Bauknecht, formally Bauknecht Hausgeräte GmbH, was one of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

's leading manufacturers of household appliances, and since 1989 has been a brand of

Whirlpool Corporation The Whirlpool Corporation is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, headquartered in Benton Charter Township, Michigan, United States. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of approximately $21 billion, ...

. The headquarters of the company was formerly in

Schorndorf Schorndorf is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located approximately 26 km east of Stuttgart. Its train station is the terminus of the S2 line of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. The town is also sometimes referred to as ' (''The Daimler Town ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

until 2006 when it relocated to

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

. Whirlpool has closed its three plants in

Calw Calw (; previously pronounced and sometimes spelled ''Kalb'' accordingly) is a town in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital and largest town of the district Calw. It is located in the Northern Black Forest and is a ...

(refrigerators / freezers), Neunkirchen (dishwashers) and

(washers and dryers). Since 2012 all Bauknecht branded products have been manufactured outside Germany.

History

The company was founded in 1919 by

Gottlob Bauknecht Gottlob Bauknecht (born 30 April 1892 in Neckartenzlingen; died 9 September 1976 in Stuttgart) was a German businessman and engineer. Life Bauknecht found his own company '' Bauknecht'' for electrical household appliance. He was married and ...

as an electrical workshop in

Neckartenzlingen Neckartenzlingen is a town in the district of Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. Geography It is located 10 km north of Reutlingen, and 25 km south of Stuttgart. Twin towns — sister cities Neckartenzlingen is t ...

. He received recognition for the first time for his self-developed universal electric motor "Landfreund". But it was only in the postwar Germany when the company made its big step in the production of electrical appliances, starting in 1948 with the kitchen appliances "Allfix". In 1951, the first Bauknecht refrigerator was produced, in 1958 the first washing machine, and in 1964 the first dishwasher. On 9 September 1976, the company founder died at the age of 84 years, leaving his sons the management. Because of some loss-making foreign investments and the withdrawal of banks from other financing commitments, on 13 May 1982 a settlement was requested. On 29 October 1982, the District Court of Stuttgart paved the way for bankruptcy over the assets of Bauknecht. On 2 November 1982 Volker Grub, the liquidator, signed a takeover agreement with the German division of Philips (Deutsche Philips Industrie AG). Since 1989, Bauknecht Hausgeräte GmbH has been part of the American group

. The Neunkirchen facility in

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

developed and built dishwashers from 1971. In 1996, the European Technology Centre for dishwashers was also settled in Neunkirchen. The Global Development Center for washing machines and dryers, in which the large volume washers for the US market were produced was sited in Schorndorf. At the beginning of 2012, the automotive supplier

ZF Friedrichshafen ZF Friedrichshafen AG, also known as ZF Group, originally ''Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen'', and commonly abbreviated to ZF (ZF = "Zahnradfabrik" = "Cogwheel Factory"), is a German car parts maker headquartered in Friedrichshafen, in the south- ...

took over the plant in Neunkirchen with 240 out of the 280 local employees, in order to expand its production capacity in transmission components. After retraining, the employees who previously mounted dishwashers, manufactured vehicle transmissions.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 5 July 2011
retrieved 27 July 2011. At the end of 2012 the production site in Schorndorf also closed.

References

External links

Website

Corporate Website
{{Home appliance brands Manufacturing companies based in Stuttgart Home appliance manufacturers of Germany Home appliance brands Electronics companies established in 1919 1989 mergers and acquisitions