After finishing school, Siemens intended to study at theBauakademie Berlin.[5] However, since his family was highly indebted and thus could not afford to pay the tuition fees, he chose to join thePrussian Military Academy's School of Artillery and Engineering, between the years 1835–1838, instead, where he received his officers training.[6] Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals[citation needed], and contributing to the invention of electrically-chargedsea mines, which were used to combat a Danish blockade ofKiel during theFirst Schleswig War.[7][8]
Upon returning home from war, he chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established and eventually became known worldwide for his advances in various technologies. In 1843 he sold the rights to his first invention toElkington of Birmingham.[9] Siemens invented atelegraph that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of usingMorse code.[10] Based on this invention, he founded the companyTelegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske on 1 October 1847, with the company opening a workshop on 12 October.[11]
The company was internationalised soon after its founding. One brother of Werner represented him in England (Sir William Siemens) and another inSt. Petersburg,Russia (Carl von Siemens), each earning recognition. Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin.[citation needed]
The company, reorganized asSiemens & Halske,Siemens-Schuckertwerke and – since 1966 –Siemens was later led by his brother Carl, his sonsArnold,Wilhelm, andCarl Friedrich, his grandsonsHermann andErnst and his great-grandsonPeter von Siemens. Siemens AG is one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world. The von Siemens family still owns 6% of the company shares (as of 2013) and holds a seat on the supervisory board, being the largest shareholder.[citation needed]
Apart from the pointer telegraph, Siemens made sufficient contributions to the development ofelectrical engineering that he became known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world'sfirst electric passenger train in 1879,[12] and the first electricelevator in 1880.[13] His company produced the tubes with whichWilhelm Conrad Röntgen investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of thedynamo although others invented theirsaround the same time. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for theBell System in the late 1920s for use as aloudspeaker.[14] Wente's adaptation was issuedU.S. patent 1,707,545 in 1929.
He was married twice: first in 1852 to Mathilde Drumann (died 1 July 1867), the daughter of the historianWilhelm Drumann; second in 1869 to his relative Antonie Siemens (1840–1900). His children from first marriage wereArnold von Siemens andGeorg Wilhelm von Siemens, and his children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 – 5 January 1939), married in 1899 toCarl Dietrich Harries, andCarl Friedrich von Siemens.
A number of great factories in the hands of rich capitalists, in which "slaves of work" drag out their miserable existence, is not, therefore, the goal of the development of the age of natural science, but a return to individual labour, or where the nature of things demands it, the carrying on of common workshops by unions of workmen, who will receive a sound basis only through the general extension of knowledge and civilization, and through the possibility of obtaining cheaper capital.[17]
He also rejected the claim that science leads tomaterialism, stating instead:
Equally unfounded is the complaint that the study of science and the technical application of the forces of nature gives to mankind a thoroughly material direction, makes them proud of their knowledge and power, and alienates ideal endeavours. The deeper we penetrate into the harmonious action of natural forces regulated by eternal unalterable laws, and yet so thickly veiled from our complete comprehension, the more we feel on the contrary moved to humble modesty, the smaller appears to us the extent of our knowledge, the more active is our endeavour to draw more from the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge, and understanding, and the higher rises our admiration of the endless wisdom which ordains and penetrates the whole creation.[18][19][20]
Werner von Siemens' portrait appeared on the 20 ℛ︁ℳ︁ banknote issued by theReichsbank from 1929 until 1939.[21] Printing ceased in 1939 but the note remained in circulation until the issue of theDeutsche Mark on 21 June 1948.
^E. Hoffmann:Telegraphy and Electrical Engineering at the Berlin Trade Exhibition in 1879. Reprint from: Archiv für Post und Telegraphie 1879, No. 14. Berlin 1879. (Quote p. 17–19 at technik-in-bayern.de)
^Werner von Siemens (1895).Scientific & technical papers of Werner von Siemens. J. Murray. p. 518
^A similar account is given in Siemens, Werner von (1893).Personal Recollections, p. 373: "I also tried in my lecture to show that the study of the physical sciences in its further progress and general diffusion would not brutalize men and divert them from ideal aspirations, but on the contrary would lead them to humble admiration of the incomprehensible wisdom pervading the whole creation and must therefore ennoble and improve them."
Shaping the Future. The Siemens Entrepreneurs 1847–2018. Ed. Siemens Historical Institute, Hamburg 2018,ISBN978-3-86774-624-3.
Werner von Siemens,Lebenserinnerungen, Berlin, 1892 (reprinted asMein Leben, Zeulenroda, 1939).
Werner von Siemens,Scientific & Technical Papers of Werner von Siemens. Vol. 1: Scientific Papers and Addresses, London, 1892; Vol. 2: Technical Papers, London, 1895.
Sigfrid von Weiher,Werner von Siemens, A Life in the Service of Science, Technology and Industry, Göttingen, 1975.
Wilfried Feldenkirchen,Werner von Siemens, Inventor and International Entrepreneur. Columbus, Ohio, 1994.
Nathalie von Siemens,A Brimming Spirit. Werner von Siemens in Letters. A Modern Entrepreneurial History, Murmann Publishers, 2016,ISBN978-3-86774-562-8.
