18 Dec
2011
18 Dec
'11
11:57 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 06:07:07PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 19 Dec 2011 at 2:30, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
I'm pretty sure that basically all of them did, because DDR = GDR ;-)
DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik == GDR = German Democratic Republic.
Yes, having two countries calling them themselves "german republic" just
confused everybody so we did away with that in 1989.
But the above mentioned companies (Telefunken, Grundig, Siemens, Bosch)
were all west-german companies (FDR = Federal Republic of Germany) back
then. They may, however, have used some omponents from the GDR as quite
a bit of OEM production for west german companies was done in east germany,
which was important to bring in convertible currency (for some odd reason,
very few countries in the world accepted payment in transfer rubles *g*).
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Well, according to their website, only 30% of
their revenue is from
export, so they mostly sell to customers in germany (and, at a guess,
probably mostly industrial customers at that). Founded in 1947 in what
was then east germany, I would not be surprised if a significant
fraction of their foreign customers was to be found toward the east
(eastern europe and russia).
In general, the US shunned a lot of DDR trade, but there were
exceptions. Photo equipment, particularly lenses and Exakta cameras
from the 1960s were readily available as well as musical instruments
(for example, B&S tubas from that time still have a legendary
reputation). I think a lot of the products made in the DDR using
1930's and 1940's designs and manufacturing techniques were valued
quite highly. (The same might be said of post-1945 Sudeten-based
Czech goods--for decades, they went on using the old German designs
and techniques while the rest of the world moved on.
I was thinking about the amount of Telefunken, Grundig, Siemens and
Bosch gear that I've seen over the years and never having seen a
Prolyt capacitor. I suspect that before 1990, very few GDR firms
used DDR components.