Born of a merger

Siemens-Schuckert was created on 1 April 1903, when Siemens & Halske merged its heavy-current business with that of the Nuremberg firm Schuckert & Co. Siemens & Halske kept communications; the new Siemens-Schuckertwerke took power engineering, from turbines to tramway equipment, and briefly electric cars. The company was based in Berlin’s Siemensstadt. Aircraft were a wartime adventure that lasted barely five years, but they produced some of the most unusual machines of the First World War.

Giants with a mechanic aboard

The first were giants. The brothers Bruno and Franz Steffen designed the R.I, which first flew on 24 May 1915 with three engines inside the fuselage driving two propellers through clutches and gearboxes. If one engine failed, a mechanic could repair it in flight while the other two kept the aircraft aloft. For the acceptance flight Bruno Steffen ferried the inspection team to Döberitz with two armchairs and a bottle of champagne in the cabin. Seven R-types followed, some flying on the Eastern Front. Franz Steffen was killed in June 1916 testing the E.II monoplane.

Copying a Nieuport

Fighters began less heroically. When German monoplanes were outclassed by the Nieuport 11 and 17, Siemens-Schuckert was handed a captured Nieuport 17 to study. The resulting D.I was a fairly literal copy, except for its engine: the Siemens-Halske Sh.I, a geared rotary in which crankshaft and cylinders turned in opposite directions. By the time 95 were built in 1917 the D.I was obsolete, and most served as advanced trainers.

The flying beer barrel

The geared rotary grew into the 160 hp Sh.III, and around it the works built a fat, round-nosed biplane that pilots called the flying beer barrel. The D.III reached 1,000 metres in 1 minute 45 seconds, and the D.IV that followed could climb to 8,100 metres in 36 minutes, about 1,200 metres above the Fokker D.VII’s ceiling. About 41 D.IIIs reached Jagdgeschwader II in spring 1918, where substitute oils caused engine seizures. Some 123 D.IVs were built by the Armistice; one escaped to Switzerland and flew there until 1922.

Engines, and a dark postscript

Versailles ended SSW’s aircraft division. The Siemens-Halske engine line carried on, its Sh.14 radial selling more than 15,000, and became Bramo in 1936 before BMW bought it in 1939. During the Second World War Siemens-Schuckert ran a factory making aircraft parts at Monowitz near Auschwitz, served by the Bobrek concentration camp. On 1 October 1966 the Siemens-Schuckertwerke merged with Siemens & Halske and Siemens-Reiniger into today’s Siemens AG.

Fábricas

• Siemensstadt · Berlin-Spandau — Head office and works district of the Siemens companies

Pessoas

• Bruno and Franz Steffen · designers of the R-type giants — Franz Steffen was killed testing the E.II in June 1916

Recordes e pioneirismos

• D.IV could reach 8,100 m in 36 minutes, about 1,200 m above the Fokker D.VII’s ceiling