz filed patent DRP 735429 for a rotatable magnetic aerial with a high-frequency iron core, a forerunner of later ferrite aerials, without anachronistically identifying its material as ferrite. The quartz laboratory and BW 1 wire recorder, used in connection with the Olympics and the Reichsbahn, became active in 1936. Lorenz designer A. Stapelfeld was responsible for the 1938 DKE, subsequently built in millions by numerous German companies. H. Rochow and K. L. Vrany are among the names associated with progress in ultra-short waves, mobile equipment and aircraft radio navigation, alongside large transmitters and telegraphy.

Lorenz acquired Schaub in 1940. Its history had begun in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1921 with the Schaub-Elektrizitätsgesellschaft of Baltic German inventor Georg von Schaub, who was also technical director. Crystal receivers from late 1923 were followed by valve sets; G. Schaub Apparatebau-Gesellschaft mbH was established on 16 October 1925. Von Schaub’s designs included the 1928 U8 superheterodyne and the 1932 Super 33, in A and B and later G versions, with short waves and production reaching 250 sets a day. In 1932 Schaub held 4.5% of the German market, in eighth place. In mid-1934 it moved to a former metalware factory in Pforzheim. Director Friedheim left the firm and emigrated in 1936, while the municipality took over its shares; Kurt Hertenstein continued to manage it, including after the war. The 1937 591Dyn combined a simple radio circuit with an attractive cabinet, dynamic loudspeaker, negative feedback in the audio stage and a decorative clock-like dial. The Super 229 II was remembered as Spitzkühler for its distinctive cabinet profile. The 1940 acquisition occurred within the constraints imposed by the war economy. Schaub’s pre-war civilian production ended in 1941, after about 130 models. By 1944 Lorenz as a whole comprised twelve factories and about 24,000 employees, almost entirely engaged in military production. The war left destruction, irrecoverable debts owed by the Reich and the burden of loans imposed on the company. On 23 February 1945 the Schaub plant at Pforzheim-Dillweißenstein was about 90% destroyed by fire following the bombing.

Recovery proceeded through regional units that were initially poorly coordinated. Operations remained in the western territories at Berlin, Eschershausen, Landshut and Pforzheim; machinery from Mühlhausen was moved west during the brief American occupation of that area, helping valve production start in Esslingen in February 1946. After the war Mühlhausen followed a separate path: the new VEB established in 1952 within the RFT system first used code RFT 603, then a small m above a base with three circles and wavy lines. By 1967–68 it was among East Germany’s largest makers of receiving and special valves, including for export; semiconductor research in the late 1960s was followed by production in 1971. In 1982 it became VEB Mikroelektronik “Wilhelm Pieck”, within the Erfurt Kombinat, also making calculators, KC 85 computers and retro-styled radios; the 1990 reorganisation fragmented its activities. It was no longer a Lorenz subsidiary. At Pforzheim about fifty workers began rebuilding and repairs; in February 1946 the American administration authorised regular manufacture of loudspeakers, wave traps and then one- or two-circuit receivers and superheterodynes. Schaub employed 800 people in 1949. Radio sets rose from 35% of Lorenz’s turnover in 1946 to 70% in 1948. Until 1948 Berlin-Tempelhof, Hanover, Landshut and Stuttgart built different ranges; a small production operation in Leipzig ended in 1947 and the Mittweida operation, identified as EFM, in 1948–49. The later RFT activity in Leipzig in studio modules and electronic Morse keys must likewise be distinguished from the western company’s continuity.

In 1948 Lorenz’s headquarters moved to Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen together with Mix & Genest. Responsibilities were divided between Berlin-Tempelhof for wireless transmission equipment, Esslingen for valves, and Landshut for machines, radio accessories and signalling; Pforzheim I handled laboratories, prototypes and small batches, including microwave links, Pforzheim II teleprinters, and Schaub radios and televisions. In July 1950 radio production was concentrated between Stuttgart and Pforzheim, with Schaub playing a central role, partly because of the difficulties caused by the Berlin blockade. From 1951 Schaub developed, manufactured and sold Lorenz and Schaub domestic equipment; the ranges and distribution were integrated in 1952. Schaub’s capital reached three million marks in 1953. Organisational and commercial integration continued in 1954–55, leading to the name Schaub Apparatebau, Abteilung der C. Lorenz AG, with its own management as a company unit, and the consolidation of the Schaub-Lorenz brand in summer 1955. Ten portable models remained under the Lorenz brand between 1954 and 1957, equivalent to Schaub-Lorenz sets but with different model names. Wire recorders were also offered in the early 1950s, sometimes built into radio cabinets. In 1955 Lorenz employed more than 6,000 people and Schaub about 1,200; Schaub exports, including its own models and versions for the ITT network, accounted for about 28%.

In spring 1958 Lorenz and Standard Elektrik merged into Standard Elektrik Lorenz, SEL, within ITT; Schaub became part of the radio, television and phonograph sector. The Rastatt factory opened on 19 May 1959 with 110 employees, rising to 855 by year-end and about 1,500 after five years: three quarters were women and a quarter came from neighbouring Alsace. The new plant addressed shortages of space and labour in Pforzheim. SEL acquired a majority in Graetz in 1961; later expansion also involved Ingelen in Austria, and these transactions should not be assigned a single date. Rastatt became the radio centre for Schaub-Lorenz and Graetz, while cheaper products were made in the Far East; televisions were handled by Graetz in Bochum, also supplied from Altena. Consumer electronics recorded a loss of sixteen million marks in 1975. Rastatt’s history includes the subsequent transfer to Max Becker and the end of Schaub-Lorenz production, dated to 1978; the 1975 accounts alone do not establish the date of sale. From May 1979 the sector was named Audio-Video-Elektronik, with ITT prominent and Schaub-Lorenz in smaller lettering. Between late 1986 and 1987 SEL joined the combination with CGE and Alcatel; consumer electronics passed to Nokia in early 1988. In the new structure Schaub-Lorenz identified the higher range and Graetz the cheaper one, alongside Salora and Luxor in the Austrian and Swiss markets. Television and picture-tube production continued in Bochum until 2000, after which mobile phones predominated; the Nokia plant closed in 2008. The different end dates of the Lorenz, Schaub-Lorenz and ITT ranges therefore describe distinct brands and production phases, not one single date of disappearance.

The Austrian presence involves several distinct histories. Lorenz-Werke in Vienna was organised in October 1917 on military initiative under Eugen Nesper: it built radio equipment for the imperial army with quenched-spark transmitters, crystal receivers and, in some configurations, Telefunken high-vacuum valve amplification. Equipment of the same type was also made by Telephon-Fabriks-AG Siemens. The precise corporate relationship between that factory and C. Lorenz is insufficiently established to present it as a confirmed subsidiary. Ingelen’s history was different: Ludwig Neumann’s business began in 1907 on Vienna’s Schottenring, moving the same year to Bergsteiggasse 36–38. In 1921 it started making electrical porcelain at Frauenthal in Styria; from 1924 it built radio components and crystal receivers. The war brought relocations to Lower Austria and Tyrol and damage in Vienna; in 1956 it was an important portable-radio maker and in 1966 it joined ITT. From the mid-1960s the former Ingelen factories in Vienna made Touring, Touring S, Weekend, the 3500, 4500, 5500 and 6500 stereo systems, and televisions. The Made in Austria label related to production with more than half the value added in Austria, relevant to EFTA trade. The Ingelen name ceased in 1988. In 1972 ITT Standard AG, at Wiedner Hauptstraße 5 A, Vienna, is also documented in components; another appearance of the name is Schaub Lorenz International at Pfarrgasse 52, but an address alone does not establish industrial or ownership continuity with all the earlier companies.

In France Le Matériel Téléphonique, LMT, which joined ITT in 1925 and was based at 48 Quai de Boulogne, Boulogne-Billancourt, marketed sets related to German Schaub-Lorenz models in the 1950s, sometimes under its own name, such as Weekend Junior. Between 1962–63 and 1965 advertisements used LMT Schaub-Lorenz, while the sets themselves often bore only Schaub-Lorenz. German-built French versions included Ballerina and Balalaika 20 F, Balalaika 30 F, Goldsuper and Primaballerina 40 F, Ballerina Konzert and Duett 50 F; portables were also German, while televisions referred to Technique Schaub-Lorenz. In 1967 LMT combined French service and international technology with French-made black-and-white and colour televisions. From 1968 to 1972 there were small LMT Schaub-Lorenz portables and record players specific to France, alongside larger German ITT Schaub-Lorenz portables and stereo systems; the LMT Schaub-Lorenz designation is documented until 1972. In Italy the name appears in the histories of Ansaldo-Lorenz and Ansalorenz: in the 1930s S.A.I. Gio. Ansaldo & C. had its registered office in Rome and factory in Genoa-Cornigliano; in 1951 Radio Ansaldo Lorenz Invictus is listed at Via Lecco 16, Milan. ALI meant Azienda Licenze Industriali; Società Anonima Radio Italia, later Società Radio Italia, SRI, made Ansaldo-Lorenz sets and also distributed French SFR Radiola sets with Dario valves. These licensing and commercial relationships do not automatically make the Italian companies wholly owned Lorenz factories. A few Lorenz receivers derived from Radiobell and German models are documented in Antwerp, without enough evidence to identify a manufacturing subsidiary with certainty. The Brazilian company Lorenzetti BMV, making electrolytic capacitors at Rua Carlos Weber 944 in São Paulo, is instead a similar name that must be kept separate.