AEG

AEG ("Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft", "General Electricity Company") was a German producer of electronics and electrical equipment. AEG was founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau who had bought some patents from American inventor Thomas Edison.

History

Cars

AEG bought Kühlstein in 1902, founding the division "Neue Automobil Gesellschaft" (New Automobile Company), to make cars. AEG withdrew from car production in 1908. [David Burgess Wise, "NAG", in Tom Northey, ed., "World of Automobiles" (London: Orbis Publishing Ltd., 1974), Volume 13, pp.1479-80.]

Railway electrification

In the early 1900s, AEG supplied equipment for the London area electrification of Britain's London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Aircraft

Additionally, AEG manufactured a range of aircraft from 1910 to 1918. One of the planes designed and built was the R-plane (the R was an abbreviation of "Riesenflugzeug" (giant aircraft)) AEG R.I. This aircraft was powered by four 260 h.p. Mercedes D.IVa engines linked to a combination leather cone and dog clutch. The first flight tests were satisfactory, but on September 3, 1918 the R.I broke up in the air killing its seven crewmen.

Electronics

In the late 1920s, engineers of AEG, working with BASF, then a division of the chemical giant I.G. Farben, created the first practical magnetic tape recorder, the K1 Magnetophon, which was first demonstrated at the 1935 Berlin Radio Fair.

World War II

During World War II, the inmates of Kaiserwald Concentration Camp were put to work as slave labour by Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, which used a large number of female slaves from Kaiserwald in the production of their electrical goods.

Mergers and demergers

In 1967 AEG joined with Telefunken and in 1969 they started working with Siemens AG. In 1985 AEG was bought by Daimler-Benz. The Household Appliances business was sold to Electrolux in 1996. The Transportation business was reorganized into Adtranz which was sold to Bombardier later.

Later the company was wholly integrated into DaimlerChrysler and in 1997 the company was split. In 2005 Electrolux bought the brand name. Today several former departments of AEG still exist and use the AEG name.

Today AEG's domestic appliance division remains in the hands of The Electrolux Corporation.

Aircraft Models

Automobile Models

*AAG (1900 automobile) [Hans-Otto Neeubauer, "A.A.G.", in G.N. Georgano, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars 1885-1968 (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1974), pp.23.]
*NAG Typ A
*NAG Typ B
*NAG Typ B2

References

External links

* [http://www.aeg.de AEG]
* [http://www.aeg-ibo.com AEG Industrial Engineering]
* [http://www.frank-drucklufttechnik.de AEG]