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Werner von Siemens, Max Gebbert und Friedrich Dessauer
Innovation culture

Siemens Healthineers - Our company history

Published on May 8, 2023

Siemens & Halske

The audio play gives you an idea of how this treatment may have been for Friedrich.
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The audio play gives you an idea of how this treatment may have been for Friedrich.
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1847 – Werner Siemens and Johann Georg Halske founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske (S&H) in Berlin. A few months after the founding of the company, S&H presented an improved version of the Volta Inductor. The Slide Inductor for electrotherapy was the first medical device manufactured by S&H. It was sold successfully for decades.

Siemens und Halske

© Siemens Historical Institute 

RGS-Werkstatt Schlossplatz Erlangen

Reiniger, Gebbert & Schall

1893 - With increasing success and the steadily growing workforce, the building on Schlossplatz became too small. In 1893, they were able to move into the new factory building on what were then the outskirts of Erlangen. Where machines once hummed the Medmuseum is located today.


Veifa-Werke 

Dessauer was still a teenager when he built his first X-ray device. Discover the whole story.
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Dessauer was still a teenager when he built his first X-ray device. Discover the whole story.
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Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Your tubes are really very good

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Quote from a letter from Röntgen to RGS

World War I

X-ray tubes made in Rudolstadt 

Belegschaft Röntgenröhrenwerk Rudolstadt ca. 1920

1919

Faced with the dire economic circumstances in the aftermath of World War I, the engineer Alfred Ungelenk and the glass-blower Otto Kiesewetter took control of their own destiny and opened a small workshop for X-ray tubes in Rudolstadt. Within a few years, this two-man business developed into a key production facility for X-ray tubes and built up a large workforce. 

Siemens & Halske takes over RGS

1925 - Following a series of failed speculative investments and poor strategic decisions during the period of high inflation, RGS had amassed debts of some 6 million gold marks. So RGS needed a financially sound investor and offered the company to Siemens & Halske. On January 1, 1925, RGS was taken over by the Berlin-based company but initially maintained its status as an independent stock corporation.

1932/33 – The merger was also completed from a structural perspective with the founding of Siemens-Reiniger-Werke (SRW). The manufacturing was concentrated in Erlangen.

Fusionsvertrag S&H und RGS

World War II

ICR 1950

Back on the world stage 

Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) visits the booth of SRW at the ICR in London 

Scene from the movie "75 Jahre Elektromedizin in Erlangen", 1952 

Die Gründung der Siemens AG

1964 – The SRW headquarters got a new look! For the next 50 years, the central administration of SRW was located in this impressive high-rise building with adjacent showroom.

1966 - Rapid technological progress in the expanding global market called for regular restructuring measures. The founding of Siemens AG in 1966 brought together S&H, Siemens-Schuckertwerke, and SRW as a single legal entity. Within Siemens AG SRW was known as Wernerwerk für Medizinische Technik from then on. In 1969, this became the Medical Technology Division (UB Med).

Verwaltungshochhaus der SRW in Erlangen

Production around the globe 

After the years of postwar reconstruction, the company intensified its global outlook. Production sites were added all around the world.

Made in India

The first X-ray devices ”Made in India”. In 1959, the plant in Worli was opened, which was the predecessor of the modern production site in Bengaluru.

In the Middle Kingdom

1983 - Medical technology from Siemens has been used in China since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1983, Siemens set up an overseas branch in China. Increasingly close business relations between Siemens and China led to the publication of the first Chinese edition of Electromedica, Siemens’ medical customer journal, in 1985.


    A new look 

    At the beginning of the 1990s: To get fit for the future complete modernization and renovation of the production facility was required. The decision was made to expand Forchheim further and to build a new factory in Erlangen.

    Eröffnung Fabrik in Forchheim, 1986

    1986 – The construction of the location in Forchheim started. In the new factory sheet metal claddings for the equipment were produced. At the opening of the production hall our factory orchestra played!

    ©Roswitha Götz, Nordbayerische Nachrichten - Forchheim

    Siemens Labordiagnostik

    Everything under one roof

    Forging a new path

    At the financial statement press conference in May 2014, the president and CEO of Siemens AG, Joe Kaeser, announced plans to establish the medical technology division as an independent company. The aim was to achieve greater flexibility. Siemens Healthcare GmbH was founded on May 1, 2015, and the new “Siemens Healthineers” brand was presented a year later.

    Siemens Healthineers Hauptversammlung
    Siemens Healthineers Börsengang, 2018

    Welcome to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange!

    Siemens Healthineers Hauptversammlung 2019

    Siemens Healthineers and Varian

    By bringing together our unique and highly complementary portfolios and capabilities, we will support oncology clinicians and patients in achieving better outcomes and move even closer to achieving our vision of a world without fear of cancer.

    Chris Toth
    Former CEO of Varian

    Book Siemens Healthineers Company History