Wvs satz final indd

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53

In the next years, Werner von Siemens became a father to two 

more children. Daughter Hertha came into the world on July 30, 

1870, and son Carl Friedrich arrived on September 5, 1872. Werner 

now came to know a familial happiness that had not been his 

during his fi rst marriage, in part because of Mathilde’s illness. 

Also in contrast to that period, he was now a wealthy man, head of 

a company with some 600 employees. It was easier for him to del-

egate tasks, and he had correspondingly more time for his family. 

There was also now a shared focus for their lives. After the wed-

ding, the family moved to the country house in Charlottenburg. 

There was a good school in Charlottenburg by this time, and 

Arnold and Wilhelm transferred there. In 1872 to 1874, Werner 

had the country house remodeled into a handsome industrialist’s 

villa, with a large ballroom. The Siemens villa now hosted festive 

dinners and balls for several hundred guests. Yet Werner von 

Siemens was not living aloof. He also held rustic garden parties 

for his neighbors, with grilled sausages. In spite of their 24-year 

age difference, Antonie and Werner had a happy marriage. One 

contributing factor here may have been that he accepted her ties 

to her Swabian homeland and her relatives there. Since Antonie 

and the children often spent extended parts of the summer in 

Swabia, he bought her a country house in a suburb of Stuttgart 

called Degerloch. 

A “scholar” among scientists

Werner von Siemens’ new lifestyle was also in part connected with 

the fact that he was now among Berlin’s eminences. He had al-

ready received signifi cant honors. The Berlin university had con-

ferred an honorary doctorate, and the Berliner Kaufmannschaft 

had elected him to their board of elders. He now consorted with 

well-known people as his friends – not businessmen, but scientists. 

He was friends with some of the most signifi cant physicists of 

his era: Emil du Bois-Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz and 

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. The connection with these scientists 

was highly typical of Werner; after all, as he wrote in his Recollec-

tions, he considered himself as “more a savant and engineer than 

Ballroom of the Siemens villa 

in Charlottenburg, after 1874

After 1870   

Charlottenburg develops within a few decades from a rural small 

town of , souls to one of the biggest, richest cities in Prussia.

1860  

Werner von Siemens is awarded an honorary doctorate by the 

Philosophical Faculty of Berlin University, founded in  (now the 

Humboldt University of Berlin).

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54

55

a merchant”.

39

 From today’s vantage point it may seem strange 

that a businessman of his standing would want to be seen as a 

scholar. Of course he was not an academic. But he was indeed one 

of Germany’s fi rst industrialists to build on scholarly knowledge. 

He had contributed a great deal to the creation of a branch of 

industry founded on new discoveries in physics, and even as a 

wealthy businessman he still disappeared often into his “lab 

room”. His friends Hermann von Helmholtz and Emil du Bois-Rey-

mond considered him one of their own. Such an innovative tech-

nician, as they saw it, could only be an outstanding physicist. 

These scientists were all members of the Prussian Academy 

of Sciences. At their nomination in November 1873, Werner von 

Siemens was the fi rst technician to be elected a member of this 

learned society. He was probably the only member of the Acade-

my who had never attended university. He himself experienced 

the honor as one of the highlights of his life. In his response to 

Werner’s inaugural speech to the Academy, Bois-Reymond ex-

plained that his friend had been admitted because “at such a level, 

as a prince of technology, […] you remained inwardly a German 

scholar in the most noble sense of the word”.

40

The dynamo machine 

and heavy-current technology 

Even before the Indo-European telegraph line was built, in the fall 

of 1866 Werner von Siemens came up with his most signifi cant 

invention: the discovery of the dynamo-electric principle and the 

design of a dynamo machine based on that principle. Today we 

know that the Hungarian inventor Anianus Jedlick and the Danish 

engineer Søren Hjorth had already discovered the dynamo-elec-

tric principle back in the 1850s. But they were unable to put their 

discovery to any use. Werner von Siemens was the fi rst to publish 

the principle and to place a dynamo on the market. 

His invention was founded on the inductor with a double-T ar-

mature, which he had developed ten years previously. But this de-

sign was capable only of low output, because the permanent mag-

nets it employed generated only a relatively weak magnetic fi eld. 

Werner noticed that the residual magnetism remaining in the soft 

iron core of the electromagnets was enough to generate what was 

at fi rst a low voltage, which could be used, with the aid of suitable 

circuitry, to power the electromagnets. The resulting amplifi ed 

magnetic fi eld increased the generated voltage until the soft iron 

core was magnetically saturated. This dynamo-electric principle, 

the “self-excitation of electricity”, made it possible to eliminate 

permanent magnets and batteries. Such a generator was able in 

principle to convert unlimited amounts of mechanical energy 

(“work”) into electrical energy. On that basis, it became possible 

to build electric lighting systems, electric motors and power 

plants.

41

 

1700  

The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences is founded in Berlin as the 

“Society of Sciences of the Electorate of Brandenburg”. Having undergone 

several name changes since, the academy still exists today. 

1866  

After discovering the dynamo-electric principle, Werner von Siemens 

writes to his brother William: “The whole thing has great potential for 

development and can pave the way for a new era of electromagnetism!”

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