THE HISTORY OF TUNGSRAM 1896-1945 - MEK

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THE HISTORYOF TUNGSRAM1896-1945) ' •1990

. * • . • • * - "BASED ON THE HUNGARIAN ISSUE WRITTEN BY..^KarolyJenev^ (parti, 1896-1919)Ferenc Caspar (part 2,1919-1945)'-'v.'•',•-. r^- •.•;.< ^ . ^ 'V/. •/,Commissioned by:History Committee ofTUNSRAM Co. LimitedG^ZA KADLECOVITS•"(*•.\Edited by:DR. ISTVAN HARKAYEnglish translation:ERWINDUNAYv-^KOHYV^jJARB2.-•*'•Printing: Printed in Gutenberg Printing House, Hungary (90/166).Manager: Laszio OvariLimited Edition not for sale, for private circulation only• -"4-

^...^History Committee of TUNGSRAM Co. Ltd., feeling its responsibility in exploring,conserving and fostering the Company's past traditions, decided to publish theCompany's history.The present Volume embraces events since early days until the end of World War II.Of course, no completeness can be aimed at as no comprehensive authentic social,historical and industrial background can be represented; this would go well beyondour scope.A preliminary remark seems to be inevitable on the Company's name. For sake ofsimplicity, we call us TUNGSRAM, although it was in those times merely theCompany's well-known main trade mark, registered in the year 1909 and assumed asstyle but as late as the 1st January 1989.Our intention is to enable all those to appreciate our achievements, who havewitnessed and shared the Company's efforts and successes and continue tocollaborate.Our firm conviction is, that the present is better understood and the establishment ofthe future is confirmed by the revelation of our past..V:, '••-•• , TV .--.• • • • -r • • >History Committee of TUNGSRAM Co. Ltd.... • V-

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TUNGSRAMTHE ROLE OF THE EGGER FAMILY IN ESTABLISHINGTHE ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY IN HUNGARYOn 1 August, 1896 the United Incandescent Lamps andElectrical Co. (Egyesult Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.)was established as a joint venture of the HungarianCommercial Bank of Pest (Pesti Magyar KereskedelmiBank) and the Egger brothers. For decades the companywas known home and abroad by and large by thisname with some irrelevant — and temporary — modificationsmeaning nothing for readers. Therefore wehave chosen from the variation in question the use ofthe present new and short name of the company, the"TUNGSRAM", this initial letter coinage, otherwisethe trademark of the company since 1909. This is theexcuse of the transfer of this name into the past, andalso the title of this study: The History of TUNGSRAM.In effect, the United Incandescent... or according tothe above the TUNGSRAM secured the financial backingof the bankers for the industry in which membersof the Egger family had been actively involved forseveral decades through various enterprises aimed atfounding and developing the electrical industry inHungary.We know very little of the Eggers' background. Itseems certain that they were of Hungarian stock. Thereis evidence showing that Bernat Bela Egger, who wasthe first in the family to get involved in the electricalindustry, had been born in Gyongyos, although othersources suggest Obuda. In any case, he must havebeen still very young when he founded the factory inVienna, known as "Telegraphen-Bauanstalt", producingtelegraph equipment as early as 1862. (1)In 1872 Bernat Egger, encouraged both by the successof his Viennese firm and the spreading use of telegraphsin Hungary, decided to set up a workshop inBudapest specialized in repairing telegraph equipment.The workshop that was located at 9 DorottyaStreet, 5th District, employed eight workers at first. (2)The enterprise immediately proved prosperous, andwithin a few years its work-force multiplied.On 31 December, 1874 Bernat Egger, "Viennese industrialistproducing telegraph equipment", was givenpermission from the 5th District to set up his ownbusiness, (3) and subsequently, on 4September, 1876,he had his branch of telegraph equipment workshoplisted in the trade registry of Budapest. (4) On 1January, 1882 Telegraphen-Bauansalt of Vienna wastransformed into a public company under the newname Austro-Hungarian Electrical Lighting and PowerTransmission Factory, with the engineer Janos Kremenetzky,Bernat Egger, Jakab Egger, Henrik EggerVienna-, and David Egger Budapest residents asfounding members. Within a year Janos Krementzkyleft the firm and went on to found his own electricalcompany. (5)The Viennese public company gave continuous supportto its Budapest branch that, beside carrying outtelegraph repair work, also made pneumatic bells,telegraph equipment, electrical indicators, and had theexclusive right to produce the Berliner-type microphone.The first telephone manufactured in the Budapestworkshop came out in 1884. (6)In 1883 the company signed on Jozsef Pinter astechnical director, who later proved to be a great assetwhen first the Egger factories and then theTUNGSRAM were on their way to become largecorporations.In 1895 the company, that was known for short asEgger B. esTarsa (B. Egger& Co.), had great success inthe national trade exhibition of Budapest with itspavilon showing electrical appliances.Egger B. & Co. together with "Ganz" (another factory

TUNGSRAMin Budapest, producing electrical appliances) providedthe street lights all over the exhibition area, as well asinside the buildings and along Stefania Street andNagykorond. The Eggers' company delivered 18 arclamps, each with a luminous intensity of 800 candela,and 100 electrical light bulbs, all produced in theViennese factory. (7) The jury awarded the Budapestbranch with a medal for "new invention, good qualityand progress". (8)Shortly the workshop in Dorottya Street proved to betoo small and stood in the way of progress. The^ management of the company began to look for a newlocation. In 1887 they purchased the industrial estateof 7 Huszar Street, 7th District from Hungarian GeneralCredit Bank for 56,000 Forint. At the same time, theauthorities gave permission to the four Egger brothersand David Egger's son, Gyula to establish an electricalcompany, provided that the running of the firm wasleft to the technical director, Jozsef Pinter. (9)Production in the new factory began on 1 October,1887. The total cost of the equipment amounted to40,000 Forints. The introduction of the technology toproduce incandescent lamps was an importantmilestone in the history of the company. In the beginningboth the Mechanical and the Lamp ManufacturingDepartments were located in the same building. In thefront section of the L-shaped one-storey block were theoffices, the drafting- and showrooms, the warehouseand the Mechanical Department, while the LampManufacturing Department was in the back. The machinerywas powered by an 18-20 h.p. horizontallymounted steam-engine with a Mayer-type drivingwheel. The Lamp Manufacturing Department occupieda considerably larger area than the MechanicalDepartment did. The first phase of the incandescentlamp production was the glass-blowing.The glass-blowers manufactured the bulbs from Thuringianglass tubes. They were also the ones whosoldered on the carbon filaments. There were fourblowing benches for this purpose. From here thelamps were taken to the pump chamber where 22mercury pumps were working. The lamps were testedin a separate room. The carbon filaments were also-.*.-.vproduced by the factory. In order to extract its saltcontent, the organic fibre was first soaked in water andthen heated in vacuum. After the evaporation of waterthe residue, being rich in carbon, could conduct electricity.The measurement room completed the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment. (10) The shape of the carbonfilament lamps resembled a pear; their luminousefficiency did not reach 1/6th of that of today's averageincandescent lamps or 1/1^h of the Im/W of thedischarge lamps.In the production of incandescent lamps the Eggers'company came before Switzerland, France and England.As far as Austria was concerned, Janos Kremenetzky'sViennese factory started producing incandescentlamps using carbon filament in 1884.In 1888 there were 80-100 incandescent lamps manufactureddaily in the Huszar Street. In spite of the lowproductivity and the primitive production methods,the factory soon operated with a satisfactory profitmargin,thanks to the high prices thatthe incandescentlamps fetched in those days, as the company faced nocompetition in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. (12)Egger B. & Co., mechanical and electrical factory wasrun by the technical director Jozsef Pinter. Anotherdirector, Gyula Egger was in charge of marketing. Inaddition, the company employed six clerks in technical,commercial and administrative functions. Thetotal work-force was 41 workers, including six Germanglass-blowers. To secure the continuous supply ofskilled workers, the company also employed fiveapprentices.Again, the facilities in the Huszar Street factory soonproved restrictive. For this reason, on 7 January, 1889the company bought the neighbouring houses at 12-16Munkas Street.Concurrently, the owners of the company decided towiden the foundations of the incandescent lamp productionby purchasing the patents of the Berlin factoryAllgemeine Elektrizitatsgesellschaft. (General ElectricCo. Berlin)From similar considerations, on 1 February, 1889 thecompany converted its Lamp Manufacturing Depart-

TUNGSRANment into a separate company called Electrical IncandescentLannps Co. Ltd. (with an initial equity of400.000 Forint). For the time being, the separation ofthe Lamp Manufacturing Departmentwasonlyformal.The shareholders of the new company came from theinsiders of the First-Austro-Hungarian Electric Lightingand Power Transmitting Factory. Bela Egger, GyulaEgger, Antal Deutsch and Hans Roeder were on theboard of directors.The Eggers wanted to continue with the incandescentlamp production on a different location, and for thispurpose they purchased a separate property to thenorth of the former confines of Budapest, in the vicinityof the outer Vaci Road of the present district IV. of thecapital. However, they had to abandon their plans tobuild up the factory there, because water was notavailable in the necessary quantity on the property.The Incandescent Lamp factory, after reaching anagreement with the Capital Waterworks in the matterof water supply, stayed in the Huszar Street, whichwent through important alterations and extension.(13) The Incandescent Lamp factory was housed in aone-, and a two-storey building. Jozsef Pinter andGyula Egger continued to manage the factories. Thefactory employed one engineer in the position ofproduction supervisor, one accountant, one warehousemanager, one trainee, one supervisor womanfor the two unskilled female labourers and one Germanglass-blower foreman.The total work-force came to 50 labourers: 12 peopleoperating the mercury pumps, 8 glass-blowers and 30unskilled workers. Skilled workers were well-paid ingeneral. The glass-blowers and the foreman earnedthe same as the production supervisor: 1,200 Forintsper annum, while an unskilled labourer took home 240Forints a year. The working hours were between 7 and12 a.m. and 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. (14)The company was soon given government subsidy tohelp the industry settle in Hungary.On 12 March, 1889 the Ministry of Agriculture, Industryand Commerce — while reserving its right for individualassessment, awarded The Electric Incandescent LampFactory Ltd. with provisional government privileges.After much experimentation and substantial investmentthecompany succeeded in producing carbon-filamentincandescent lamps which stood up to thecompetition on the foreign market, and also, one thatshowed an appropriate luminous efficiency as well asan acceptable useful life. The home market was stillvery small, therefore export had a high priority on thecompany's marketing policy, although the high customduties and the costs of transportation had anunfavourable effect. The Eggers worked very hard toappear on the international market. In 1889 theyexported 21,420 electric incandescent lamps 70,210lamps were exported in 1890; 190,972 lamps in1891; 220,608 lamps in 1892 and 401,318 lamps in1893.The company even had business interests as far asAsia, America and Australia. It set up warehouses inMelbourne and Montreal with commissioned goods.(16) However, newer and newer competitors appearedon the international market, and the price of incandescentlamps kept falling.While in the first year of the company's life theincandescent lamps fetched 1 Forint and 5 krajcars, in1894 the market price already fluctuated between 36and 38 krajcars. In order to facilitate the home consumption,the company asked the Ministry of Commerceto instruct the commercial and industrial chambersto advertise the factory's products among theowners of factories and industrial estates. (17) Theminister, however, refused to comply with the request,although he admitted that only the Eggers were producingincandescent lamps in Hungary. But he alsopointed out that the firm was selling generators manufacturedin Vienna, even though a Hungarian company,Ganz also produced them. The Minister notifiedthe company that he regarded the Austrian import ofgenerators, needed for the use of incandescent lamps,damaging — not only to Ganz, but to the whole ofHungarian industry. (18) Since the home consumptionof incandescent lamps could only be boosted marginally,the company was forced to increase its exportwith a simultaneous increase in the volume of production,so that the falling prices could be offset with a

TUNGSRAM•.V8reduction in the production costs. This strategy on thepart of the Electric Incandescent Lamp Ltd. can beillustrated with the following business figures: (19):^:fiscalyearno. oflampsproduced(lamps)dailyproduction(lamps)production.costs(krajcar)*lampmarketprice(krajcar)lamp1889/901890/911891/921892/931893/941894/951895/961896/97120,000166,000309,000350,000520,000752,000882,0001163,0003003501000115017002500300040001167560443628262410562684438383634.5*100 krajcar was = 1 koronaWhile the annual volume of production grew almosttenfold in eight years, the work-force only tripledduring the same time. The number of skilled workershardly changed, but the female work-force increasedfrom 30 to 140. The total work-force in 1894-1895 was200. (20)The First-Austo-Hungarian Electric Lighting and PowerTransmitting Factory continued to produce weak-currentelectrical appliances parallel with the Electricincandescent Lamp Factory Ltd. within a narrowerrange. The Mechanical Department employed 30—50workers on a regular basis. Postal and TelegraphOffice (P.T.O) was one of their regular customers. In1895 the Department specialized in manufacturingmultiplex relay boxes. The P.T.O had previously orderedsuch machinery from Antwerp.The Mechanical Department built a multiplex relaysystem handling 600 customers on the occasion of theMilleneum Exhibition. (21)

TUNGSRAMTHE FLOATINGOF THE UNITED INCANDESCENT LAMPAND ELECTRICAL CO. LTD AND THE FINANCIALBACKING OF THE BANKSIn 1895 the capital resources of the public companyEgger B. & Co. already proved insufficient for maintainingand increasing the standard of production. Whenthe managing director, Gyula Egger described thecompany's financial problems to the director of the"Hungarian Commercial Bank" of Pest he also pointedout that "they could not respond to several businessproposals, exactly because they had to ensure that theabsolute mobility of their capital is preserved". (22)The Egger brothers understood that the only way toremain competitive in the electrical business was tohave sufficient working capital at their disposal, and tobe able to further invest continuously. For this reasonthey drew up an agreement with The HungarianCommercial Bank of Pest in July 1896 that they wouldmerge the Budapest and the Viennese factories of theFirst Austro-HungarianElectric Lighting and PowerTransmitting Factory to form a public company. Theydid not choose Commercial Bank by chance; they hadbeen using the services of the Commercial Bank inconnection with every financial transaction of thepublic company.It was always this bank which put up the necessary bailon behalf of Egger B. & Co. all the transport tenderstowards Postal and Telegraph Office and MAV (HungarianNational Railways). (23)The United Incandescent Lamp and Electric Co. Ltd.held its statutory meeting in the conference chamberof The Commercial Bank on 1 August, 1896. Egger B. &Co. contributed to the funds of the public companywith their Viennese and Budapest factories, buildings,machinery, goods, raw materials, debits and claims.The Electrical Incandescent Factory Ltd. retained itsindependence for the time being. For the above assets,estimated to be worth 600,000 Forints, the Eggerfamily received 6,000 shares in 100 Forint denominations.The total equity came to 1,400,000 Forints, and theCommercial Bank bought up 33 percent of the shares.They were syndicated by the Egger brothers and byCommercial Bank. The bank was represented by threedirectors on the board, and the Eggers delegated five.The new company was effectually controlled by theCommercial Bank, whose representatives had theright to veto any decision. The company was obligedto have all the planned investments costing more than10,000 Forints and all the business deals worth over60,000 Forints countersigned by the bank, whoseagreement was also needed for the employment ofany new executive with an annual salary over 6,000Forints.On the statutory meeting Jeno Szabo, member of theHungarian Upper House, Ferenc E. Vas, deputy directorof the Commercial Bank, Peter Maishirn, retiredrailway superintendent. Dr. Izidor Deutsch, lawyer,Bela Egger, David Egger, Gyula Egger and Jakab Eggerwere elected to the board of directors. (24)In accordance with the agreement drawn up with theCommercial Bank, the new public company decided torespect the five-year contracts signed with Bela Egger,

TUNGSRAM 10Erno Egger, David Egger and Moric Deutsch. BetaEgger received from the Viennese factory an annualsalary of 12,000 Forints, plus a company flat withelectricity and heating paid for. David Egger drew anannual sum of 7,000 Forints from the Budapest factory.The engineer Erno Egger continued to be employed bythe Viennese factory. (25)Pressed by the rising shortage of capital, on 30 June,1896 the Electric Incandescent Lamp Factory Ltd.merged into the United Electric Ltd. In connection withthe fusion the equity of the company was raised to1,650,000 Forints. The transaction was, again, conductedby Commercial Bank, whose interests this wayreached 37 and a half percent. (26)The backing of the banks made it possible for thecompany to upgrade all its branches, first of all, itsLamp Manufacturing Department. The demand forincandescent lamps continuously grew with thespreading use of electric light. The profitability of itsproduction also increased, although the competitiondrove the prices further down every day.The company counteracted this phenomenon by increasingthe volume of production: it manufactured5,000 lamps a day in the fiscal year 1897/98; in 1898/99its daily output already reached 7500. (27)Since the turnover of the Huszar Street plant went upby 30 percent on average every year, the structure ofthe Lamp Manufacturing Department needed thoroughchanges in order to facilitate the continuousupgrading of production. The spreading use of electriclighting suggested a continuously growing demand.At the same time, the prices of incandescent lampskept falling, so that the incandescent lamp industrywould only yield a profit, if mass-production wasachieved. Those factories that were unable to increasetheir output constantly, could not keep up with theircompetitors. The demand was primarily met by thecompetitive producers, who found their market growing.In spiteof all this, new incandescent lamp factorieshardly emerged. The fact that the training of theworkers required a lot of time, patience and money,must have contributed to this.By the turn of the century the existing conditions in theUnited Incandescent Lamp and Electrical Co. that isfrom here TUNGSRAM did not really allow any furtherincrease in the volume of production. By squeezing upthe work stations — in the opinion of the technicaldirector Jozsef Pinter — daily production could havebeen pushed up to about 10,000 bulbs. This, however,would have probably resulted in the slackening ofquality control, and in rising production costs andbreakage.The useful area of the Lamp Manufacturing Departmentdid not exceed 3,100 m^, and the daily productionof 10,000 lamps would have required at least5,300m^. Every argument suggested that the upgradingof the Lamp Manufacturing Department wouldhave to be realized on a new location. (28)The company also faced difficulties of technologicalnature, since the carbon-filament bulbs did not standup very well to transportation. The technical managementwas relentlessly working on improving the qualityof the incandescent lamps, perfecting productiontechnology and economization.The lack of space affected the Mechanical Department,too. It could just about fulfil the orders of telegraphequipment and telephones, but there was not muchscope for improving the Department as a whole. Thiscaused some concern in the management, since theweak point of the Mechanical Department was preciselythat it very much relied on government orders.(29)Beside manufacturing incandescent lamps TUNGS­RAM could boost with considerable success in producingtelephones and installing telephone exchanges.The license agreement, which was drawn up betweenTUNGSRAM and Western Electric Company of Chicagoin 1899, played an important part in this. On thebasis of the licence agreement, the world-famousAmerican company — a leading force in the telephonebusiness — made its licenced products available to theBudapest public. (30)The "common battery"-type telephone equipmentfound favour with the Hungarian experts, too.In 1900, when Postal and Telegraph Office put out totender the producing and installing of the equipment

11 TUNGSRAMof its telephone exchange in the Nagymezo Street(Budapest), on the basisof the jury's recommendationand out of seven applicants, the job was given to thejoint entry of TUNGSRAM, and Western Electric Company.That was, in fact, the first instance that Hungarianindustry took an active part in the construction ofthe telephone exchange system in or outside Budapest.Western Electric Company vouched for the workof its Hungarian partner Central Telephone Exhange"Terez" Budapest, one of Europe's first commonbatterytype telephone exchange, was built as part ofthis order. (31)In 1899 a new section was added to the MechanicDepartment which specialized in producing securitysystems for the railway. Again, this work was hinderedby the lack of space, so production, for the time being,began in the near-by 6voda Street, neighbouring theHuszar Street plant. When MAV (Hungarian State Railway)decided to change its remote-controlled semaphores,the company was given the lion's share of the work.The new section working of the Mechanical Departmentfirst of all enhanced the company's reputation bybuilding power-plants. At the turn of the century itdelivered and installed power-stations in Szatmar,Sopron, Kapronca, Budafok and Losonc.The power generators in Budafok and Losonc werebuilt on behalf of Budafoki Villamossagi Rt. (BudafokElectric Co. Ltd.) and Losonci Klara Villamossagi Rt.(Klara Losonci Electric Co. Ltd.); in both cases,however, the majority of the shares was in the hands ofTUNGSRAM.The Budafok Power Plant was put into operation on1 May, 1898. By then Budafok, near Budapest with its 30large and more than 200 smaller wine producers wasconsidered the centre of the Hungarian wine industry.The power plant first of all served to deliver electricalenergy to the wine companies. The drawing of wine,previously done with manpower now was carried outusing electrical energy. (32)The Losonc power plant began to operate on 6 December,1899. Both electrical companies were bringingconsiderable profit for TUNGSRAM for several years.(33)The heavy-current goods section started to producegenerators and electrical engines in 1899, as the TradeMinistry promised to grant the company with specialprivileges pending on this. Although electrical engineproduction also served to alleviate the strain on theViennese factory, the company could only managethat with a great deal of difficulty, since the chosenlocation automatically excluded the possibility of astep-by-step upgrading later.The Budapest and the Viennese factories of TUNGS­RAM played a leading part in the electrical industry ofthe Austro-Hungarian Empire at the turn of the century.The favourable reception of its products on the MilleneumExhibition, where the company had a separatepavilion showing telegraph and telephone equipmentand incandescent lamps, further enhanced the company'sreputation. (34) TUNGSRAM was representedon the World Fair of Paris in 1900, too, but hereconsiderable business deals did not follow theprofessional recognition of the industry. (35)Nevertheless, the company's exports grew significantlyin this period. On his business trips, the chiefexecutive officer of the company, Gyula Egger establishedsales agencies in London and Paris. He primarilymanaged to find market for the light-current productsthis way. The company increased the export of itsincandescent lamps year after year, as evidenced bythe dispatch notes: the gross weight of the exportedincandescent lamps was 70 tons in 1897, 88.5 tons in1898 and 117.7 tons in 1899. The growing export, byimplication, also suggested the good quality of theproducts. The 35 tons of incandescent lamps importedannualy to Hungary gave, however, less cause forrejoicing. (36) ^ .The work-force of the Huszar Street plant grew parallelwith the development of the Departments. Accordingto the report of the District Industry Superintendent ofBudapest, made on 13 April, 1899, the total work-forceof 593 broke down as follows:*/*"^'->

TUNGSRAM•>,^12marketing staff male 18 female 10technical staff male 12other staff male 6 female 22foremen male 10errand boys • male 5adultworkers male214 female255day-workers male 6apprentices on contract male 36By early 1900 the number of female staff employed inthe incandescent lamp production already reached350. (37) The workers were all members of the HealthInsurance Scheme. The company insured all its workersagainst accidents with (Nemzeti BalesetbiztositoTarsasag) National Insurance Company, nevertheless,it did not have its own doctor or surgery. The companydid not provide accommodation to its workers, either;on the other hand, staff with long time of servicereceived bonuses every year.Not that the company couldn't afford to put somemoney aside for the workers' welfare, either: theBudapest factory closed the fiscal year of 1896/97 witha net profit of 155,293 Forints; that grew to 202,622Forints in 1897/98, 198,493 Forints in 1898/99, 413,490Koronas in 1899/1900 and dropped back to 326,379Koronas in 1900/1901. The shareholders received1.074,000 Koronas. The company did not even have topay taxes after its net profits, either, since the governmentsspecial privileges exempted it from texation fora long time. (38)On 1 June, 1899 the Egger family, on the initiative of itsViennese members and assisted by Commercial Bankand Niederosterreichische Escompte-Gesellschaft, agreedto form the Viennese factory into a separatepublic company under the new name of VereinigteElektrizitats-AG, (United Electricity Ltd.), with an equityof 2.000.000 Forints.The new company, VEAG handed over shares worth1,000,000 Forints to TUNGSRAM Rt. in return for theViennese factory. The engineer Erno Egger acted aschief executive officer of the Viennese factory. (39)TUNGSRAM and VEAG continued to maintain a closeassociation: they signed a contract mutually agreeingto exchange new inventions and patents, to make useof each others' stocks in their material acquisitions asmuch as possible, and to set up joint sales agencies.They also agreed that the Viennese factory wouldproduce heavy-current goods, heavy-power-currentgenerators, electric engines, transformers, elevators,machine-tools, electric automobiles and railway securitysystems —, while the Budapest plant would concentrateon electric light bulbs, telegraph and telephoneequipment, telephone exchanges, railway securitysystems, light-current generators and parts forelectrical appliances. Both companies promised thatthey would advise each other on any large businessdeals and speculations. (40) To facilitate the smoothcooperation, top officials of the Commercial Bank wereappointed to the board of directors of the Austriancompany, the same way as top executives of NiederosterreichischeEscompte-Gesellschaft were made directorsof TUNGSRAM. The Austrian bank's interestswere represented in Budapest by Moric Birkenau andMiksa Krassny, as directors. Kereskedelmi Bank receiveda bonus of 259,000 Koronas for restructuring theViennese factory into a public company. (41). r-»*•• . • If •Kv>«

13 TUNGSRAMTHE BUILDINGOF THE UJPEST PLANT AND THE FIRSTFEW YEARS THEREAs we have already pointed out, the Huszar Streetplant did not allowthe expansion of the Mechanical orthe Lamp Manufacturing Department. For this reason,in the spring of 1899 the company's managementdecided to build a new factory. They first notified theTrade Ministry in July 1899, giving their reasons in thatTUNGSRAM could only complete against the unlimitedresources of the German telephone and incandescentlamp industry, if the company increased thevolume of its production. (42) To be able to do that theywould definitely need to build a new plant with threetimes the capacity of the present one. Naturally, thehuge investment would bring about a temporarydecline in the company's performance, especially,since in the beginning production would take place ontwo separate locations. The management asked theMinister to continue with the special governmentprivileges given to facilitate the production of telephonesand electric incandescent lamps until the end ofthe term laid down in legislation, and to exempt thecompany from taxation for 15 years.In answering the company's application, the TradeMinistry suggested that the new factory be built in theoutskirts of Budapest, rather than inside its boundaries,and in that case the government privilegeswould be forthcoming for the maximum time period(43)Before making its final decision, the managementcalled on Richard Englander, lecturer of the VienneseTechnical College, to make a careful assessment of theHuszar Street plant from the viewpoint of fire hazard,together with a feasibility study on its enlargement.Mr. Englander completed this task and after surveyingthe site he came to the conclusion that the factorycould not stay in Huszar Street. "In the interest of theeconomy of production, the building of a new plant isadvised." On 11 October, 1899 — on the basis ofEnglander's expert opinion — the board of directorsauthorized the executive committee to purchase a siteof about 8—10,000 square-fathoms (1' fathom' == 38.32 square foot). (44)In order to purchase a site, the executive committeefirst looked around within the boundaries of Budapest.The liquor producer Vilmos Leipziger offered a plot ofland for sale in Obuda, right on the banks of the RiverDanube, which seemed suitable for the purpose. Aftercareful consideration, however, the managing directorsdecided against purchasing the land, because theamount of necessary groundwork would have significantlyadded to the price. (45)In the meantime, the Trade Ministry's response to thecompany's application arrived: TUNGSRAM would begiven special government privileges for 15 yearsbeginning on the first day of production, if it was tobuild a new plant for producing incandescent lampsand weak-current products in or around Budapest. Theoffer was made, however, on the condition that thecompany would abolish the old plant, invest 600,000Forints in the new factory, provide work for 1,200workers from the first day of production, and wouldmake arrangements for the production of 25,000 incandescentlamps a day.Moreover, the Ministry obliged the company to producecarbon electrodes and set the deadline for thestart of production by the end of 1900. (46)After hearing the Trade Ministry's favourable decision.

TUNGSRAM 14the board of directors dismissed the idea of buying asite inside Budapest, and on 28 January, 1900 theypurchased a 13,500 'fathom' (that is: 13.5X13.500square foot) property in Ujpest from the land magnateDr. Sandor Karolyi. Of the 182,250 Korona priceTUNGSRAM paid out 82,250 Koronas at the time ofexchanging the contract, and they were given threeyears to pay the remaining 100,000 Koronas. (47)At the turn of the century Ujpest, with its 41,858inhabitants, its handicrafts prospering and its industryshaping up, was considered the most thriving suburbof Budapest.When in early 1900 TUNGSRAM bought its presentsite, the property was surrounded by the Karolyifamily's entailed estate of Fot, only interrupted atplaces by the sites of the Capital Waterworks. The firstHungarian railway line connecting Budapest and Vachad been crossing the estate since 1846. Since 1869there had been a horse-driven omnibus service betweenMegyer (a part of Ujpest) and Calvin Square (inthe centre of Budapest). (48)On 3 February, 1900 the management of the companynotified the town officials of Ujpest of the company'sintention to build an electrical factory in the area withan investment of 2,000,000 Koronas, provided thatadequate conditions could be guaranteed. By movingto Ujpest from the country's industrial and tradecentre, the company would take on considerableamount of difficulties.In return, the management asked the civic authoritiesto extend the sewage system, the waterworks, thebitumen pavement and the street-lights all the way tothe plant, and to deliver, free of charge, the amount ofearth and sand needed to complete the groundwork.Simultaneously, the management announced that, forthe time being, the company did no intend to buildhouses for its employees, hence giving a boost to thelocal house market. On the procurement of the Ujpestleather manufacturer Tivadar Wolfner — who was oneof the most enthusiastic supporters and initiators ofthe idea to build an electrical factory in Ujpest — thetown officials agreed tocomply with the request of themanagement. They even topped this by waiving thecompany's property taxes and other duties for thesame period that the government privileges ran. (49)When the board of directors met on 10 February 1900,they instructed the executive committee to have theplans of the factory ready by the middle of March. Thechief executive officer Gyula Egger, Peter Maishirn,member of the board, and the technical director JozsefPinter were delegated to make the necessary arrangementsfor the construction work and to coordinata thewhole project. As experts the chief executive officer ofthe Viennese factory VEAG, Erno Egger, and ProfessorRichard Englander were invited. (50)The plans were discussed by the construction committeeon a meeting held in Vienna on 10 April, 1900. Onthis occasion the board members Ferenc E. Vas andMiksa Krassny wanted to know the reasons behind theproposed increases in capacity, aiming at 25,000 incandescentlamps a day, or, in the case of the MechanicalDepartment, at doubling the performance.The technical director, Jozsef Pinter quoted past years'business figures to illustrate the reality of a productionboom: the company received orders for 582,000 incandescentlamps in the fiscal year 1894/1893. Thisnumber grew to 1,224,000 lamps in 1898/1898, to1,600,000 lamps in 1898/1899, and to 2,300,000 in .^-1899/1900. From the constantly growing demand itcould be rightly anticipated that for the fiscal year1902/1903 there would be orders for 6,000,000 incandescentlamps, which, in turn, would require theproduction of 22,000 lamps a day. Mr. Pinter alsopointed out that, while in 1899/1900 the production ofa single incandescent lamp cost 16 krajcars, manufacturing25,000 lamps a day would reduce this figure to13,5 krajcars. It became apparent that the drop in theprice of the lamps could only be offset by the continuousincrease of the volume of production. Bela Eggerwas against the plans that had been put forward.Professor Englander adopted them. Finally, the constructioncommittee accepted the proposed plans. (51)Since purchasing the land as well as completing andaccepting the plans took longer than expected, theTrade Ministry extended the previously set deadlinefor completion of the Ujpest plant until the end of 1900,

15 TUNGSRAMwhile the date set for the start of production waspostponed until the spring of 1901. The Ministry,lobbied by the company's influential supporters, alsoagreed to nnodify its initial conditions, and to give timeto the company until the third year of operation beforereaching the originally fixed works-force. (52)After receiving the building permitted on 30 June,1900, the board of appointed directors signed a dealwith the building contractors Sandor and Gyula Wellisch.The executive committee instructed GyulaEgger, Jozsef Pinter and Richard Englander to orderthe necessary machinery and sign the relevant agreements.(53)By late September, 1900 the construction work advancedto the point that first cost analysis could bedrawn.On an extraordinary general meeting held on 5 October,1900 the shareholders raised the company'sequity from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 Koronas to coverthe building and equipment costs of the new factory.(54)In the course of the construction work several alterationswere necessitated on the plans, and even somenew requirements emerged. Hence, it was decidedfollowing the request of Postal- and Telegraph Office,that there would be a post and telegraph office withinthe area of the new factory, and that the post masterwould get free accommodation in the building. (55)The Mechanical Department received an additionalwing which had not been in the original plan, in orderto be able to build telephone exchange systems accordingto schedule. By the way, the anticipatedincrease in the export of weak-current goods alsonecessitated the enlargement of the building. (56)The construction work on the new factory was finishedin the Summer of 1901. By mid-July the installation ofthe machinery advanced to such a stage that LangMachine Works, which delivered the machinery forthepower plant, was able to hold its first trial runs. Thequestion of water supply was also resolved favourable:no pressure drops were registered at the wells.The gasworks were put into operation by the end ofAugust, and the incandescent lamp production couldcommence. A few weeks later the Mechanical Departmentmoved into its new premises. (57) The buildingand equipment costs exceeded the planned sum byhalf a million Koronas and the total amount reached2,563,719 Koronas. The building contractors received1,006,480 Koronas. The mechanical machinery costed141,000 Koronas, the electric equipment 97,000 thevacuum device 23,000 the boiler 60,000 the gasworks74,000, the pavement 16,000 and the various fittings174,000 Koronas. (58)By the end of 1901 the new factory was working withfull capacity and the board of directors, therefore,missed the deadline set by the Ministry of Trade onlyby one year. The start of production of the carbonelectrodes necessary for the arc lamps ran into problems,and the company asked the Ministry to extendthe deadline. The Ministry agreed to put off thedeadline until the end of 1902. The board of directors,however, wanted to rid themselves of this obligationaltogether, and finally achieved that the Trade Ministry,lobbied by the directors of Kereskedelmi Bank,changed the terms of the previous agreement. Insteadof carbon electrodes, now the company was committedto produce railway security systems. (59) -The Mechanical and the Lamp Manufacturing Departmentwere separeted very definitely in the Ujpestplant. Structurally the Mechanical Department consistedof a production hall, a production office, atelephone construction hall, a railway security systemconstruction hall, a warehouse, an accounting office, astatistical office and a marketing office. The LampManufacturing Department was made up of a glassblowing section, a photometric section, a vacuumsection, a fitting room, a sealing section (where thestems were inserted into the bulbs), a warehouse anda marketing office. Seven engineers, six draughtsmenand nine supervisors constituted the technical staff ofthe Mechanical Department, while the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment was managed by one productionmanager, one chemist and ten supervisors. (60) Themanagerial talent of Lipot Aschner was beginning toshow itself in the new factory. He was the chief clerk ofthe Lamp Manufacturing Department first, and deputy

TUNGSRAM:k-^16director from 1 July, 1904. The annual salary of thechief executive officer, Gyula Egger was, 16,800Koronas then; Jozsef Pinter, technical director received15,000 Koronas and Lipot Aschner, 8,000Koronas.Jozsef Pinter's assessment proved correct when at thetime of planning the LJjpest plant he predicted that thedemand for electric light bulbs would dramaticallyincrease. It soon turned out that the Huszar Street plantcould not have possibly satisfied the rapidly growingdemand. On the other hand, the increased capacity ofthe new Lamp Manufacturing Department permittedthe marketing of 3,896,538 incandescent lamps in thefiscal year of 1902/1903, and 4,519,257 lamps in thefiscalyearof 1903/1904. (62)The market price of electric light bulbs very markedlydropped as a result of the strong competition in thefiscal year of 1902/1903. This moved the factory ownersto set up a cartel in order to end the further fall inthe prices. One of its organizers, Philipp Westphalnotified TUNGSRAM in April, 1903: "The continuousdrop in the price of electric light bulbs brought aboutthe possibility of the leading European light bulbfactories coming to an agreement". (63) The incandescentlamp cartel was founded as a limited companywith an equity of 1,000,000 German Marks under thename of Verkaufsstelle der Vereinigten Gluhlampenfabriker(Central Sales Office of United IncandescentLamp Factories) in Berlin on 16 September, 1903. Thecartel members contributed to the equity according tothe quotas allocated to them which, in turn, wasdetermined on the basis of a turnover of 27.7 millionMarks. AEG and Siemens und Halske AG. received22.633 percent each, while TUNGSRAM was given11.316 percent and Philips received 11.307 percent.The remaining 29.761 percent was shared between theother eight companies. The Limited Company wasrepresented by a board of seven directors, elected bythe cartel members.According to the cartel agreement, the marketing ofincandescent lamps was the responsibility of thecartel, although in the countries where no cartel memberswere operating TUNGSRAM had the right to selllight bulbs up to eighty percent of its quota, eitherdirectly to users or to retailers.The incandescent lamp cartel founded in Berlin undoubtedlyeased the marketing problems of theTUNGSRAM. It took over the goods up to the amountcorresponding to the company's quota for the pricefixed in the cartel agreement, marked it, and then paidout the profit. Not having to worry about marketinggave a boost to the company and allowed the radicalreorganization of its Lamp Manufacturing Department.This, in turn, led to considerable savings in theproduction costs and the establishing of new workmethods. (64)Joining the electric light bulb cartel made some of thecompany's sale offices redundant. Since the salesrepresentatives had proved their excellence in theprofession, the management continued to rely on theirservices in the interest of the other manufacturingbranches. The planned expansion in the production ofthe weak-current goods justified to keep them on thepay-roll. (65)While the question of the profitable marketing of thecarbon-filament incandescent lamps had been resolved,the quality, the luminous efficiency and thelife-time of the lamps remained to be a burningproblem.Wide-ranging research began that was aimed at raisingthe temperature of the filament. In the course ofthese researches, the lamp designed by the NobelPrize winner chemist, Walter Nertz, generated someinterest. He designed a mixture of metal-oxides to beused as filament.While he managed to raise the temperature of thefilament up to 2,350 C, the luminous intensity of thelamp exceeded that of an ordinary carbonfilamentlight bulb only by 50 percent. (66)Nertz's light bulb immediately aroused the attention ofTUNGSRAM'S technical staff. Af their suggestion thecompany, jointly with Ganz es Tarsa (Ganz and Associate),bought the license for the production of suchlamps within Austria-Hungary. (67) The company, withthe license in its possession, immediately ran someexperiments. In the course of these experiments it

17 TUNGSRAMsoon turned out that the Nertz-lamp would not renderobsolete the carbon-filament lamps, instead, the prospectsof its application seemed promising in specialareas, in respect of the relation between incandescentlamps and arc-lamps. Nevertheless, the technical expertsof TUNGSRAM and Ganz & Co. continued to runexperiments on the license. (68) When in the spring of1901 the Berlin factory of AEG brought out the Nerztlamp,the license holders in Austria-Hungary decidedthat they would start the production of Nertz-lampspending on the success of AEG, even though theirresearch showed that these lamps had no commercialvalue. (69)Responding to a request from AEG, the two Hungariancompanies permitted the Berlin factory to sell itsspecially marked Nertz-lamps within the Monarchy inreturn of a ten percent license fee.This, however, did not mean that TUNGSRAM or Ganz& Co. would forsake the right to produce Nertz-lamps.(70) And indeed, the two companies started producingand marketing such lamps in a limited quantity in1903; their mass-production, however, was neverrealized — partly for lack of interest, and partly forsuccesses scored in other type of experiments thatgave a different direction to the future developments.(71)The application of tungsten-filaments opened a newchapter in the evolution of incandescent lamps. Thefirst people ever to produce incandescent lamps usingtungsten filament were Dr. Sandor Just and FerencHanaman, both lecturers at the Technical College ofVienna. Their lamp had a luminous efficiency of 7.85ImAA/, which hardly dropped during its useful life of800 hours. (72) Just and Hanaman registered theirinvention on 13 December, 1904. The implications ofthe invention were unfathomable. Although in thedescription carbon filaments were still needed for theproduction of tungsten filaments, at the end the filamentwas tungsten entirely free of carbon. (73)It was probably Professor Englander, also lecturing atthe Technical College of Vienna and once acting astechnical expert in the construction of the Ujpest plant,who drew the attention of the management ofTUNGSRAM to the new invention. The company'smanaging directors quickly wrapped up the deal onthe priceless licence. They drew up an agreement withDr. Sandor Just and Ferenc Hanaman on 13 December,1904, according to which the inventors sold the soleright to TUNGSRAM to produce and sell tungsten-filamentlamps within Hungary and Austria. The agreedlicense fee was ten percent of the billed sales.TUNGSRAM accepted a ten percent interest in thefurther marketing of the license and also, committeditself to the mass-production of the tungsten-filamentlamps. (74)Several-year-long experimentation preceded themassproduction of tungsten-filament lamps. The carbon-filamentlight bulbs preserved their hegemonyduring these years: the volume of production reached25—30,000 pieces a day in the fiscal year of 1905/1906.The capacity of the Mechanical Department was alsosignificantly expanded in the new factory. The spaciouswork halls allowed the company to complete theinstallation work on the new telephone exchangesystem of Budapest by the end of 1903. The newtelephone exchange system was put into operation inJanuary, 1904. They managed to connect the morethan 6,000 existing lines to the centre in NagymezoStreet (:in the centre of Budapest:) by 15 April, and sothe former telephone exchanges in Baross Street andSzerecsen Street could be closed down. Since bymid-August, 1904 all the cross-bar lines had beenconnected to this centre, the whole telephone serviceof Budapest was concentrated in one exchange. Between1904 and 1906 the company received ordersfrom a whole list of provincial telephone exchanges toexpand their systems. They completed the telephoneexchange of Zagreb (:today Yugoslavia:) and handedit over to Postal and Telegraph Office in 1905. (75)Beside the good business done by the telephone andtelegraph section on the home front, the export of thelight-current products also increased significantly.The section manufacturing railway security systemsshowed an even more impressie expansion in capacity.The management bought up a whole list of patentsin order to secure its prospering and to be able to stay

TUNGSRAM 18competitive. The patents of the Kolban-type electricrailway block system, the heavy-current railway securitysystems and the security equipment of theSouthern Railway Company of Vienna were among•; these licenses. The latter was especially important,since this way the company did not have to facecompetition from Southern Railway in doing businesswith MAV (Hung. State Railway). (76)The Hungarian factories manufacturing railway securitysystems set up a cartel in 1905 and dividedbetween themselves the production quotas. Ganz and'^ Co. received 37 percent, Roessemann and Kiihne, 33percent and United Electric Co., 30 percent. LaterTelephone Factory Ltd. also joined the cartel, whichnecessitated the revision of the quotas. According tothe new cartel agreement, Ganz and Co. was given28.49 percent, Roessemann and Kuhne, 25.41 percent. TUNGSRAM, 23.1 percent and Telephone Factory Ltd.23 percent share of the market. (77)The company management paid great attention toevery patents and inventions in the electrical industry.Their interest was especially aroused by the Pollak-Virag type of telegraph, so much so that they boughtthe licence already at the turn of the century. Theinventors further improved the telegraph and added aperforator to it. This maschine differed from the ordinarytelegraphs in that it punched letters into thepaper-roll and this way the message appeared on thereceiving end as a written text. All that the telegraphistshad to do was to put the telegraph into an envelopand mail it. (78) The company spent 8,000 Koronas onthe design of the improved machine and founded apublic company with an equity of 500.000 Koronas tomarket the licence in 1903. The first successful test ofthe new telegraphic equipment was between Budapestand Fiume, and also, between Berlin and Cologne.Prolonged negotiations took place about the introductionof the Pollak-Virag-type telegraph in England,France and the United States, although this machinefailed, at the end, to live up to the expectations, sinceother, more sophisticated telegraph systems weredeveloped in the meantime. (79) The company, engrossedin the problems of developing a new incandescentlamp and enlarging its circle of weak-currentproducts, could not pay as much attention to itspower-current machinery production. On 25 November,1902 TUNGSRAM managed to draw up an agreementwith its Viennese sister-company, according towhich the whole power-current industry section of theOjpest plant, complete with its stocks and orders, wastransferred to VEAG. The transaction, however, onlymeant a partial solution to the problem, since thepower current industry section continued to be operatedwithin the Ujpest factory. VEAG created a branchin Budapest factory, although it was solely operated bythe Viennese, for the Viennese. In effect, the powercurrent industry section was run on behalf of theUjpest plant, but on the risk of VEAG; TUNGSRAMwanted to share neither the profits, nor the losses. (80)The Ojpest factory paid out 100,000 Koronas to VEAGfor the honouring of the existing deals, as well as forthe commercial services done abroad in the interest ofthe company.The half-measures aiming to solve the problems of thepower industry section were closely linked to thequestion of government privileges. The factory wascommitted to the production of generators and electricmotors by a deal made with the Trade Ministry. VEAG,however, bought the parts for these goods in Vienna.A sacked employee filed a report and the Ministrylaunched an inquiry in October, 1904. After the inquirythe Ministry notified the company that if the conditionswere violated, they would take retaliatory measures byreconsidering both the government privileges and thegovernment orders. On the meeting of the executivecommittee held on 31 October, 1904 the chief executiveofficer, Gyula Egger and the technical director,Jozsef Pinter strongly urged the Viennese sister companyto establish a branch for the production ofpower-current machinery in Budapest, since neitherthe work space nor the work force were available in theUjpest plant. (81) Opposing the view held by the Ojpestmanagement, the chief executive officer of the Viennesefactory, Erno Egger insisted that TUNGSRAMshould not change its previous practice. Since thelatter view was endorsed by the Viennese board of

19 TUNGSRAMdirectors, the executive committee postponed thedecision. (82)As VEAG continued to ignore the development of thepower current industry section, the executive committeeput the question bacl< on the agenda in its meetingheld on 29 March, 1905. The power current industrysection could not be simply closed down, since thatwould have meant the loss of considerable governmentprivileges and orders. (The company wasexempt from taxes until the 1st November, 1916, andin 1915 it received orders from the government worthmore than 1 million Koronas which amounted to 60percent of the total business done by the MechanicalDepartment in that year.) The abandoning of thepower current industry market also threatened withthe possibility that the company's biggest clientswould go elsewhere even to buy incandescent lampsand light-current products. (83)After taking all this into consideration, Erno Eggerinformed the executive committee that VEAG wouldbuild a current industry factory within the Ujpest plantby the end of 1905, and the manufacturing of generatorsand electrical motors should begin there by the end ofJune, 1906, at the latest.The new factory had, indeed, been completed by early1906, and by the end of April it had been put intoservice. (84)The company's direct involvement in selling incandescentlamps did not come to a close with the setting upof the cartel, as it had the right, in certain countries, tomarket the carbon-filament lamps produced over itsquota. Primarily, TUNGSRAM could build up its exportmarket in Russia, Spain, Japan, Canada and SouthAmerica. The company established sales offices in thecities of Yokohama, Kobe, St. Petersburg, Moscow,Madrid, Montreal and Buenos Aires. Lipot Aschnerorganized the Russian market. (85) In 1905 the companyalso set up permanent sales agencies in Paris andVienna. The running of the agency in Paris was entrustedwith the office manager Rudolf Loranti, whileIgnac Salzmann was put in charge of the Vienneseoffice. (86) The British market received the lamps andthe light-current goods of theTUNGSRAM through thesales organization set up jointly with the Schwechatcompany Schiff & Co.(87)^Naturally, the construction of the current machinesection, the relocation and the gradual realization offull production all had an unfavourable effect on thecompany's business figures between 1901 and 1903.In spite of the initial difficulties of the new section, thecompany closed the year with a net profit of 145,000Koronas. Of course, this was not enough to pay outdividends. The profit grew to 269,000 Koronas between1903 and 1905, and in the fiscal year of 1905/1906it exceeded 488,000 Koronas. There was such a boomin the electrical industry that from time to time thecompany could only fulfil its orders by working overtime.The shareholders received a dividend of 540,000Koronas in the three years beginning with the fiscalyear of 1903/1904. The company's financial state becamestable: in the fiscal year of 1905/1906 the Ojpestplant and its machinery was evaluated to be worth 3.3million Koronas, and its stocks held finished goodsand raw material worth 1,6 million Koronas. Againstthe company's entire debt of 1.5 million Koronas itsclaims totalled 1.6 million Koronas. (88)In 1901 the work-force did not exceed 700; therefore,during the previous two years it only grew with abouta 100 employees. As the Trade Ministry had grantedthe factory's tax-free status on the condition that by 1November, 1904 it would employ 1,200 workers, andsince the management was unable to comply with thiscondition, it fell on Jeno Szabo, president of the board,to procure the repeal of this particular point. (89)In order to achieve a gradual reduction in the productioncosts and thus increase the profits, the managementprimarily tried to employ cheap femalelabour. At the same time, and as a result of theconstant widening of the production profile, it also hadto increase its skilled work-force. The majority of thefemale workers came from the districts around Ojpest.They still did not have any connections with the tradeunion movement for a long time to come. Most of theskilled workers, however, were already union members.The first stoppage in the Ujpest plant took place in

TUNGSRAM.4-. »fe-"201905. The technical director Jozsef Pinter told theexecutive committee on 4 March, 1905 that the carpentershad threatened with strikes in case the following oftheir demands were not met.1. The company should employ a foreman, who iscompetent enough to run the carpentry workshopindependently.2. The piecework system should be abolished.3. The bottom hourly wage for carpenters, machineworkers and turners should be fixed in 40 fillers, and in24 fillers for female workers.4. Male and female workers should both receive a 25percent bonus every fortnight.5 Overtime work should be abolished. The hourlywage in case of overtime work called in exceptionalcircumstances should be raised by 50 percent if it iswithin the factory, and by 100 percent if it is outside thefactory.6. Wage penalties should be abolished.7. It is desirable that the mutual respect betweenworkers and foremen be observed.8. The company should recognize the workers' electedshop steward. , -' "•" -.9. Workers participating in a wage dispute can only belaid off in the next 6 months, if it can be proved thatthey did not report for work on their own accord.10. The labour exchange should take place throughemployment agencies.11. The work instructions should be given out by theforeman. -12. The work regulations should be displayed in theworkshop in an accessible spot. (90)The technical director, Jozsef Pinter told the workers'delegates that the management would discuss andremedy their complaints. The answer, however, didnot placate the workers. They called a meeting thatnight and decided that the 65 carpentry journeymenwould lay down the tools next morning, on 5 March.The strike ended on 17 April.The management conceded to the workers on severalpoints, and so the stoppage was not without anyresults:1. Although the piecework system stayed, the pieceratewas raised.2. The minimal hourly wage was fixed in 34 fillers.3. The management made a promise that it would pay25 percent overtime bonus in case the work endsbefore 8 o'clock p.m. in case of overtime work afterthistime, the management promised to pay a 50 percentbonus both to those working in piecework and to theday-workers.4. The management recognized the shop-stewardsystem.'.-*'•J"^\-i^

21 TUNGSRAMTHE INTRODUCTION OF TUNGSTEN TECHNOLOGYIN THE PRODUCTION OF INCANDESCENT LAMPSTUNGSRAM'S TRANSFORMATIONINTO A LARGE CORPORATION (1906-1914)On the extraordinary general meeting held on 23 May,1906 the official designation of the Ujpest factory wasmodified to EgyesiJlt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt."United Incandescent Lamp and Electric Company".This is the original registered style together with itsantecedents were named, "abbreviated" for simplicity,TUNGSRAM. After buying up the patent of Justand Hanaman's invention, the company spent morethan a year trying to perfect the production technologyof tungsten lamps. (91) The two inventors themselvesparticipated in the experiments, in the course of whichseveral problems arose. In essence, tungsten wasextracted in glowing gas from tungsten-hexachlorideonto the surface of a carbon filament. The carbon wasthen removed by heating the filament in moist hydrogengas. Unfortunately, the resulting tungsten filamentproved to be very fragile. The company wishedto rectify this problem by employing special-purposesupport wires. (92)In March, 1906 the succes of the experiments alreadysuggested that the mass-production of tungstenlamps could soon commence. To be able to do that,however, the company would have had to investsubstantial sums which it did not have. On short noticeTUNGSRAM could have sold its power plants inLosonc and Budafok or its factory in the Huszar Streetonly at a great loss. The only course of action seemedto be the raising of the company's equity, to which thegeneral meeting eventually gave its consent on 23March, 1906. The shares issued in the nominal value of1 million Koronas were bought up by the CommercialBank and Niederosterreichische Escompte Gesellschaftat a rate of 115 percent. (93)The hopes of an early start in the mass-production oftungsten lamps, however, proved a little too optimistic.Steady work and perseverance was needed toovercome the difficulties. Nevertheless, the companyswiftly made the necessary preparations for production:in September, 1906 it put its new (second)power plant into operation and by then it has alsocompleted the work sites. (94)By late September the difficulties of mass-productionhad been largely overcome and hence the preparationsfor a trial run producing 600 lamps a day couldcommence. The company made the start of massproductionpending on the results of this test. (95)Since at the beginning of the trial run certain disagreementsemerged between the inventors and the managerof the Lamp Manufacturing Department, theexecutive committee decided that:- the trial run currently being performed as well asthe mass-production under preparation must, withoutfail, involve the participation of Dr. Sandor Just andFerenc Hanaman;- as soon as mass-production replaces the trial run,the inventors must be given laboratory where they cancontinue with their research aimed at further developingthe tungsten lamp;-the executive committee must invest the necessaryamount for mass-production as soon as possible;-V-^>

TUNGSRAM•>-^:.V22-the production of tungsten lamps must beevaluated every fortnight. (96)In late November, 1906 the trial run started on fourproduction lines, producing 700 light bulbs a day.Initially there were many faulty bulbs due to the highbreakage by the inexperienced female work-force whohad been recruited from the vicinity of Ojpest. Moreworrying than was the fact that the filament of thelamps did not stand up very well to transportation.While the cargo to St. Petersburg, Madrid and Milanarrived relatively safety, the tungsten lamps exported^ to Vienna and Prague, despite the careful packaging,often ended up broken.The tungsten lamps generated such a great interestthat in 1907, after seeing the promising results of thetrial runs, the start of mass-production could no longerbe delayed. The company management invested986,000 Koronas in this project. (98) Since the managerof the Lamp Manufacturing Department was entirelyengrossed in the problems of tungsten lamp production,Simon Just, who had earlier been working forFluorescent Light Company of Berlin and Bergmann' • Electrical Company, was called in to act as deputy., manager. That was also the time when the chemist Dr.Ferenc Salzer signed his contract. Later he became themanager of the Lamp Manufacturing Department. (99)By early 1908 the production volume reached 2,500pieces a day, while the capacity approached 3.500pieces a day. In order to strengthen the technical staffof the Tungsten Lamp Unit, in April 1908 the managementsigned another two-year contract with FerencHanaman. In this contract Hanaman committed himselfto participating in the work of the Tungsten LampUnit as technical expert and staff member until 31December, 1909. To secure his cooperation, TUNGS­RAM doubled the salary which had been determined inhis first contract signed in 1906. On top of that, hewould have been given the annual sum of 1,200Koronas to cover his accommodation expenses, hadhe been willing to move to Ujpest. (100) In spite of allthis, Hanaman did not take part in the work of theTungsten Lamp Unit for long. Without seeking themanagement's approval, he left for the United Statesin January 1909.As Hanaman had failed to return by 1910, theTUNGSRAM terminated his contract as of 1 September,1910. In any case, he had not received hissalary for the previous two years. The managementnotified Hanaman that his cooperation would only berequired in the future, if he submitted himself to thecompany's disciplinary procedures. Simultaneously,Dr. Just's contract of employment was also terminated,as he-allegedly-had spent all his time lately onthe legal aspects of patents (101), instead of leaving itto the official in charge of the matter. Dr. Just'sdismissal, however, could be traced back to his insistenceon certain licence fees. The departure of twosuch eminent scientists meant serious losses to thetungsten lamp manufacturing of TUNGSRAM.The mass-production of tungsten lamps required furtherand further investments. As the factory's GasSupply Unit could not meet the ever-increasing demandsof the Tungsten Lamp Unit, and since theproblem of storage could not be resolved, either, in1908 the Gas Supply Unit was expanded. (102) In thefollowing year the work area and the storage space ofthe Tungsten Lamp Unit was enlarged and a newbuilding was added. The Gas Supply Unit, where thenecessary hydrogen was produced, also received furtherinstallations. (103)Beside the latest investments and the developing ofnew support wires for the tungsten filament, themanaging directors were concerned with other problemsof light bulb manufacturing. In this respectseveral of their projects were crowned with success.For example, from AEG of Berlin they bought thelicence for producing vitrit glass and from 1907 onwardsvitrit glass replaced the porcelain insert of thelamp base. (104) In 1908 the company produced ametal lead-in wire which was a great deal less expensivethan the platinum wire used earlier in incandescentlamps. (105) At the same time, the companybought the license for producing a kind of chromiumplatedmetal wire suitable for supporting the tungstenfilament. (106)After overcoming the numerous obstacles, the daily

23 TUNGSRAMoutput of the Tungsten Lamp Unit grew to 5,000 piecesin 1909. On the initiative of the technical manager,Jozsef Pinter, the company introduced the productionof paste in the manufacturing of tungsten filamentsstill in the same year. For this purpose Pinter alsoasked permission to enlarge the building; however,the executive committee did not agree to any additionalconstruction work, as the investment intungsten lamp production had already totalled over1.4 million Koronas. As a temporary solution, theexecutive committee suggested the introduction ofnight shift. (107)The company, the inventors and two Viennese investorsfounded the International Tungsten Co. Ltd. formarketing the patent of Dr. Just and Hanaman on 19November, 1906. (108) The company, which hencebecame the sole proprietor of the patent, licensed it inthirteen different countries. Gyula Egger was namedas the chairman of the public company, Ferenc Hanamanwas his deputy and Dr. Sandor Just became thechief executive. The board of directors of the InternationalTungsten Co. Ltd. unanimously endorsed thecontracts which TUNGSRAM had signed with Dr.Sandor Just and Ferenc Hanaman in Ujpest on 15February, 1905 in the matter of the two inventors'employment. (109) TUNGSRAM had sold the licenceto produce tungsten lamps in Germany for 800,000German Marks even before International Tungsten Co.Ltd. was formed; in England the license was marketedin 1907. The deal concluded with General Electric Co.was worth $75,000. (110)The intense competition in the export market and therecurring drops in the price of tungsten lamps urgedthe company to further investments and greater production.In order to remain competitive, the executivecommittee issued the directive to make arrangementsfor the production of 10,000 lamps a day. Immediatelyafter the resolution preparationswere made to enlargethe factory. Three wings were given second floors andthe construction and fitting of the new work hallsbegan. In the spring of 1910 further two wings receivedsecond floors. The useful area of the Tungsten LampUnit grew to 8,250 m' from 4,100 m' within one year.The cost of investment totalled 1,845,000 Koronas.(Ill)In spite of all this, the company was only able to meet60 percent of the existing demands in the countrieswhere it held the license, which amounted to 5 milliontungsten lamps. There was a real danger of newcompetitors' emergering. The continuing reduction inthe price of the light bulbs further pressed the companyin the direction of greater production. In 1910AEG of Berlin reduced the price of tungsten lamps by33 percent and, of course, TUNGSRAM had to followsuit. The forecast further fall in the prices could onlypartially be balanced by the reduction of productioncosts, hence leaving no alternative for the companybut to increase the volume of production intensely inorder to eliminate the competition and prevent thefurther shrinking of its profit margin. (112)Bythe end of 1910 the technical manager, Jozsef Pinteralready recommended to make preparations for theproduction of 22,000 lamps a day.Without the slightest hesitation, the executive committeeauthorized the managing directors to expand theTungsten Lamp Unit, investing further 1.5 millionKoronas. The construction work and establishing wascompleted by the end of 1911. The work halls of theLamp Manufacturing Department were not yet availablefor the Tungsten Lamp Unit, as the former department,with its business waning, could still bring in anannual profit of over 200,000 Koronas. (113)With the expansion of the Tungsten Lamp Unit anincrease could be anticipated in the factory's hydrogenconsumption. This caused serious problems, since theGas Supply Unit was, in many respects, objectionable:first of all, it was not safe from explosion and, secondly,the customers buying the oxygen (the by-productsold to reduce production costs) often complainedabout the purity of the gas. For this reason, in thespring of 1911, Linde Company founded a factoryproducing hydrogen on the premises in accordancewith an agreement drawn up between the parties. TheMunich company paid 8 Koronas for every squarefathomof the land its business took up. The hydrogenproduced here was led into the main container of

TUNGSRAM.^.•:-i-'24TUNGSRAM through a pipe system. TUNGSRAMeven handed its own Gas Supply Unit over to LindeCompany. The transaction did not require any investmentand guaranteed the factory's hydrogen demandat a fabourable price. (114)While the management of TUNGSRAM was constantlyoccupied with the upgrading of its Tungsten LampUnit, a revolutionary invention was developed in theresearch laboratories of General Electric Co. in theUnited States. In 1908 William D. Coolidge discoveredthat tungsten powder sintered and pressed into rods ata temperature of 1,500 C became so ductile that therods were suitable for wire-drawing. The Coolidgeprocedure became the basis of economical tungstenlamp production very soon and, after Siemens andHalske of Berlin had bought the patent in 1911, theprocedure also became widely used in Europe.In the autumn of 1911 TUNGSRAM suffered a setbackin the competition against the German tungsten lampmanufacturers. In six months it was only able to sellone and a quarter million tungsten lamps on theforeign market, because the Coolidge technology enabledits competitors to flood the market with cheaperand better-quality tungsten lamps. For this reason, theboard of directors of TUNGSRAM ordered the managementto employ experts for developing the wiredrawingprocedure immediately. (116) Beside thetechnical problems, however, difficulties concerningthe patent rights also emerged. Hence, in May, 1912,TUNGSRAM decided to contact Auer Company, theGerman licence holder of the American patent, andproposed to set up a body representing joint interests.The Berlin company wanted the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment of TUNGSRAM to from a separate publiccompany and hand the majority of the shares over toAuer Company. Although this was thecompany whichmanufactured and distributed the Osram lamp, thebest coil lamp at the time, the transaction did not takeplace, because handing overthe majority of the shareswould have meant the foregoing of the company'sindependence. (117)After this unsuccessful attempt the management renewedits efforts to lay hands on the productionlicense. In autumn, 1912 it began negotiations with theGerman license holders of General Electric Co.'s patent,Siemens und Halske and Auer A.G. Initially theBerlin manufacturers asked for 8 percent of the sellingprice of the lamps as the license fee. Basing thecalculations on the marketing of 5 million lamps in oneyear, this would have meant for TUNGSRAM anexpenditure of 400,000 Koronas. (118) After prolongednegotiations the licence agreement was finally concludedon 1 December, 1912. According to thisTUNGSRAM had the right to manufacture tungstenlamps with the Coolidge technology; in return it was topay 3 percent license fee after the first 6 million lamps,and 15 percent afterthe lamps produced on top of this.In addition, TUNGSRAM undertook not to sell lampsproduced with the Coolidge procedure in England andFrance. The agreement prohibited the Austrian licenseholders of the Coolidge technology from setting uptungsten lamp factories in Hungary. This, however, didnot stop the Viennese lamp manufacturer Janos Kremenetzkyfrom founding a factory producing tungstenlamps in Budapest in 1913, even though the Hungarianmarket was inundated with tungsten lamps. Thisaction prompted the management of TUNGSRAM tocall upon the Berlin lamp manufacturers and ask themto start patent law proceedings against Janos Kremenetzkyfor breaching the agreement. (119)By 1913 the Tungsten Lamp Unit was entirely convertedto the application of the modern Coolidgetechnology in its production of tungsten lamps. Thesewere already marketed with the Tungsram trade-markmentioned before registered in 1909. (120) In the LampManufacturing Department, the company continuouslyinvested in the up-to-date technology after 1908,this way securing the profitability of production on thelong run. The machine lines would have allowed themanufacturing of 22,000 lamps a day, even thoughproduction was increased only by 45 percent, as all theefforts to boost the production volume were frustratedby the extremely large fluctuations in the labourforce.Every spring and autunm twenty-five percent of theworkers left the company and undertook agriculturalwork. At the same time, the training of new workers• * .

25 TUNGSRAMtook very long, greatly adding to the production. Thefact that the old filament workshop was far from beingadequate also hindered the efforts to increase production.The wire-drawing technology changed the manufacturingof filaments beyond belief. Three hundred andfifty workers lost their jobs as a consequence of thenew technology, allowing the company to save300,000 Koronas in labour costs.With the introduction of the new technology thecompany once again became competitive on the worldmarket, both in price and in quality. (121)The daily output of the Tungsten Lamp Unit reached27,000 lamps in October, 1913. The executive committeeof the company, influenced by the successesscored both on the foreign and the home market,ordered the management to raise the annual productionvolume of the GSL-s (:General Service Lamp:)to 7 million pieces; to begin the manufacturing oftorch- and battery-operated miniature lamps; and tomake preparations for the production of the so-called'half-Watt' lamps: the gas-filled lamps, but using halfthe power. In addition, the company decided to set upa research laboratory. (122)Just as TUNGSRAM once again reached the worldstandard, Irwing Langmuir developed the gas-filledincandescent lamp in the research laboratory ofGeneral Electric Co. and submitted the patent on 19April, 1913.The invention opened up a new phase in the manufactureof incandescent lamps. The inventor discoveredthat by filling the bulbs with gas he could greatlyenhance the light efficiency of incandescent lamps,and this applied especially to lamps using coiledfilament. Nitrogen gas, when filled into the bulb,reduced the evaporation of tungsten, allowing theglowing of the filament at a higher temperature withoutaffecting the length of its useful life. (123)The management of TUNGSRAM immediatelyrealized the potentials of gas-filled lamps and beganthe experiments under the direction of Aladar Perczelalready in 1913. With this a new phase began in theproduction of incandescent lamps which broughtseveral new technical problems into focus, includingquestions concerning the purification of the filling gasand the manufacture of coiled filaments.At the end of 1913 TUNGSRAM closed an eventfulperiod in the production of incandescent lamps. TheUjpest factory became a large enterprise. The executivecommittee duly acknowledged the results of thetechnical staff shown in the field of tungsten lampproduction on the eve of the Great War. Seeing theseresults the Viennese board director Miksa Krasnyexpressed his joy which was all the more notable sinceearlier he had held a pessimisticviewof thecompany'sfuture prospects. The acknowledgement wasfirst of alldue to the technical manager Jozsef Pinter and hiscolleagues who had done their utmost to raise thestandard of lamp production. (124)The Hungarian government also appreciated the successfulwork done by the company. The Trade Ministryawarded the Tungsten Lamp Unit with fifteen years oftax-free status beginning on 17 May, 1907 on thecondition that it would employ at least 450 workersand invest a minimum of 1.1 million Koronas.TUNGSRAM improved on both counts, as the TungstenLamp Unit employed over one thousand workersand the company invested more than 1.4 millionKoronas. (125) As of 1 December, 1912 the Coolidgetype lamps were enjoying tax-free status for fifteenyears. (126)The relationship between Sandor Just and TUNGS­RAM further deteriorated after 1910. In 1911 the managementrepeatedly informed the executive committeethat the chief executive officer of InternationalTungsten Co. Ltd. was posing difficulties toTUNGSRAM in an "offensive manner". Hence theexecutive committee authorized the management tobuy up the majority of the International Tungsten Co.Ltd. shares. Once Commercial Bank, acting on behalfof TUNGSRAM, had bought the 6.500 shares owned bySandor Just for 65 Koronas each, and this way hadacquired 97 percent of the International Tungsten Co.Ltd. shares, all forms of cooperation were endedbetween the inventor of tungsten lamps andTUNGSRAM. (127)•• .. _..--v

TUNGSRAM• > . ^26The incandescent lamps using carbon filament continuedto feature on the market for quite some time yet,even though the demands for them were rapidlydropping. In the fiscal year of 1909/1910 TUNGSRAMquota totalled 3,540,000 lamps. (128) Business, however,was so limited after the triumph of the tungstenlamps that the cartel formed to market the carbon-filamentlamps broke upon 31 March, 1914and the cartelmembers regained their independence. TUNGSRAMwas given its 35,000 Mark capital and its share of thereserve fund, further 10,000 German Marks, back by•v the cartel (129)At the time of the triumph of tungsten lamps thecompany's Mechanical Department also wentthroughsubstantial changes. The Department was doing moreand more business each year. Government orderswere worth an annual 4-6 million Koronas. The availablework space and machinery of the Department grewaccordingly.The professional reputation of TUNGSRAM was alsosignificantly enhanced by the successes of the unitsproducing telegraphs and telephones. After complet-.'• ing the telephone exchange in Terezvaros Postal andTelegraph Office decided to build another telephone>" exchange at the address of 17 Maria Terezia Square inorder to provide service for thousands of new sub-' scribers. As the completion of thetelephone exchangehandling 15,000 lines was delayed, TUNGSRAM assembleda temporary exchange capable of handling4,000 lines, which was put into operation in November,1912. When in 1909 the modernizing of the provincialtelephone exchanges became warranted, the PostalandTelegraph Office, with the consent of TUNGSRAMinvited the competition — the Deckert-Homolka Companyand the Telephone Factory — to participate in theproject. According to the resulting agreement, half ofall the orders in connection with the new Budapesttelephone exchange and the modernizing of the provincialexchanges would go to TUNGSRAM, and therest, to the competition. The license fees were sharedequally between Western Electric Co. and TUNGS­RAM. (130)After receiving the second large order to build atelephone exchange in Budapest, TUNGSRAM felt theneed to establish closer links with the American company.The president of Western Electric Co. himselfwished to widen the cooperation. By 1912, when the *idea of closer cooperation emerged, TUNGSRAM hadalready been in business contact with Western ElectricCo. for 12 years in connection with various licenseagreements. The telephones and the exchange systemsassembled by the Ujpest plant in Hungary had allbeen patented by Western Electric Co. of Chicago. Asthere were two other companies in Hungary whichproduced telephones and exchange systems, TUNGS­RAM wanted to modify the license agreements withWestern Electric Co. — the leading force in the weakcurrentgoods market at the time — in such a way thatthe license fees of 10 and 12.5 percent would notreduce its competitiveness.As a result of the negotiations that had lasted a wholeyear, an agreement was signed by the two companiesin the autumn of 1912, according to which TUNGS­RAM was not to pay license fees after the orderscoming in on or beyond 1 May, 1912. On the otherhand. Western Electric Co. took over shares in the facevalue of 1 million Koronas and hence assumed anactive interest in the Ujpest factory. Western Electric ^^-Co. purchased the shares in cash at 150 percent. TheAmerican company was committed to give technicaland economical support to TUNGSRAM. (131) Thepresence of Western Electric Co. in TUNGSRAM aswell as its readiness to cooperate with TUNGSRAM,significantly strengthened TUNGSRAM position in thetelephone industry. In 1913, when the installation ofautomatic telephone exchange systems was considered,the system designed by Western Electric Co. waschosen by the expert body of Postal- and TelegraphOffice, as the most advanced. On the basis of thisopinion, the Trade Ministry ordered Postal- and TelegraphOffice to start negotiations with TUNGSRAMabout replacing the two Budapest telephone exchangeswith semi-automatic systems. The price offerof 5 million Koronas submitted by the TUNGSRAMmanagement was accepted and work began rightaway, even if World War One temporarily halted it.• • . .. I

27 TU\GSRANThe company's Mechanical Department first of allrelied on government orders between 1906 and 1914and, as a result, neglected the weak-current goods endof the market. Lipot Aschner, who had been appointedto the post of marketing manager on Gyula Egger'srecommendation in 1908, laid the responsibility forthis on the Mechanical Department. The relationsbetween Pinter and Aschner rapidly deteriorated followingthe accusations. Aschner questioned the technicalcompetence of the Weak-Current Goods Department,claiming that without the patents of WesternElectric Co. the Department would never have survivedin the market. Aschner ultimately wantedTUNGSRAM to stop producing weak-current goods.(133) In response to Aschner's accusations, Pinterprepared a memorandum. In early 1908 the executivecommittee asked the board member Erno Egger, whowas also the chief executive of the Viennese branch, tosettle the dispute by giving his expert opinion.Erno Egger placed the production and the marketing ofweak-current goods in the Ojpest factory under closescrutiny. He concluded that the activities had broughtthe company 12-15 percent net profit (134) and hencerecommended to continue with them. He pointed outthat by eliminating the Weak-Current Goods Department,the Mechanical Department would have had torely solely on government orders. In the interest ofrationalizing the production he recommended that:- only first class goods should be produced in largequantities-the less marketable goods should be purchasedrather than produced-a production and marketing strategy adjusting tothe realities should be developed-through the training of the marketing staff, productionand marketing should be brought into harmony.(135)On the basis of Erno Egger's expert opinion theexecutive committee decided to continue with theproduction and development of weak-current goods.The problems concerning the production of powercurrentmachinery were also resolved permanently inthis period. The Viennese company "Vereinigte Elektrizitats-AG"built up its plant manufacturing powercurrentmachinery on the 856 square-fathom landwithin the Ujpest factory and, on 26 November, 1907,turned it into a separate company under the name ofEgyesiJlt Villamossagi es Gepgyar (United Electricaland Machine Factory). (136) TUNGSRAM completelydissociated itself from the power machinery industryin 1910 when it sold the shares of its power plants inBudafok and Losoncfor 692,000 Koronas to a companycalled "Reszvenytarsasag Villamos es Kozlekedesi VallalatokSzamara" (Share Company for Electric andTransport Businesses). In the same year TUNGSRAMalso sold its Huszar Street plant for 546,000 Koronas toHaggenmacher Sorgyar (Haggenmacher Bier Factory).(137) These deals allowed the company to settleits long-standing debts, as well as to buy further landaround the Ujpest factory. After prolonged negotiations,the management purchased 14,510 squarefathom'sfrom Count Laszio Karoiyi on 10 June, 1911.This was done more as a precaution, since there werestill undeveloped areas within the Ujpest factory. (138)The company thoroughly restructured its export policybetween 1906 and 1914. It kept the old sales agencies,while also establishing several new trade organizations.The company appointed Gyula Egger and LipotAschner as founding members of the Viennese firm,Tungsram Incandescent Lamp and Electrical CompanyLimited. TUNGSRAM being a member of the cartelestablished to market the carbon filament lamps,wanted to avoid to appear as the owner of the limitedcompany. (139)TUNGSRAM founded a company called TungsramFabbrica di Lampade ad Incandescenza ed ImpresaElettrica in Milan, and another one calledObschchestvo Electrosviet in St. Petersburg. As theTungsram companies both in Vienna and in Milanproved extremely successful, similar sales agencieswere also established in Madrid and Prague in 1913. Byorganizing the export market, TUNGSRAM managedto dispose five-sixth of its increased production volumein the foreign market without any difficulties.(140)In spite of the problems of production and the large

TUNGSRAM..^.'i^28investments, the company paid out 6,5 million Koronas-individends between 1906 and 1914. In the sameperiod it raised its equity to 6.5 million Koronas, whileits capital reserves reached 5.8 million Koronas. TheUjpest plant, complete with machinery, was valued at8.7 million Koronas in the fiscal year of 1913/1914. Thecompany's liquidity is best shown by the fact that ithad 5.1 million Koronas in outstanding debts as opposedto its 4.3 million Koronas liability, while alsobeing in possession of supplies and goods worth 4million Koronas.The following figures can also demonstrate the triumphof tungsten lamps:Fiscal year1908/19091909/19101910/19111911/19121913/1914Profit (Koronas)Carbon-filamentlamps373,372346,088194,715100,30415,000ProfitTungstenlamps17,599320,093630,820376,784641,000Chief executive officer, Gyula Egger, technical managerJozsef Pinter and marketing manager Lipot Aschnerwere all instrumental in turning TUNGSRAM into alarge corporation. Gyula Egger acted as administrateurdelegue after 1 May, 1906. His duties consistedof checking the business management and representingthe company abroad. With the passing of the yearshe became gradually less active and the running of thecompany was left with the managerial and businesswizard, Lipot Aschner, who held the complete confidenceof the two major share-holders, the two banks.(141) Jozsef Pinter continued to act as the technicalmanager of both departments, although he was gettingmore and more tied up with the running of theMechanical Department. The two distinguished managerswere elected to the board of directors on thegeneral meetings held in 1912 and 1913.The heads of departments running the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment were Dr. Ferenc Salzer, Simon Justand Armin Helfgott. (142) The chemical engineer,Aladar Peczel joined TUNGSRAM on 1 March, 1912.Earlier he had worked for Westinghouse, the Vienneseincandescent lamp manufacturer. His services to thecompany proved invaluable when the company'stungsten lamp production went through a criticalphase. (143) Developing the production technology ofthe tungsten-coil lamps in the TUNGSRAM was associatedwith Perczel's name.The company's work-force was 2,300 in 1910, whichgrew to 3,600 by 1913. At the same time, theTUNGSRAM Hungarian Wagon and Machine Factoryemployed 2,500 workers, while Mannfred Weiss Steeland Metal Works had 6,000 employees. (144)TUNGSRAM introduced certain regulations in 1913,which uniformly applied to the work-force as a whole,requiring "every worker to show, both in his conductand work, loyalty, honesty, diligence, as well as obedienceand respect towards his superiors". No onewas allowed to leave the factory during working hours,unless one had permission in the form of an exit ticketsigned by one's superior. People could only havemedical examination in the factory's surgery with anappointment card issued in the workshop office. "Theworkers were allowed to consume food brought fromhome on the premises only when that did not interferewith the continuous work". (145)The adverse housing situation in the locality greatlyhindered the company's efforts to expand the workforce,and did that especially in the case of the skilledworkers. This problem affected the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment more than it did the rest of the factory.The management of the company first wanted toimprove the situation by building roughly 200 flats forits workers in 1907. Several suggestion had beensubmitted in connection with the Tungsram HousingEstate. The executive committee finally instructed thetechnical manager, Jozsef Pinter to work out thedetails of the proposal. (146)The workers' cultural advancement was not helped bythe slowly progressing construction work. Minor in-

• ^ •29 TUNGSRAMitiatives in the cultural field already emerged inthefirstyears of the century.A club fighting against alcoholism was formed,headed by the chief mechanic, Ferenc Horvath. Theclub held lectures in order to get its message throughto the members.The club also had a football team for years. The choir,which numbered forty members, was, again, organizedby Ferenc Horvath in 1903. They enjoyed greatpopularity around 1910, and from time to time gaveconcerts to the workers. In the cultural field the workershad no more organized activities within theframework of the factory. Otherwise it was the growingtrade union movement, and the Ujpesti Munkasotthon(Workers' Home of Ujpest) within this, which wasprimarily involved in the cultural advancement of theworking class. (147)The technical, marketing and administrative employeesof the company concentrated first of all onfounding and developing the factory's sport activities.The Ampere Sport Club was established in 1911. It hadsections specializing in gymnastics, fencing, hiking,tennis, ice-skating and rowing. The club built tenniscourts and an ice-ring from its own resources. Thegymnasts worked out in a school-gym quite a distancefrom the factory, therefore very few people couldattend the training regularly. For this reason the executivecommittee, on the initiative of the management,lent 14,000 Koronas to the sport club to built its owngym in the place where today the surgery (deceptionroom:) is found. The construction work came to 17,000Koronas, of which the members of the sport club putup 3,000 Koronas. (148)With the overall work-force rising, the number oforganized labourers also went up. This stood in theway of all efforts to reduce production costs throughcutting the workers' wages right from the start. Whenin 1905, following the carpenters' strikes, attemptswere made to cut the wages, the workers resorted tostoppages of work. On 13 August, 1907 seventy-twoblacksmiths and locksmiths laid down the tools, demandingthat the minimal hourly wage of blacksmithsand mechanics starting out should be fixed in 36 fillers.In addition, they called on the management to raise thewages by twenty-five percent, to settle the questionsof the piece-work system and the overtime pay and toinstruct the foremen to treat the workers with humanity.The strike ended on 31 August, after the managementhad complied with the majority of the demands: theminimal wage was determined in 36fillers, there wasa10—20 percent pay-rise and the company promised tosee to the complaints in connection with the pieceworksystem. (149)On 3 July, 1908 sixty male and thirty-five femaleworkers of the Tungsten Lamp Unit went on strike afterthe management had witheld 25 and 8 percent of thewages of the men and women respectively, for theextremely high percentage of rejects. The strike wascalled off on 8 July without achieving anything, and 27workers left the company as a result, while the rest ofthe work-force had to accept the decision of themanagement. (150) Forty-five workers in the pressworkslaid down the tools on 20 January, 1912 to forcethe management to take back a union representativecalled Janos Varga who had been dismissed for allegedincompetence, and to fire the foreman RobertVajda for being rude to the workers. As the managementvery firmly rejected the demands, the HungarianTrade Union of Steel and Metal Workers boycotted theUjpest factory. Finally the management and the workerssettled the dispute through negotiations: themechanic Janos Varga was taken back and the workersdropped their demand concerning Robert Vajda's dismissalin return. The Trade Union of Steel and MetalWorkers promptly called off the boycott and the strikewas ended on 10 February. (151)'^

TUNGSRAM 30"^X\ * l .-«l*^" VDesk telephone set with magnetoinductor' - ' • ' \•'tifc. • -^,Desk telephone set with callingdial stand" ; • •

.i31 TUNGSRAMTHE COMPANY DURING WORLD WAR IThe outbreak of the First World War greatly hurtthe company: its export market shrunk and the futureof its outstanding debts in the Entente countries,totalling about 1.5 million Koronas, became uncertain.The management, however, soon overcame thedifficulties: it succeeded in maintaining the high standardof production, introduced new products, and balancedthe lost revenues by restructuring its exportmarket.In the fiscal year of 1915 TUNGSRAM marketed 5.7million lamps. Forty-two percent of this was sold inAustria-Hungary, twenty-five percent was exported toItaly, eleven percent to Rumania and four percent toSpain. The company exported to the Entente powersthrough neutral countries. A new Tungsram firm wasestablished in Switzerland in order to increase thecompany's share in the Italian market. Surprisingly,the demand for carbon filament lamps reached 2.5times the annual sales of the previous years. (152)The invention of the so-called 'half-Watt lamps'forecasted the possibility of a new boom in the productionof the Lamp Manufacturing Department. However,the mass-production of lamps required a cheapfilling gas. As the nitrogen-extracting process developedby the departmental head Armin Helfgott wascomplicated, unmanageable and highly explosive, inlate 1914 the technical manager instructed the engineer,Gyula Hevesi to construct a device which wasboth safe and productive. Hevesi solved the problemin a comparatively short time: he developed a completelyoperational, safe and nearly automaticmachine. (153)The production of the 'half-Watt lamps' could start in1915. Initially production was limited to a thousandlamps a day, but the demand for these lamps was sogreat that in the summer of 1915 the executive committeeordered the management to increase the volumeof production to 3,500 lamps a day. The committeeallocated 65,700 Koronas to the project. (154) Theplanned increase in the production could only berealized in January, 1916, due to problems in purchasingthe necessary equipment. (155)With the introduction of gas-filled lamps it becameincreasingly obvious that termination of the agreementsigned with Linde Company in 1911 was in thecompany's interest, as the subsidiary of the firm,Hydroxigen Co., was unable to deliver hydrogen toTUNGSRAM in the desired quality. After long andtedious negotiations TUNGSRAM cancelled the agreementand bought back from Hydroxigen Rt. the landhanded over to it, together with the accompanyingbuildings. (156)Although the company had basic materials and lampbases in large quantities at the outbreak of the war, itssupplies soon required a fill-up. As by 1915 copper wasnot available, the company purchased bases made ofiron, which were plated with zinc and copper in orderto protect them from staining. As the purchasing ofthese iron lamp bases also became impossible verysoon, the board of directors decided to buy the modernmachinery which had been acquired by Ganz ElectricCo. just before the war and TUNGSRAM started toproduce its own lamp bases. (157)The Tungsten Lamp Unit alone showed a net profit of1.5 million Koronas in the fiscal year of 1915/1916.Such a respectable performance was made possibleby the company's marketing of 2,864,000 lamps morethan in the previous year. The profit margin wasespecially high on the 'half-Watt lamps', of which669,000 were sold in that year. The Austrian-Hungarian-Germancartel founded on 1 August, 1915 for the

TUNGSRAM 32marketing of light bulbs greatly contributed to achievingsuch a high profit margin. In repeatedly raised theprices during its short existence. (158) According to thecartel agreement, TUNGSRAM was allowed to sell7,986,000 lamps. The sale of carbon-filament lampsslightly rose again to 500,000 pieces in 1916. (159)The great demand for tungsten lamps, both the half-Watt (gas-filled) and the one-Watt (vacuum) versions,encouraged the management to increase the productioncapacity of its Lamp Manufacturing Departmentfurther. The executive committee accepted the"^ management's proposal and instructed it to run up thecapacity of the Tungsten Lamp Unit with a 2 millionKorona investment to the production of 15,000 'half-Watt lamps' a day. To secure the necessary capital, theextraordinary general meeting held on 26 October,1916 raised the equity by 1.5 million Koronas. (160)The full capacity of the Lamp Manufacturing Departmentwas utilized even in the last years of the war. Asthe running of the Mechanical Department's war productionrequired Jozsef Pinter's full attention, in late1917 the management temporarily entrusted LipotAschner with the technical management of the LampManufacturing Department. Aschner was allowed tomake technical and structural changes only after consultingwith Pinter.The management's decision turned out to be a successfulone. In a short time Aschner was able toincrease the production volume considerably. TheLamp Manufacturing Department was always providedwith the necessary basic materials and tools wellin advance. Although production was continuouslyincreasing, finished goods hardly ever piled up instock. (161)In the third year of the war important experimentalwork began in the Ujpest factory of TUNGSRAM. It sohappened that the military command ordered thecompany to produce electronic vacuum tubes for thearmy's telephone amplifiers. The somewhat rudimentarytubes were promptly taken to the front. (162)A piece of tungsten wire made up the cathode of thethermionic valve, which was encompassed in a cylindricalgrid made of a piece of perforated nickel foil andwas surrounded by the anode which was also cylindrical.(163) The quality of the thermionic valves rapidlyimproved. This was partly due to the fact that asuccessful theoretical explanation was found for thephenomenon, and partly to considerable advances inproduction technology, first of all in vacuum technology.(164) The thermionic valves used by TelephoneFactory Corp. for the army field radios code-namedKLERA had been produced by the Ujpest factory. TheTungsram electronic vacum tube, which was for yearsthe irreplaceable part of the wireless technology inHungary, originated in research aimed at developingincandescent lamps. (164)While the Lamp Manufacturing Department was allowedto keep and develop its original productionprofile during the war, three-quarter of the MechanicalDepartment's production was taken up by the warindustry. The military command ordered grenadecases,ignition devices and, later, even hand-grenadesfrom the Ujpest factory. The war production demandedheavy investment and a lot of new machinery;their amortization, however, was also veryfast. (166)In any case, the manufacturing of railway securitysystems and telephone exchanges had to be cut downquite substantially due to shortages of supply materials.The production of telephones barely reachedone-third of the peace-time production. The companywas able to install the Jozsef Telephone Exchange inMaria Terezia square on 15 July, 1917 only aftermaking concerted efforts. As the manufacturing andthe laying of the cables proceeded very slowly, all thelines in the area could not be opened immediately:even so, the temporarily installed system which hadbeen handling 4,000 lines became redundant.The financial status of TUNGSRAM was extremelygood, partly due to the success of tungsten lamps, andpartly, as a consequence of the very profitable warindustry. In the four years of war the company made anet profit of 6.1 million Koronas, of which the shareholdersreceived 4 million Koronas in dividends. Thecompany's equity was raised from 6.5 million Koronasto 10 million Koronas to meet the cost of the continu-

33 TUNGSRAMous investments and to preserve the company's liquidity.In just four years the assets of the company grew invalue from 15 million Koronas to 30 million Koronas.The good business figures made it possible, for example,that the company was able to stash away fund of2.6 million Koronas in the fiscal year of 1917/1918. incontrast with the officially stated figure of 1.8 millionKoronas, the profit reached 3.83 million Koronas inthat year, of which the two major shareholders — thetwo banks — received a bonus of 400,000 Koronas.In the form of internal tantieme 330,000 Koronas werepaid out. In the last fiscal year of the war businessincreased from the previous year's figure of 15,5million Koronas to 27 million Koronas, while labourcosts only grew from 6 million Koronas to 9.3 millionKoronas. (167)The substantial internal savings allowed TUNGSRAMto buy up considerable businesses and holdings. Fromthe viewpoint of the incandescent lamp industry thepurchase of the majority of the shares in HungarianGlass Factory Jozsef Inwald Company Ltd. was themost outstanding, as this was the company which hadsupplied TUNGSRAM with glass for years. The entireglass factory went into the possession of TUNGSRAMin 1917. (168)TUNGSRAM bought the paper-mill of the Nemenyibrothers in Erzsebet (a satellite town of Budapest) in1917 to secure the paper supply necessary for thepackaging of incandescent lamps. The company hadbeen purchasing its paper supply from the Nemenyibrothers since 1907. When in 1917 the cartel formed torepresent the Austrian corrugated cardboard industrytried to persuade the owner of the Erzsebetfalvafactory, Jozsef Nemenyi to sell his business, he offeredit for sale to TUNGSRAM instead, out of respect for thelong-standing business relations. As the proposalseemed promising from TUNGSRAM'S point of view,the board of directors decided to buy the factory inErzsebetfalva for 300,000 Koronas and, together withJozsef Nemenyi, established a public company tocontinue the work. The management allowed an investmentof 400,000 Koronas for modernizing thefactory's equipment, but in the last years of the warthey were already unable to get hold of the machinery.(169)A four-year-long dispute and animosity ended on 16May, 1917, when the Viennese lamp manufacturer,Janos Kremenetzky and TUNGSRAM agreed to turnKremenetzky's Budapest light bulb factory into a publiccompany under the name of Hungarian TungstenLamp Factory Janos Kremenetzky Co. Ltd. Fifty percentof the total shares, Worth 700,000 Koronas, weretaken over by TUNGSRAM. At the same time, the twoparties signed an agreement on marketing and productionquotas, in which the Ujpest factory also securedfor itself the option of taking overall the shares ofthe new company. (170)TUNGSRAM assigned an even greater importance tothe acquiring of Elektrische GliJhlampenfabrik WattA.G. The company paid out 700,000 Koronas to theAustrian Landerbank for the shares of the Vienneselamp factory, in addition to taking over its bank debtsof 2 million Korona. (171). From 1 January, 1918 Wattwas controlled by TUNGSRAM. It produced 7,000lamps a day and its quota in the Austrian-Hungarian-German incandescent lamp cartel was 4.5 millionlamps. Within a short time TUNGSRAM completelyrestructured the factory. Its wiredrawing unit wasclosed down, as tungsten wire was provided by theOjpest factory. The newly available work space wasused to increase production. Since only Watt hadmanufactured X-ray tubes in the Monarchy,TUNGSRAM did not abolished this branch. (172)Now the management decided to establish a researchlaboratory for developing new products. The board ofdirectors offered the job of running the laboratory toFerenc Hanaman, who signed the contract in Viennaon 19 April, 1918. Hanaman willingly accepted the job,as he had already worked for the company at the timeof developing the tungsten lamp. The board of directorsput the breaking off of relations down to the"harmful influence" of Dr. Sandor Just. Beside developingnew basic materials and improving the finalproducts, Hanaman also made a commitment to explorethe possible ways of perfecting existing productionmethods and machinery. As the board as-

TUNGSRAM 34signed high priority to the setting up of the laboratory,it took steps towards exempting Hanaman from militaryservice. (173)By establishing a research laboratory the managementof TUNGSRAM hoped to create an advancedresearch centre, rather than simply give assistance tothe production of incandescent lamps. TUNGSRAM'Slong-term goal was to be listed (once the hostilitieswere over) among the companies which exchangedinventions and licenses with General Electric Co. freeof charge.As Hanaman could not be exempted from doingmilitary service, the setting up of the research laboratoryhad to wait until after 1918.The war took a great toll in the work-force ofTUNGSRAM: 286 of its workers did military service in1914/1915, and their number grew to 349 in 1915/1916.The work-force needed to maintain and improve productioncould only be increased by taking on femalestaff. Still, the permanent fluctuation continued topose severe problems in the factory's running: moreand more female workers chose to work in ammunitionfactories, wherethe work was easier to master andthe employees were able to quit for the spring and thesummer to do agricultural work. As their training inTUNGSRAM took weeks — or even months in somecases—, it was very difficult to replace them. In certaindepartments ninety percent of the female workerstaken on during the Summer of 1917 left the factorybefore completing theirtraining. The company wantedto make up for the shortage of workers by raising theproduction norms, but in fact achieved just the opposite:even the experienced female workers slacked off.In the question of labour shortage the board of directorscould see only one solution: they proposed themanagement full automatization, as well as the modernizationof the existing machinery, to the managementin order to switch from manual labour tomachine power in as many work phases as possible.(175)The huge labourturnover, however, could be assignednot in the least to the fact that during the first years ofthe war the company did not care much to raise theworkers' pay. With their pay frozen, the workers wereunable to keep up with the rapidly growing prices, inspite of putting in longer and longer hours. At the sametime, the profitability of the company, as we havealready pointed out earlier, rocketed to new heightsevery day.Beside low pay, the working conditions were alsodeplorable. The female staff working next to thevacuum stoves operated at 400 C often had to put upwith an almost unbeareble heat. The position and thecircumstances of the skilled workers also rapidly deterioratedas a result of the war effort. (176)In 1917 a number of engineers and shift leaders,headed by Gyula Hevesi and Armin Helfgott, joined theNational Trade Union of Private and CommercialEmployees. On the initiative of the organized technicaland administrative staff the organized technical andadministrative staff the Trade Union Council calledtogether the female workers to discuss the situationand the future. On the meeting the women decided tojoin the Trade Union with great enthusiasm. Themanagement looked suspiciously on the spreading ofthe union movement, even though they were unabletostop it. The marketing manager, Lipot Aschner was theonly one who, in the case of the staff working in theadministration, attempted to put an end to the organizing:he called the staff in his office and informed themthat all those joining the Union would be immediatelysacked.The administrators could not be scared off: theynotified Aschner in a letter that the entire workforceand the administration, supported by the Union,would go on strike, unless he withdrew his threat. Atthe end there was no need for industrial action, as themanagement, seeing the united front put up by theworkers, with held from making further steps. (177)The organized movement of the workers and employeeswas not without effect. On the Trade Union'sinitiative the workers were given pay rises twice in1917, and three times in 1918. The gradual increase inthe hourly wages did not burden the company, as itcould easily pass the extra costs on to the customers.(178) At the same time, rising wages and salaries

35 TUNGSRAMhardly eased the problems of the workers and theemployees, as the food prices, with the exception ofthat of flour, bread and beans, cost five times more inthe last year of the war. The situation was furtheraggravated as the industry mainly catered for themilitary, while goods meeting the public's needs wereproduced in less and quantities and in inferior quality.Watt Wien trade mark

TUNGSRAM 36>'riTUNGSRAM tool shop in the 20s

37 TUNGSRAMTHE COMPANY DURINGTHE TWO HUNGARIAN REVOLUTIONSIN 1918 AND 1919After the obvious loss of the World War I and the totalcollapse of the former Habsburg Monarchy abourgeois democratic revolution known as Aster-Revoulionwas aroused in Hungary by the general despair.Hungary became a republic with the presidentcount Michael Karoiyi, a democratic politician knownabroad too.The atmosphere in the Ujpest factory was very tenseduring the weeks prior to the bourgeois democraticrevolution of October. The workers' latest demand fora new wage settlement was turned down by themanagement who gave their grounds in that only abrief spell had passed since the last pay-rise. Theworkers went to a committee specially set up by thegovernment to examine public grievances. After prolongednegotiations the company finally agreed to a 25percent pay-rise. Consequently, the administratorsalso managed to procure a substantial raise for themselves.(179)After the triumphant October revolution, in earlyNovember, war production in the Ujpest factory wasproduction in the Ujpest factory was cancelled withimmediate effect by a government order. The Ministryof Defense was owing 3.8 million Koronas to thecompany. (180)The shortage of raw materia Is — due to the long war —posed grave difficulties for TUNGSRAM in running itsvarious departments. While the management succeededin piling up enough coal for the production ofgas for its Lamp Manufacturing Department to lastuntil the end of January, 1919, the coal to be burnt inboilers was only enough for a few weeks. As the Ujpestpower plant of PHOEBUS was able to supply electricalpower to the factory for the time being, the coalreserves for boilers were stashed away for leaneryears. In order to save coal the Trade Ministry limitedthe working hours in the Lamp Manufacturing Departmentto the interval between 7.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. asof 1 December, 1918. The workers were allowedcompensation for the lost two hours, which was paidby the Trade Ministry. Special departments, such asthe Gas and Hydrogen Unit, continued to operateround the clock.During the bourgeois democratic revolution of OctoberTUNGSRAM did not export goods in order to beable to meet the demands of the completely exhaustedhome market. The company had considerable stocksof raw materials necessary for incandescent lampproduction. (181)In early December, 1918 the executive committeethoroughly restructered its business management.Lipot Aschner was entrusted with the position ofmanaging director, so Gyula Egger's term was ended.After acting for 24 years as chief executive officer andmanaging director, Egger retired from active management,only retaining his seat on the board of directors.Jozsef Pinter remained the technical director andbecame vicepresident of the board. Dr. Ferenc Salzer,head of the Lamp Manufacturing Department wastransferred to Watt as director, while Frigyes Baumannmoved from Vienna to Ujpest as head of the department.Bela Friedmann was appointed to the post oftechnical director, the manager, David Aschner becamedeputy director, and the chief engineer, Bela

TUNGSRAM 38Balazs, the head of the Mechanical Department. (182)The board meeting held on 28 December, 1918 gavepermission for another pay-rise, inflation adjustmentand clothing allowance. The board ordered the transferof 30,000 Koronas to the Mayor as a contribution tothe expenses of the expenses of the Ujpest "militia".(183)The shortage of coal in the first few months of 1919began to give cause for concern. In the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment, where 1683 employees were working,only 30 percent of the production capacity was•^i, utilized. Only 81,000 lamps were produced weekly,which meant that the overhead costs of 235,000Koronas had to be compared with the total sales valueof 110,000 Koronas. The Lamp Manufacturing Departmentpaid out a weekly 15,600 Koronas in benefits to179 unemployed workers. (184) The situation waseven worse in the Mechanical Department. The utilizedproduction capacity did not exceed 25 percent, so the960 employees of the Department only producedgoods worth 90,000 Koronas. This figure had to becompared with production costs of 139,000 Koronas.The Mechanical Department handed out benefits to125 unemployed people. (185) Because of the politicalintolerable international conditions, the governmentKaroiyi was no more able to hold themselves after atime and left the odium of wielding power to asocialist-communist political group. These procalimedthe Hungarian Soviet Republic modeled on Sovietpattern as a propetarian dictatorship. Until afterword itcame out, that only for a period of some month.The proclamation of the Soviet Republic broughtabout a major turn in the life of TUNGSRAM too: thecompany was nationalized. The Commissariat ofNationalized Industry put Janos Molnar in charge ofthe whole company as production commissar, MarcellAmbrus became the head of the telephone and telegraphproduction, and Laszio Havas, the head of theLamp Manufacturing Department. (186) At the sametime, the Controlling Work Council was formed. Theduty of the production commissars, as the agents ofthe Nationalized Industry Commissariat, was to keepup the work moral, guarantee the continuous productionand the best possible technical management ofthe factory. The Controlling Work Council supervisedthe activities of the production commissars. The SovietRepublic assigned great significance to the incan- *descent lamp industry Department of the NationalizedIndustry Commissariat held talks with the leaders ofthe Ujpest factory on several occasions and workedout a plan to improve the running of the LampManufacturing Department, as well as to survey thecompany's demand for raw materials and the public'sdemand forthe finished products. (187)In spite of these TUNGSRAM soon made a recovery:the Lamp Manufacturing Department was workingwith 40 percent of its capacity, the telephone andtelegraph equipment production reached 60 percent ofits capacity. Unemployment was ended, the LampManufacturing Department had 1540 workers, theMechanical Department, 1506 employees. Later therewas another great drop in production as approximately900 men were called up to do service in theHungarian Red Army. (188)During this Council Republic the nationalized company'sexpenses were covered by the nationalizedCommercial Bank. Financing posed no problems,since TUNGSRAM'S shares worth 3.7 million Koronas,10,000 Italian Lirasand 9.9 million German Marks weresufficient to serve as a guarantee. (189)During the brief existence of the Council Republic theadministration was unable to carry out the restructuringof the Ujpest factory. In spite of the difficultieshowever, it could still maintain the standard of production.i^'• > • * • ,

39 TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAM IN THE FIRST DECADE OF THEHORTHY REGIME'XModifications in the company's structure during theEarly 1920's Admiral Horthy, the later Governor takingup the place of the former kingdom and his supportersincluding certain quarters of the Entente Powers andlocal allies defeated the improvised fighting forces ofthe Hungarian Soviet Government and subverted theso called proletarian dictatorship. These few monthswere not sufficient for this system to establish radicaland steady economic changes.On 1 August the Rumanian Royal Army marched intoUjpest, arresting the local leaders of the Commune inHungary and the members of the workers' councils.The Rumanian interventionists, together with theHorthy militia, destroyed the revolutionary organizationsof the Council Republic one by one. In the wake ofthe interventionists and the militia came the landownersand the industrialists to restore the old order.The capitalists' rule was swiftly reinstated in the Ujpestplant of TUNGSRAM. As a retaliatory measure, 778workers and 138 office employees were sacked, as of 1August, 1919, for "improper conduct towards thecompany".Those who were able to keep their job did not have anenviable position, either. The Horthy regime halvedthe wages fixed by the Council Republic and raised theworking hours from 48 to 52 hours a week after 1August. In spite of the lower pay and the longerworking hours the workers, who had become impoverishedafter the war, were forced to take the jobsin order to support themselves and their families.From the surviving — fragmented — sources it is clearthat TUNGSRAM was not an exception to the rule inthis respect: by 1921 the work-force of the Ujpestfactory exceeded that of the pre-war years. (1914:2,795 employees —1921: 2,834 employees)Continuous production was temporarily hindered bythe invading Rumanian Royal Army, who took along1.5 million Koronas worth of equipment and supplies,when they finally withdrew from Ujpest. TUNGSRAMhowever, was soon able to recover its losses throughits foreign branches, and could supply the Ujpestfactory with the essential basic materials, as well as thecoal, glass and metal necessary for the production ofincandescent lamps.As a consequence of the Trianon Peace Treaty, Hungary'sinternal market was substantially reduced,which adversely affected a great number of Hungariancompanies. The loss of territory did not hurtTUNGSRAM as much as it hurt others, since thecompany had been disposing much of its productsabroad already before the war, and it could continuewith its export activities after the war. In 1921 roughly22 percent of its incandescent lamp production wassold at home and the rest was realized on the foreignmarkets.The industry based on vacuum technology was goingthrough rapid development in the early 20th century.The tungsten coil and the use of the various fillinggases substantially improved the luminous intensityand the useful life of incandescent lamps. As a result ofthis development, electric light replaced gas lightnearly everywhere and by the 1920s incandescentlamps had become exclusively used in a very largepart of the world. The expanding market was accompaniedby a sudden development in the electronic andthe telecommunication industry, to which — especiallyin the latter case — the war provided a greatboost. The technical and the technological develop-

TUNGSRAM 40merits guaranteed that only those companies couldsurvive on the market which had been thoroughlyprepared: companies that could not keep up with theinternational competition were doomed to failure.The management of TUNGSRAM — which had beenheaded by Lipot Aschner since December, 1918 —assessed its position realistically in the given situation.It responded to the challenge partly by selecting anarrower production profile and, partly, by carryingout a substantial modernization program in thebranches which survived the selection. It took almost adecade to carry out these two — basically simultaneouslyimplemented — strategic goals. The successfulattainment of these goals largely contributed to thefact by the second half of the period TUNGSRAM hadachieved international recognition as one of the leadingcompanies in the industry. To give an idea of thecompany's standing in Hungary's economy, we onlyhave to point out that the 'hard' currency resultingfrom TUNGSRAM'S export sales at the end of 1930exceeded that of Hungary's total agricultural export inthat year.In the first few decades of TUNGSRAM'S history — asit has already been mentioned — the company wasactively involved in the various branches of the electricalindustry. By the early 1920s, however, the Ujpestfactory only consisted of two units: the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment and the Mechanical Department,otherwise known as Telephone and TelegraphDepartment. -. .Next to the Mechanical Department, but not subordinatedto it, was the Railway Security Systems Department,which designed such systems in close co-operationwith Hungarian State Railways. The equipmentwas partly — manufactured by the Mechanical Department.In 1922 the production profile was widened withthe new Radio Tubes Department which was called the"Audion Department". Later it became rapidly developingunit and stayed in importance not far behindthe Lamp Manufacturing Department.During the early 1920s the Telephone Department wasthe company's healthy, prosperous and fully exploitedbranch. It was from here that the — since then muchexpanded — branch of the telecommunication industrywas launched in Hungary, which later was going tobe associated with the name of today's BeloianiszTelecommunications Factory and its predecessor.Standard Electrical Co. Ltd. The government was theprincipal customer of the Telephone Department. Thecomplete modernization and automatization of thetelephone exchange system in Budapest had alreadybeen decided before the First World War. The war, therevolutions and the change in the government allcaused delays in the installation of the automatictelephone exchanges.In the very beginning of the 1920s the Trade Ministry,on the recommendation of the Executive Board ofHungarian Mail, found Western Electric Company'srotary system to be the most suitable. In 1922 thePost-Office-Administration was instructed to give theearlier mentioned modernization programme toTUNGSRAM, the owner of the rotary system's productionlicense in Hungary. (TUNGSRAM had signed anagreement with the American company aboutcooperating in the field of telephone manufacturingalready in 1912, at the time of building the JozsefTelephone Exchange. The company renewed thisagreement in 1922.)There was a fierce competition going on for theHungarian postal contracts between the three interestedcompanies: TUNGSRAM, Telephone Factoryand Ericson Hungarian Electrical Co. Ltd. The latterwas the Hungarian branch of the indentically namedworld-famous Swedish company. In the agreementsigned on 9 January, 1923 the three companies dividedbetween themselves the postal contracts. As amatter of fact, the chief executive of Telephone Factory,Kornel Neuhold was the driving force behind theagreement. He wanted TUNGSRAM to hand over tothe other two companies some of its contracts to buildautomatic telephone exchange systems in Budapest.According to the preliminary agreement of 1922, thecontracts to build exchange systems in or aroundBudapest would go to TUNGSRAM, while the othertwo companies were to share the contracts in the restof the country, together with certain telephone ex-

! ' ,»41 TUNGSRAMchanges around Budapest. But the fierce battle betweenthe three companies continued. It was Ericsonwhich was the most dissatisfied with its quota, althoughTelephone Factory also complained: so muchso that it even considered to fight a price war.The Telephone Factory went through a very difficultphase at the time: it did not have enough orders and,as a consequence, faced financial problems. TUNGS­RAM, as the strongest of the three, responded with abold maneuver. After long preliminary talks, in earlyMarch, 1925 Lipot Aschner bought the majority of theTelephone Factory shares for TUNGSRAM. At thesame time, TUNGSRAM handed over its orders toproduce railway security systems to Telephone Factory.Then in April, 1925 TUNGSRAM bought fromWiener Bankverein more Telephone Factory shares,this way eliminating one of its competitors. LipotAschner also negotiated about buying Ericson, but adeal did not follow. The Trade Ministry compensatedEricson with orders to build smaller provincial telephoneexchanges.In 1923 the Trade Minister gave the preliminary orderof building the Krisztina Telephone Exchange (16,000customers) to TUNGSRAM, together with its ancillaryexchanges and the Central District Telephone Exchange(10,000 customers). The contracts werefinalized and extended in 1925. That was also the time,when TUNGSRAM won the contract to automatize theTerez Telephone Exchange (10,000 customers). Accordingto the contract, written in several parts,TUNGSRAM was to build a network consisting of70,000 lines. This number would have been sufficientto accommodate the villages in the vicinity of Pest(Rakospalota, Pestujhely, Kispest, Albertfalva, Budafok).The capital telephone exchanges had to be automatizedin a way which would allow the manualexchanges to operate continuously and would result inno holdups whatsoever in the telephone service.The building of the telephone exchanges posed newengineering and technological problems to TUNGS­RAM. The construction and ]the technology of thetelephpne exchanges had to be adapted to the localcircumstances and the whole work had to be designedfrom the technological and structural documentationprovided by the Antwerp (Hoboken) factory of BellElectric Company on the basis of an agreement withWestern Electric Company. The management ofTUNGSRAM put the chief engineer, Mr. Decsi incharge of manufacturing the automatic telephoneexchanges, while the production and the technicaldocumentation was left with the manager, MiklosHegedus.Miklos Hegedus began his career in the MechanicalDepartment as an office worker. He gained very widerangingexperiences in the administration. Next heclosely studied the organizational structure of thepartner companies. He was an autodidact, in the bestpossible sense. He spoke German fluently, and lateralso mastered English and French. He realized that thebuilding of automatic telephone exchanges requiredthe employment of young mechanical engineers, technicians,machine-tool makers, skilled mechanics andengine fitters with the appropriate qualifications and atleast a minimal proficiency in foreign languages.There were plenty of engineers and technicians available,as it was then that Technical University and HigherTechnical College released their first graduates afterthe war, and the Hungarian industry was hard put toemploy these trained people. Miklos Hegedus recognizedthe paramount importance of the introduction ofthe compatibility of the parts in machine-tool making.He organized the machine-tool makers' workshop ofthe Mechanical Department, which was at that timeamong the first in the country, both as far as size andquality were concerned. ,

TUNGSRAM*..V42The staff of TUNGSRAM successfully introduced themass-production of precision instruments and completedthe on-site assembling of the telephone exchangeswithin four years. The automatic telephoneexchanges were swiftly put into operation one afterthe other:KrisztinaKrisztinaCentral DistrictCentral District"^Terez28 April, 192812 May, 19289 June, 192821 July, 192821 July, 19282,440 lines2,550 lines1,090 lines4,980 lines9,400In fact, the construction of the first exchanges took fiveyears and altogether resulted 20,460 lines. TheMechanical Department also participated in the constructionof the Hungarian cable network. The requiredPupin cables were also manufactured by TUNGSRAM.Between 1926 and 1928 the company, together withother firms, helped laying the long-distance cablebetween Vienna and Budapest and also received largeorders from the army. These army orders, however,had a price: in 1927 TUNGSRAM agreed to buy Elektromoses Finommechanikai Gyar Rt. (Electrical andPrecision Instrument Factory Co. Ltd. — EFIME) or,more precisely, its Reiter Ferenc Street plant. After the. - war EFIME was the cover business of the Hungarianarmy people, who carried out secret rearmamentthereand — hidden from the eyes of the Entente powers —hoped to produce aircraft and parts. As a result ofincompetent management, however, the factory wentbankrupt. There were plans to restructure the factoryfor incandescent lamp production using foreign capital,which prompted TUNGSRAM (who was afraid ofthe competition) to buy the factory. TUNGSRAM didnot make a bad deal after all, considering that theMinistry of Defense, in connection with the deal,committed itself to buying equipment worth 10 millionPengos within the next six years in order to meet theArmy's needs of telecommunication gear: telephones,telegraphs, wireless radios and the rest.In 1927 the Mechanical Department received ordersworth 25 million Pengos to build telephone exchangesin Budapest. (The conversion from Korona to Pengotook place between 1924 and 1926.) On top of this,TUNGSRAM won another, approximately 1.5 millionPengo contract to build a telephone exchange inBucharest. ' ,.' .Therefore, the Mechanical Department was doingsatisfactory business and the manufacture of automatictelephone exchanges also had a favourable influenceon the production of luminous sources andelectronic vacuum tubes. The high mechanical andtechnological standard resulting from the productionof automatic telephone exchanges greatly contributedto the development of TUNGSRAM'S own mass-productionof parts, machine-tool production and vacuumtechnology.While the construction of automatic telephone exchangescontinued at a remarkable pace and newerand newer orders came in from the telephone industry,the management of TUNGSRAM decided to change itsprofile.The telephone licence agreement which had beensigned in 1921 expired in 1926. In October 1926 LipotAschner started negotiations with the representativesof International Electric Company (ISTEC) in Paris. Inthe course of these talks Lipot Aschner asked for theAmerican company's help in purchasing the rival firm,Ericson. The representatives of ISTEC turned downthis request. In their counter-proposal they suggestedthat the Mechanical Department be separated fromTUNGSRAM and form a public company. They werewilling to take over half of the shares of the new publiccompany, to transfer the right of the telephone licencesto the new company and promised to extend itsarea of operation to the neighbouring countries. Thenegotiations which had lasted nearly two years endedwith success: on 1 January, 1928 Standard ElectricalCo. Ltd. was established with an equity of 15 millionPengos and with Lipot Aschner as president.The position of the new company was regulated by aseparate agreement between the two parent companies.According to this, the new company wouldstay within TUNGSRAM'S plant, and continue to build

43 TUNGSRAMtelephone exchanges using equipment, basic materialsand personnel taken over from TUNGSRAM. Inreturn, TUNGSRAM would get fifty percent of theprofits originating from the postal orders not yetcompleted, while in the long run. Standard SC. wouldprepare for the production of radio equipment andcommit itself to purchasing the necessary electronicvacuum tubes from TUNGSRAM. In addition to thetelephone licenses, ISTEC were to pay 3 million Pengosto TUNGSRAM for the assets handed over toStandard SC, and to provide other benefits toTUNGSRAM. (Later the relations between the twocompanies deteriorated and Standard completelyparted with TUNGSRAM in 1938, even moving to aseparate location.)Following the complicated business transactions,TUNGSRAM'S production profile was modified. Itseems that, after considering the rapidly growingdemand for electric light sources all over the world,TUNGSRAM'S management saw in the production ofincandescent lamps a more reliable business than inthe manufacturing of equipment necessary for theoccasional postal orders. They also saw greater businessin the radio industry which was getting verypopular at the time, and preferred to establish theproduction of radio valves in Ujpest as a new branch.Beside everything else, the company's difficult financialsituation must also have contributed to TUNGS­RAM'S decision. As part of the Standard deal, theAmerican company bought TUNGSRAM'S Telefongyar(:Telephone Factory:) shares and the resultingmoney allowed TUNGSRAM to reduce its bank debtsand to realize its planned investments, most of whichwere connected with modernizing the production ofincandescent lamps.The Incandescent LampIndustry Home and Abroadin the previous chapter we saw that after the FirstWorld Warthe management of TUNGSRAM had committeditself to produce incandescent lamps. Theyshould have also realized that the company had toemploy the latest technology, if it wanted to remaincompetitive on the international market. During thewar, and even in the years that immediately followed,the Hungarian companies had been cut off from theWestern, and above all, the American technologicadvances.Already in 1920, in order to end the technologicisolation forced on the company by the war, LipotAschner started negotiations with certain representativesof International General Electric Co. (IGEC) ofNew York about the exchange of licenses, as well astechnologies, in connection with the production ofincandescent lamps. An agreement was reached onlyafter an extremely tedious series of discussions whichhad taken one and a half years long, as Lipot Aschner'sreport to the company management revealed it on 31October, 1921. The agreement allowed TUNGSRAM touse the IGEC licenses in return for a license fee. At thesame time, the American company took an activeinterst in TUNGSRAM, and had representatives onTUNGSRAM'S board of directors.As part of the deal with IGEC, two people fromTUNGSRAM'S management, the director. Dr. FrigyesBaumann and the chief engineer. Dr. Ferenc Salzerwere sent to America to study the incandescent lampfactories of IGEC in the autumn of 1922. The twoexecutives made an account of their experiences on atwo-day conference held in the factory in early February.The factory's modernization programme wasoutlined on the basis of their reports and the ensuingdebate. • .r'- >From the reports of the two executives it becameapparent that the American incandescent lamp productionmade considerable progress in the field ofautomatization. Before automatization the separatework phases were executed in different departments,the system of component acquisition was complicated,etc. All this required much manual labour and acomplicated production planning. With the introductionof automatization the amount of manual labourwas considerably reduced and productivity went upvery markedly. -.. -- - -,

TUNGSRAM• \ ^ .44The acquisition of the automatic machine lines wouldhave required a large investment from TUNGSRAM.The projected cost of automatization reached$120,000. At that time the company did not have somuch money available, so, instead of buying theequipment from the U.S.A., the management decidedthat TUNGSRAM itself would manufacture the automaticmachine lines according to the documentationprovided by IGEC.This decision caused serious problems for the managementof TUNGSRAM, since its own machine tool' V making was still at an early stage. Also, the documentationprovided by IGEC had to be converted to themetric system and had to be adapted to the Europeanstandards, as the American lamps often differed fromtheir European counterparts both in size and in construction.The fact that the production of automatictelephone exchanges — an even greater engineeringand technological task was under development inTUNGSRAM concurrently, only added to the management'sdifficulties.With the odd exception, TUNGSRAM bought its machineryfrom abroad before the 1920s. The mechanics'worshop simply serviced the existing machinery mostof the time, and it still had no modern machine tools,whatsoever. It had no suitable gear milling machine,measuring instruments, not even a tool-making workshop.Only the Lamp Manufacturing Department had amodest tool-making workshop, the job of which waslimited almost exclusively to servicing punching-,blanking-, drawing- and thread rolling tools as well asmachines.There was the added difficulty that up till thenchemists and physicists had made up the technicalmanagement: Dr. Frigyes Bauman, Dr. Ferenc Salzer,Dr. Salpeter. (Thesame could be said initiallyaboutthedepartment manufacturing electronic vacuum tubes,and the research laboratory also had a similar makeup.)The relatively small number of engineers indicatedthat their role in the technical management was alsoless substantial.The eminent engineers and technicians, who wereworking in the Lamp Manufacturing Department —Ferenc Berenyi, who organized the programming andthe dispatching service, Miklos Hrabcsak and ArpadTelegdy, who were the managers of the large-size andthe special — lamp production — were completely tiedup with developing new products and overcomingtechnical problems.At that time the management of TUNGSRAM did notencourage the technical documentation of the partsproduction and the assembling; in fact, it looked uponany such proposal with some degree of distrust. Themanagement was concerned that the technical documents,if passed into unauthorized hands, could easilygive away information about the company's productiontechnology (they were first of all worried aboutthe 'outsiders'). Their concern was not entirely unfounded,since at that time the companies, in general,had no legal protection against industrial espionage,except in cases explicitly connected to militarytechnology. As a result, the production processes andthe work phases were, most of the time, based on thenotes of departmental heads and managers (or onwords of mouth even, in some cases!), and the alterationof these procedures had not been formally regulatedat all.The technical manager of TUNGSRAM, Frigyes Baumannrealized the contrast between the objective —automatization, application of modern technology —and the available capacity. In the matter of buildingAmerican-type mechinery for producing incandescentlamps he approached the Mechanical Department.Miklos HegediJs and Jeno Pinter, the manager and theconstructor of the mechanics workshop of the so-called'K' department readily responded. Jeno Pinter wasthe other 'great' autodidact of TUNGSRAM. Overcominga physical handicap — the legacy of the First WorldWar — Pinter educated himself with great enthusiasmand determination. He learned to speak German andEnglish and, for an extended period, he was the soleexpert of TUNGSRAM on the documentation of IGECmachines. In 1927, in the interest of further developingthe production technology, the rapid expansion of theso-called 'K' department was launched, when its managementwas strengthened with Jeno Pinter and Ja-

45 TUNGSRAMnos Levai. (Jeno Pinter, together with IVlil

TUNGSRAM^•rV46The necessary, quite large amount of packaging materialmeant an equally severe problem forTUNGSRAM.For this reason the talks that had earlier been initiatedabout buying the shares of the Nemenyi Paper Mill ofCsepel were renewed in 1920. TUNGSRAM secured anoption to buy these shares, although it never purchasedthem. Business considerations moved thecompany to choose another soution. The shares of thepaper mill nominally went into the possession ofTUNGSRAM, and the Ujpest factory's interests wererepresented in the Nemenyi Paper Mill's board of^kdirectors by Lipot Aschner and one of his sons. PalAschner. In return, members of the Nemenyi familyalso had a say in the running of TUNGSRAM; forexample. Dr. Bela Nemenyi ran the Law Department ascompany director. •^•.: ' •'.As we have already pointed out, the domestic marketonly had a secondary importance to TUNGSRAM, atleast as far as quantity was concerned. Nevertheless,the company management could not ignore whatwas taking place on the home front of incandescentlamp production. Understandably, they were concernedto hear the news in 1922 that a new incandescentlamp factory was in the making in Budapest.The fact that one of the inventors of the tungstenlamp, Sandor Just was among the founders of thenew factory, made the emergence of the competitorall the more alarming to the management ofTUNGSRAM.The Just factory held its statutory meeting on 9 January,1921, and the construction of the new incandescentlamp factory in Ujpest, on the site of an old liquorfactory was immediately decided. The factory wasdesigned to produce 30,000 lamps a day. The firstlamps were produced still in the same year and weremarketed in 1922. Since the factory was able toproduce most of its basic materials — for example,glass bulbs which were produced in blast furnace potswithin the factory — it was a potential threat toTUNGSRAM'S sumpremacy on the domestic market.Also, the name 'Just' must have had a good ring,because the new company was soon given substantialdomestic and foreign orders.The first period in the history of the Just factory provedto be a success. For a while the share-buying fever,brought about by the high inflation rate, even guaranteedthe capital necessary for the factory to purchaseequipments. The majority of the shares were in thehands of six private investors, who had increasingdifficulties in raising the money for the newer andnewer investments. The main share-holders alreadyoffered the shares of the Just factory for sale toTUNGSRAM in 1922, but Izzo declined the offer at thattime. In 1924, when the setting up of the internationalincandescent lamp cartel was already under way, thesyndicate of the four leading companies (IGEC, Osram,Philips and TUNGSRAM) decided that the time wasripe for getting rid of their competitor: they did notwant to give to Just factory its quota, or rather, theywanted to lay their hands on that quota. In the Summerof 1924 the syndicate, through various agents includingone of the directors of the Just factory, quietlybought the shares from the previously mentioned sixinventors and one large bank, MOKTAR, as well asfrom other share-holders. On 16 October, 1924 theleaders of TUNGSRAM suddenly appeared on theboard meeting of Just factory and announced that theyheld the majority of the shares and they were unwillingto put any more money into the company which wasalready operating with a loss. The board of directorshad no choice but to close down the factory and lay offthe employees and the workers. Some stormy scenestook place in the general meeting of the Just factory,held in December, 1924, when the small share-holders,together with the sacked employees and workers,voiced their grievances. But every show of temper waswasted. The Just company went into liquidation, thefactory was dismantled, the machines were moved tothe Ujpest plant of TUNGSRAM and the old factorybuilding was used as a storage space, carpentryworkshop, etc. Since the factory's liquidation wasprolonged by the small share-holders' resistance (until1948, in fact), the syndicate tried to profit from theformal existence of the Just factory even during theyears of the liquidation procedure. Sandor Just'ssilence was bought for the yearly sum of a thousand

47 TUNGSRAMdollars, the ex-director of the factory was fomallyemployed by TUNGSRAM, while the quota allocatedto the Just factory within the international cartel wasdivided between the four large connpanies.The campaign launched against the Just companycoincided with a major event in the incandescent lampindustry, the forming of the international incandescentlamp cartel.The intense industrial developments following theFirst World War, together with the growing competitionon the markets and the dynamic channelling ofcapital towards the incandescent lamp production andother branches of the electrical industry, moved theleading factories of the world to establish an internationalcartel. The idea of a cartel was brought up bythe Dutch company. Philips, and the German OsramGroup. With the exception of the French, Belgian andthe Spanish companies, almost every European factoryjoined the cartel. After holding long preliminarytalks, the signing of the agreement, known as the'General Patent and Business Development Agreement',took place on 14 December, 1924. The cartel'slegal body was incorporated underthe name of PHOE­BUS S. A. PHOEBUS, which resided in Geneva, managedthe cartel's affairs as an independent body. Thecartel agreement very strictly regulated the operationof the member companies. It worked almost as a separateinternational company with elected boards, appointedexecutives, independent inspectors. At theend, 90—95 percent of the world's incandescent lampproducers joined the cartel. At the same time, thecartel consisted of several groups, the most significantbeing IGEC (which, however, only joined the cartelwith its European branches on account of the Americanantitrust laws), the German Osram group, the Philipsconcern, English Electric Company and TUNGS­RAM'S concerns. These five groups made up the coreof the cartel, as evidenced in the fact that they held tenof the sixteen seats — and therefore, the majority — onthe board of directors. Since TUNGSRAM was a foundingmember, it, too, had a place on the board ofdirectors, allocated to Lipot Aschner, who was at onepoint the vice-chairman of the board. In addition, hewas actively involved in other organizations and committeesof the cartel. TUNGSRAM'S participation andits leading position hence secured had the addedadvantage that its employees — primarily researchers— had a chance to study the work of other cartelcompanies.Beside and on top of the already listed groups, therewere the so-called 'pools' formed in order to securestronger positions within the cartel. These 'pools'developed closer, direct cooperation between eachother. An example of such 'pools' was the one constitutedby Philips, the Osram Group and TUNGSRAM.These associations, however, failed to eliminate theconstant disputes — and in some cases litigation,even-between the members.PHOEBUS $. A. was formed with the high-mindedobjective of improving the standard and the economyof electrical light sources all over the world. In fact, thereal aim behind this slogan was to drive the nonmembercompanies out of the market. There is somewritten evidence in the PHOEBUS documents showingthat in the most important areas PHOEBUS was onlyprepared to give 5 percent of the market to thenon-member companies.Improving the quality of the lamps was only one wayof getting rid of the competition, rather than being itsultimate goal. At the same time and as a by-product,this ruthless competition between the companies, andthe attempt to destroy the weaker contestants and takeover their shares of the market, resulted some verysignificant technological advances.It was PHOEBUS, for example, which for the first timecarried out a complete rentability study concerninglighting. The cost of electrical energy, the initial investment,the cost of replacing the light bulbs and servicingthe light system featured in this calculation. Thecalculation aimed to show that, even when the higherelectricity rates of the 1930s were considered, it wasworth trading off the increased luminous efficiency ofthe lamps with a shorter useful life. This was how the1,000 hour useful life of the general service lampsarose and became standard. This is still an acceptedfigure in Europe today. The companies not joining the

TUNGSRAM• > . ^48cartel made a big show of the fact that their lampslasted longer than 1,000 hours. Only they forgot tomention that the luminous efficiency of their lampswas inferior.PHOEBUS, too, had to propound the scientific foundationof its stance in the question of the useful life of thelamps. The general benefits of this research were feltthroughout the entire industry for decades to come.The joint scientific capacity of the cartel members wasneeded to come up with a mathematical relationshipbetween luminous efficiency, energy consumptionand useful life for the various types of lamps.The cartel agreement specified compulsory standardsfor incandescent lamps. It formulated the concept ofSCE (Standard Corporation Efficiency) for checkingwhether the products of the member companies metthe specification. SCE expressed all the qualitativeparemeters of an incandescent lamp in a singleparemeter, making the comparison between variousproducts possible. PHOEBUS established its own researchlaboratory, where the products of all the cartelmembers — as well as those of the non-membercompanies — were regularly tested. This way PHOE­BUS became the pioneer of the practice of statisticalquality control, which has been widely used in severalbranches of the industry ever since.One of the major functions of PHOEBUS was thedivision of the market between the members by way ofdefining their quotas. The quotas were determined onthe basis of the member companies' sales figures in1921 or 1922. The quotas were expressed in 'units', thisway dealing with lamps of various types and outputs.Prices were calculated in the currency of 'Phoebus S'which was linked to the value of the gold dollar. At thetime of founding the cartel, TUNGSRAM'S quotaamounted to 5.655 percent of the world's total production:22,199,121 units or 17 million lamps annually.With this figure TUNGSRAM came third in the cartelafter Philips and Osram.By the way, at the time of founding the cartel a certain'reserve fund' was set aside for TUNGSRAM withreference to the fact that it still could not recover fromthe damages of the First World War.The cartel agreement permitted each member companyto 'trade' with each other in their quotas accordingto the members' special business interests or anyother considerations. Naturally, these transactionswere rigorously checked and this option was onlyallowed if strict financial conditions were met.In the first three years TUNGSRAM'S share in thecartel's sales was as follows:Fiscal periodFirst period.01/01/1925-31/05/1926Second period.01/06/1926-30/06/1927The cartel'stotalsalesinthousar id units592,000448,000493,000Third period.01/07/1927-TUNGS­RAM'Ssales30,71026,59329,460Overorunderachievement—2,288+ 1,187—3,841The figures show that in the first period TUNGSRAMwas unable to meet its quota as defined by the carteland received a refund of 490,000 Pengos in return. Inthe second period it overshot the target and hence wasobliged to pay compensation to its partners in the sumof 230,000 Pengos. In the third period its sales, again,fell short of its quota, and the sales figures of thefollowing years showed similar variations. The quotaswere subject to changes, as the companies which paidcompensation after their excess production in oneyear, asked for the raising of their quotas next year. Forexample, at the end of the 1920s TUNGSRAM agreedto hand over its quotas in China and Brazil to IGEC onaccount of the high cost of transportation.We must point out that in cases where larger quotaschanged hands, the companies actually delivering thegoods were obliged to use the trademarks of thecompanies which originally owned the quotas, andtheir products had to meet very strict specifications.•..'>?

49 TUNGSRAMThere were ceaseless manipulations around thequotas by the member companies, often resulting inacrimonious disputes about the way of rendering theaccounts. In such disputes — or, in fact, in anydisagreement between the member companies — aseparate jury, elected by the cartel's general meeting,was to mediate. In disputes between cartel membersand outsider companies or government bodies thecartel's interests were represented by PHOEBUS S. A.or its attorneys.Perhaps the most important part of the cartel agreementwas the section laying down the extremely harshregulations in dealing with the non-member companies.Cartel members were forbidden to sell basicmaterials and parts to the outsider companies so thatthey would not become more competitive. In order toremain competitive at all, the outsider companiesresponded to this by lowering their prices below thatof the cartel members.The cartel launched a ruthless price war against theoutsider companies. They produced second-linelamps — "Nebenmarke Kampf-Lampe", in German —and sold them considerably below the price of the outsidercompanies' products. (The second-line lampswere produced using reject tungsten filaments ofuneven thickness.)The purpose of the price war was to subdue theoutsider companies. These could only choose betweentwo possibilities: either they joined the cartel orwithdrew from the incandescent lamp business.The cartel quite often bought a company and either ranit under the name of one of its member companies, orclosed it down. The latterhappened to the Just factory.In fact, the interests of the strongly centralized internationalincandescent lamp cartel ran counter to theinterests of the consumers. With its strict businesspolicy and monopolistic prices and quality, the cartelwas able to fill the shops and the customers' homesand factories with lamps which suited the interests ofits own membership. At the same time, the cartelsecured a market for its members, who pocketed anextra profit from the monopolistic prices. The cartelalso provided a certain technical advantage to itsmembers, since — according to the cartel agreement— the members were free to use each others' patents,and were only obliged to settle the finances later. Theguaranteed market and the technological advantages,therefore, had great advantages for the cartel members,who— expecially in the first period — made quitea profit. They were able to finance their research anddevelopment and the initially loss-making electronicvacuum tube production from this money.When the Germans occupied The Netherlands firstand then France, the Dutch Philips and the Frenchincandescent lamp factories went into their possession.This would have meant the German control of thecartel. The war gradually rendered the operation ofPHOEBUS impossible. The international incandescentlamp cartel practically ended its operation after theoutbreak of the Second World War. In January, 1941TU NGSRAM notified L.J. Van der Valk, the chief executiveofficer of PHOEBUS of its intention to leave thecartel as of 1 March, 1941, and with that its membershipwas formally terminated.The First Years of ElectronTube ProductionAfter the First World War an important new sectionwas added to the electrical industry: electronics. Thetraditional products of the electrical business weregenerators, electric motors, transformers, indicatingdevice etc. . «. . y .The widespread use of incandescent lamps served thedevelopment of electronic vacuum tubes. Then theradios became popular, and with that the productionof radio valves took off in a big way. The broadcastingbusiness launched in America gave a great boost tothe radio industry. Following the example, the standardizedand closely interconnected development ofradio transmitters and receivers began all over theworld.The constant drive to perfect the existing tubes was themajor task ofthe electronic vacuum tube industry. This• . • ^ ^ .

TUNGSRAM 50was aimed at two major objectives: on the one side,there was the economy, the safety and the durability ofthe tubes, as well as the cheaper and better productiontechnology. The technical development aiming toserve these two goals brought about changes, first ofall, in the basic material and the structure of thecathodes, beginning with the tungsten cathodes rightto the modern oxide cathodes.The other main objective was to increase the numberof applications of electronic vacuum tubes, as well astheir wattage. The satisfactory technical solution of theproblem meant by heating the thermionic valves fromthe mains posed a great deal of difficulties.By the end of the 1920s the elctronic vacuum tubespowered by batteries had been more or less phasedout. The development of electronic vacuum tubesdesigned to run on the mains had greater prospectiveand helped to increase the wattage and the sensitivityof the tubes. At the same time, solutions had to befound to the special technical problems accompanyingoperation from the mains, such as the occasionalpower surges, for example, which could damage theextremely sensitive tubes.The boom in the production of electronic vacuumtubes in Hungary took place between the two worldwars. The work-force was there, and the Hungarianexperts acquired a good reputation in the electricalindustry. The necessary basic materials were availablein Hungary, and the industry only had to rely onforeign export for smaller quantities. There was analmost unlimited market for the products. The countrywas still in a backward state as far as electrification wasconcerned and this way the further growth of themarket with the advance of electrification could rightlybe expected. The relatively low cost of production andthe renowned reputation of the Hungarian technicalstaff had a favourable influence on the export. For theabove reasons, the introduction of electronic vacuumtube production in Hungary seemed attractive to theinvestors. Between the two world wars we can distinguishtwo periods in the Hungarian electron tubeproduction. The first period lasted until the early1930s, when broadcasting started in Hungary, whichresulted in a growing number of radio sets in thecountry. In 1927 there were only 82,000 people whoowned radio licenses in the whole country, as opposedto the 300,000 licence owners in 1930. This period sawthe founding of the radio valve industry.TUNGSRAM produced electronic vacuum tubes forthefield radios of the Austro-Hungarian army already in1917, but those were, more or less, custom-built. Thereal mass production began in 1922. That was the timewhen the Audion Department was establishedwithin the factory. Beside producing electronic vacuumtubes, some research and development was alsopart of the work of the department. (The ResearchLaboratory was also involved in producing radio valves.)Only a limited number of documents have survivedto tell about the first years of operation in the lifeof the Audion Department. Jeno Pinterwas most likelyto be in charge of the technological development andthe start of production in the early days, while KarolyCzukor and his group handled the construction of thetubes as well as the electronic problems in general.The cathodes of the first electronic vacuum tubes ofTUNGSRAM were still made of tungsten and weremarketed with the designation H2 and H3. The MRseries—MR2 and MRS—came out in 1925; they hadtungsten cathodes, containing a small amount ofthorium. This type helped spreading the radios' popularity,since it operated at a lower temperature—1600C—which, in turn, allowed the extended use of batteriesas power supplies. Therefore, it is hardly surprisingthat the first TUNGSRAM electronic vacuum tubeswere advertised in the newspapers in early 1925. Theconstruction of the surviving H2, H3, MR2 and MR3tubes shows that these tubes followed the Americanand the French design, rather than that of the Germans.During the mid-1920sthe production technology wentthrough changes, too. At that time the machinery, wasthe same as in the production of incandescent lamps.To achieve the appropriate vacuum level, diffusionpumps replaced the earlier used rotational oil pumps.Later on magnesium getter was used to maintain agood vacuum throughout the useful life of the tubes.• . ._ . . . I

51 TUNGSRAMThe extremely rapid development of radio technologystarted a fierce competition in the international marketall over the world, which resulted in newer an newertube designs. In the mid-1920s the barium tubesappeared on the European markets and, since theolder Tungsram tube designs could not competeagainst these valves, the Audion Department wasfacing the prospects of the closure.Then TUNGSRAM'S two experts. Dr. Karoly Czukorand Erno Winter developed Tungsram's own bariumtube in about four months of intensive work and, in1927, these tubes appeared on the market. The bariumtube was further developed and, following Pal Tury'sresearch, the expensive and fragile platinum used inthe cathode was replaced with the cathode core ofmetallic tungsten. This research produced tubes, suchas the G409, which already reached the world standard.There were several other changes in the constructionof the tubes; for example, tubes were producedwith two or more grids, which allowed the use ofsmaller batteries as power supplies in radios . . . (Duringthe 1920s electrification in Hungary — especially inthe rural areas — was far from complete, therefore,each radio set required its own power supply.) As aresult of the triumph of broadcasting, the structuraldevelopment of the tubes went through its mostdynamic phase. The competition between the factoriesmade the development even faster. There wasstill no cartel agreement between the factories whichproduced radio valves, so TUNGSRAM faced fiercecompetition trying to find export market for its goodsproduced in excess of the domestic consuption. By theend of the 1920s TUNGSRAM was making progress inthis respect and the Tungsram tubes were sold all overthe world in evergrowing numbers.The surviving documentation of the production andexport of radio valves is relatively scarce, and thevarious figures often contradict each other. The volumeof production between the years of 1925 and 1930went (approximately) as follows:Year192519261927192819291930Number oftubes252,000291,000• 262,000291,000642,0001,123,000According to other sources, 379,000 radio tubes wereproduced in the fiscal year of 1926-1927. This figurefell to 170,000 in the fiscal year of 1927-1928.The number of tubes sold fell short of the number oftubes produced. The sales figures in the same twofiscal years went as follows:1926-19271927-1928288,000150,000The next table shows the geographical breakdown ofthe sales figures:HungaryEuropeAmericaElsewhere1926-1927 1927-1928fiscal year / pieces56,000 53,000190,000 74,00039,000 22,0003,000 1,000As the tables indicate, only 20-25 percent of the totalnumber of tubes were sold on the domestic market;more than half was built into the radios of otherEuropean countries and the rest was realized on othermarkets. Austria provided the greatest market, whilethe Argentine sales more or less accounted for theAmerican market. Tungsram tubes were sold in almostevery European countries, but India and South Africawas also among its clients. The sales were conductedmostly through the various foreign sales offices ofTungsram which had been set up all over the world.

TUNGSRAM-.i-'.V'52Radio valve production was still largely a matter ofmanual work in this period; it was not a profitablebusiness and only its perspectives could justify theinvestment. The total costs of the 170,000 tubes producedin 1927—1928 added up to 248,20 percent of thetotal sales price. In this, 71,7 percent was the cost ofmaterial, 28,88 percent was the labour cost and theso-called factory overhead costs made up 147.62percent. The above cost analysis in itself can show thefinancial drawbacks resulting both from the largestructural investments of the introduction of massproductionafter rapid development and from theexpensive basic materials. These years really were theheroic times of radio valve production.The bad business figures of the 1920s, however, didnot discourage the management of TUNGSRAM. Thefact that the entire ground floor and first floor ofBuilding No. 36, which was built in 1930, was given tothe radio valve production or, using its contemporaryname, the Audion Factory, can testify to that. EngineerHolzer was put in charge of the factory. Istvan EIek, anaccounting expert of great organizational talent wasgiven the task of reducing the production costs of thefactory and turning the previously loss-making businessinto a profitable one. The second period, whenthe structural investments were reaped and the rationalorganization of the work began, took place in the1930s.The First Decadeof the Research LaboratoryNo large company can do without research and development.Perhaps more than the invention of newproducts, the perfecting of existing products andtechnologies, as well as the adapting of other companies'inventions to the conditions of one's ownfactory necessitate the intensive work in this field.Hungary has several scientists and engineers whosediscoveries and inventions considerably contributedto the prosperity of the country's industry. Thesepioneers mostly worked on a single project, quite oftenhad no connections with the industry, while othersbecame investors or at least top managers in variousfactories. Of all the large Hungarian companies onlyTUNGSRAM had its own research and developmentcentre, the Research Laboratory set up in 1921.Research Laboratory — which continued to operatethroughout periods up to the present day — hadvarying success. Almost a decade had past before itstwo major inventions — the large-crystal tungsten coiland the incandescent lamp filled with krypton — wereborn. These two results had — and still have —wide-ranging implications in the industry all over theworld.The successes of the technical and industrial development,which had been born in our defensive warefforts in the First World War and which continued toshape the industry and the structure of the wholetechnical sphere of postwar era, while also intensifyingthe competition on the international markets,greatly contributed to the founding of the TungsramResearch Laboratory. The survival in the competitionwas the external stimulus which prompted the managementof TUNGSRAM to establish the laboratory.Lipot Aschner, the chief executive officer ofTUNGSRAM did not have a technical aptitude; instead,he had a feel for hitting on the right ideas tocreate the appropriate technical background for asolid, competitive and profitable company. ' ^..There had been research and development inTUNGSRAM before the Research Laboratory wasfounded. We only need to refer to Sandor Just's andFerenc Hanaman's tungsten lamp invented in 1903, orthe successful development of radio valves in 1917.These results, however, were not the products ofcarefully planned and coordinated research.Choosing the head of the Research Laboratory causedconsiderable headache for the company management.People having the right academic qualificationscould only be found in universities, and they were notwilling to give up their position for an undoubtedlydifferent line of work, more closely connected to theI; ' •'?-

53 TUNGSRAMindustry. Lipot Aschner announced on TUNGSRAM'Sboard meeting held on 11 December, 1920 that IgnacPfeifer had accepted the job of running the laboratory.(On the same meeting the sum of 1.6 million Koronaswas allocated for the equipment of the lab.) IgnacPfeifer (1867—1941) had been a lecturer in the ChemistryDepartment of the Budapest Technical Universitysince 1912. He joided the movement of the socialistengineers in 1918, and during the Hungarian CouncilRepublic he was the head of the Social ProductionCommissariat, beside participating in the work ofseveral committees of the Science and TechnologyCouncil. In the purge following the fall of the CouncilRepublic a number of prominent scientists of theTechnical University, as well as other institutions,were made redundant. A great many of them fledHungary, seeking famein other countries for themselvesas well as the land which expelled them. IgnacPfeifer stayed. He even resigned from his universitychair voluntarily in order "to protest against the measures(numerus clausus) irreconcilable with the idea ofhuman rights". Ignac Pfeifer accepted the job of runningTUNGSRAM'S research laboratory.Although Pfeifer's original research had been somewhatdifferent, as an excellent organizer and a scientistof good practical sense, he became more than simplythe head of an institute which was unique in theindustry at the time: he grew to be its inspiration andspiritual father. Pfeifer continued to be loyal to hisprogressive ideas: in the 1920s he became a memberof liberal bourgeois parties and also had a leading rolein the free-masonic movement.Ignac Pfeifer was not the only one who gave up (or,was forced to give up) the — at the time, morerespectable — university post to do industrial research.Ignac Pfeifer selected his first colleaguesmostly from the most talented — and similarly inclined— people of the young academic generation. That washow Dr. Imre Brody, Dr. Pal Selenyi, Pal Vidor, etc. gotto work in the Research Laboratory.Industrial research is different from the kind of researchtaking place in universities. Acclimatization tothe new circumstances naturally caused some problemsto the new colleagues in switching fromacademic work to industrial research. In an interviewgiven later Dr. Pal Selenyi said: "...the tendency oftransforming (its results) into technical use, i.e. inventions,is inherent in science, and an industrial researcherdoes nothing more than trying to speed thisprocess up a little."The management of TUNGSRAM gave lots of freedomto its researchers. Perhaps that was how the managementtried to make up for their sacrificing the greaterfreedom of academic research for the sake of theindustry. Nevertheless, the management demandedresults which helped the production and could beconverted into money. The contract of the engineersand physicians employed by the Research Laboratoryincluded a condition, whereby they had to conducttheir projects so that they end in inventions. Thepatents had to be registered under the name ofTUNGSRAM, and it was TUNGSRAM who would firstof all benefit from the resulting profits, although theinventors, too, shared in the fame and fortune. Butpatents did not follow immediately; it took time beforethe work of the research laboratory produced significantresults. The management of TUNGSRAM — andLipot Aschner, more than anyone else — supportedthe work of the laboratory with the necessary patienceand finances. Once Imre Brody remarked about themoney spent on research: " . . .they did not give allthat money to the research laboratory from humanitarianreasons; instead, they invested so that one day asuccessful invention would return the investment withample profit". The same thing was expected from theResearch Laboratory, and its staff had to live up to thisexpectation. Initially the Research Laboratory had verymodest means. Its first home was a one-storey buildingconsisting of a few rooms, and it was annuallyextended. The new building was handed over in 1930.It was regarded a modern laboratory at the time,providing a comfortable work environment for thestaff.The research carried out during the first phase of thelaboratory's history was aimed at perfecting the productionof incandescent lamps. This work had two"-V,

TUNGSRAM 54major areas. One was improving the production ofincandescent lamps in order to enhance their luminousefficiency and the quality of the light. The otherarea was the constant checking of the basic materialsnecessary for incandescent lamps (metals, glass,gases, etc.) and the developing of new materials.Parallel with the automatization of incandescent lampproduction, the possible improvements in the productiontechnology and the assistance in solving the, problems of automatization came to the fore of the\ researchers attention.'' There were projects which continued to feature on theResearch Laboratory's agenda throughout its history— for example, the work aimed at perfecting thetungsten filament. Tungsten filaments had to faceextremely rigorous requirements. It had been knownfor long that the mechanical properties of tungstendepended on its crystal structure. All over the worldresearchers tried to produce tungsten structured fromlarge crystals. The task was all the more challengingsince the desired technology should have been suitablefor mass-production, not simply for laboratoryconditions. This problem occupied the staff of theResearch Laboratory for quite some time, until theirresearch was finally crowned with considerable success.Wide-ranging experiments were carried out concerningthe other important element of vacuum technology,molybdenum. There was continuous work inglass technology and, after long and steady efforts, theresearchers succeeded in producing glass which wassuitably manageable and transparent. Appropriateprocesses for etching, painting and coating glass werealso developed. The work of the Research Laboratorywas not separated rigorously from the activities ofother technical staff working within the factory. Developingautomatic telephone exchanges, incandescentlamps and radio valves in the same location hadthe added advantage of allowing the healthy "migration"of the professional staff and the well-qualifiedworkers. This opportunity left the door open foreveryone to find the place most suited to their talentswithin the factory. For example, that was how GyorgySzigeti moved first to the Research Laboratory in 1928,after working in the Mechanical Department, andeventually ended up in the Audion Department where ,.he studied the areas of application of radio valves, aswell as their calibration. Moving the talents aroundcontinued to be a company policy. TUNGSRAM'SPatent Office belonged to the Research Laboratory. Itstask was to register the patents used by the company,but also, to keep the researchers informed about thepatents sand monitor the status of research projectsfrom the viewpoint of registering them as patents. Thereputation of Tungsram's researchers very soonspread outside the factory. Ignac Pfeifer became thepresident of the Hungarian Chemistry Society, DezsoPillitz, and later, Pal Vidor, its first secretary. The staffof the research laboratory held several lectures invarious societies and published articles in technicaljournals.The Emergenceof the TUNGSRAM Corporationand its Business Achievements^^•Earlier we have already noted what steps TUNGSRAMtook in order to be self-sufficient both in basic and insecondary materials. To this effect they bought theglass factory of Tokod and the shares in the paper millof the Nemenyi brothers. Then, in the interest ofdefining a production profile, they bought shares inthe Telephone Factory and took part in foundingStandard Electric Corp. All this took place withinHungary. During the early 1920s, however,TUNGSRAM started to increase the number of itsforeign investments. 1922 TUNGSRAM bought fromElektro-bank of Warsaw the shares of the Warsawincandescent lamp factory called Cyrkon. Cyrkon wascapable of producing 1 million lamps annually.TUNGSRAM continued to use the Cyrkon trademark asa secondary trademark even after the Second WorldWar. TUNGSRAM continuously acquired new foreignsales agencies, the most significant of which operated••-.._. ....... I .. •-

55 TUNGSRAMas independent public companies. In 1927 theTUNGSRAM corporation consisted of the followingfactories and commercial enterprises:Factories (100 percent interest)Elektrische GliJhlampenfabrik "Watt" A.G., ViennaZjednoczone Fabryka Zarowek Spoike Akczyjna (Cyrkon),WarsawTokod Glass Works Corp., Budapest"Klara" Glashuttenwerke A.G., Utekac (Glass Factoryof Ujantalvolgy)Factories (Joint ownership)Telephone Factory Corp., BudapestStandard Electric Co., BudapestDial Telefon SC, BudapestSales Agencies AbroadTungsram Elektrizitats A.G., BratislavaTungsram GliJhlampen und Elektrizitats GmbH,PragueTungsram Sahko O.Y., HelsinkiTungsram Electricitates Aktielskab, CoppenhagueMinora Societe a Responsabilite Limitee, ParisSociedad Tungsram Fabrice de LamparasIncandescencia, MadridTungsram Elektrizitats A.G., Zurich and its branches:Tungsram, Brussels Tungsram, BucharestTungsram, MilanTungsram,TemesvarTungsram, Zagreb Tungsram, KolozsvarTungsram, Belgrade Tungsram, AlexandriaIn addition to the independent sales agencies workingunder the name Tungsram there were nearly fiftyventures selling Tungsram products all over the worldas sales representatives and commissioned agents.The profitability of a certain company is best shown bythe financial reports filed at the end of each fiscal year.Public companies were obliged by law to produce andpublish such reports in the period between the twoworld wars. These reports were presented formally onthe general meeting of the shareholders, but they alsohelped to inform the public about the profitability (orthe lack of it!) of a company. The published reportsalso served as the basis of taxation to the authorities.•.And they also informed the Stock Exchange where theshare prices of a company were basically determinedby the dividends paid out to the share-holders. As aresult, these public reports ought to be treated with agood deal of reservation, since the above considerations,and not the actual accuracy, played a large partin preparing them.The most important entry in theTUNGSRAM reports isthe profit. After the fiscal year of 1925—1926 this wentas follows (1925—1926 was the first time that theaccounts were made using a stable currency, Pengo):Fiscal year1925-19261926-19271927-19281928-19291929-1930Profits in Pengos1,447,6861,943,3412,738,8263,168,1483,897,760The above figures unequivocally show that, accordingto the key indicator, the company's finances lookedextremely healthy during the five years: the profit wasdoubled. With the rising profits the dividends paid outto the shareholders also grew. The dividends paid aftera share, having the nominal value of 40 Pengo went asfollows:Fiscal year1926-19271927-19281928-19291929-1930in PengosDividedin%4.00 105.00 ' 125.60 146.40 16Actually, the dividend paid in 1929—1930 was thehighest between the two world wars.One of the main sources of increasing the profit —always and everywhere — is the numerical growth in

TUNGSRAM->.'.V56the volume of production. The truth of this statementwould be hard to prove in the case of TUNGSRAMsince it was in these years that the company changedits production profile and gave up producing railwaysecurity systems, telephone exchanges and telegraphequipment.For this reason we only consider theproduction figures of the surviving units, the LampManufacturing Department and the Audion Department:-: .:Fiscal year19251930Incandescentlamp production15,088,000 pes23,429,000 pesRadio tubeproduction252,000 pes1,123,000 pesRegarding the first and the last year's figures of theabove specified period it is clear that the volume ofproduction of the two major products increased considerably.In the same time, the value of the company'sassets decreased as a result of the already mentionedchanges in the production profile.Fiscal year1925-19261926-19271927-19281928-19291929-1930The value of factory site,buildings, equipment in Pengos18,733,67218,733,67214,276,056 .14,276,056 :14,675,465The cost of automatization carried out during the worstyears of inflation was included in the high figure of thefirst year, and was quoted in the balance sheet alreadyin stable Pengo. The fact that the previously describedgrowth of production was achieved without enlargingthe factory shows the success of the modernizationprogramme in the case of incandescent lamp production.But automatization did not yet bring the anticipat-ed results in every field. For example, there was nosignificant drop in the cost of production, which wouldotherwise be expected in cases of such marked increasesin the volume of production.The profitability of incandescent lamp productionwent as follows (per lamps, in fillers):proceeds (less the costsof marketing)Production costsOther costs (opening costs,interests, depreciationcharges, etc.)Total costsTotal profit1926/278949.322.972.216.81927/288947.625.573.115.9As a result of the automatization, the production costsof incandescent lamp manufacturing decreased, butthis was offset by an even greater increase in theoperating costs. This way the profitability of incandescentlamp manufacturing suffered an — admittedlymarginal — setback. Nevertheless, it still stayed over15 percent and, as such, remained a profitable business.• '(This analysis did not feature in the financial reports.)The rentability of electrical vacuum tube manufacturingshowed some improvements in 1928—1930, butthis branch was still at an early stage of development.There were further profits from the payments owing tothe installation of the automatic telephone exchangesof Budapest by Standard Rt. — although this, again,was not included in the reports. From all this we caninfer that TUNGSRAM'S actual profits considerablyexceeded those admitted in the reports. There were anumber of ways to conceal the actual profit. From thenext table it is clear that the stocks very heavilyfeatured in the balance sheets.'•' • : : , • ; . ••• .^ •••• , - - P , -

57 TUNGSRAMFiscal year1925-19261926-19271927-19281928-19291929-1930Value in Pengos10,587,3259,978,3976,442,1936,833,512~ ' 8,390,266In general, the stocks held the company's sixmonthrequirements, and in the case of the finished lamps, itseight-month projected sales. The relatively high levelof stocks concealed some real difficulties; for example,the basic materials mostly included metals which wereextremely difficult to come by. The size of the stocks offinished lamps is explained by certain stock systemsand the lagging transportation. With the exception of1928—1930, there were always about 10 million lampsstocked up. But the large stocks also permitted toconceal some internal reserves.Certain reserves were openly declared in the reports. Avery important entry in the balance sheets was thedepreciation deductions which reached extremelyhigh percentage in the case of TUNGSRAM. Just togive an idea, let's take the fiscal year of 1929—1930,when the factory building and equipments were estimatedto be worth of 14,675,465 Pengos. This has to becompared with the same year's depreciation figure of12,715,465 Pengos.The section dealing with debits and claims in thereports gives an opportunity to draw some interestingconclusions.Fiscal yearClaims (debtors)Debits (creditors)From the entries listed under Debits it is clear thatTUNGSRAM hardly ever had to rely on creditorsduring the second half of the 192$, since it hadsufficient working capital at that time.During the same years the company's total claimsgrew significantly and exceeded its debits many timesover. A number of realistic factors contributed to thehigh figures in its outstanding claims; for example, ittook a couple of years to settle the PHOEBUS accountsor to sort out the finances with the com missioned salesagents which were often working in remote areas. Thesituation was similar in the case of the subsidiaryfirms. Actually, it would be very difficult to find outabout the real financial state of the subsidiaries, sincethe reports did not have the appropriate statistics. Wedo have some information on the subsidiaries fromother sources, although not about each year. TheViennese Watt factory showed a profit of 286,000Pengos in 1928, Cyrkon of Warsaw closed the sameyear with roughly similar profits, the profits of TokodGlass Factory SC. reached 280,000 Pengos, and theprofits of Klara Glass Factory of Ujantalvolgy, 340,000Pengos. A large part of the subsidiaries' profits wereswallowed up by TUNGSRAM either through overchargingthem for the basic materials and the intermediateproducts supplied to them, or — exactly theother way around — through paying less for the basicmaterials bought from them.For the lack of internal financial reports, the realprofitability of TUNGSRAM is best revealed from thereports of the accountants of the bank, itself financiallyinterested in the company, Pesti Hungarian CommercialBank.An examination of TUNGSRAM'S books in 1929 sumsup the company's actual financial status in the followingtable (in Pengos):1925-19261926-19271927-19281928-19291929-19308,792,61912,235,13210,463,49511,403,49510,654,2307,198,6798,889,1252,985,1713,586,0712,690,485

TUNGSRAM 58(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)the plan(a subjective estimate)bonds (based on actualStock Exchanges figures)stocks (without remainders)debtors (less the creditorssetting up a pension fund7,000,00018,235,00018,235,0006,596,00012,209,000*y,vA grand total of44,040,000The final figure shows that the actual value of the412,500 TUNGSRAM shares was 44 million Pengos in1929. This implied that the shares having a nominalvalue of 40 Pengos were worth 106.5 Pengos each, orto put it in other way, they feched 250 percent of theirnominal value!Just before the worldwide depression of 1929—1933TUNGSRAM was in a very strong financial position.This fact greatly helped the company to survive theyears of Depression without serious shocks. In fact, thecompany made use of the slump in the housingindustry and heavily invested in construction works.Building No. 34 was designed in 1928 and the constructionof several buildings took place in 1930—1931. These developments have determined the factory'simage right until the latest times.Building No. 36, the Research Laboratory and theRecreation Centre were all built in this period. Thecompany even had reserves to exploit the gravefinancial situation of its old adversary, the Kremenetzkyfactory, and by pressing the Viennese companyinto a deal, TUNGSRAM was able to improve itspositions both in the incandescent lamp cartel and onthe domestic market.^'^Kvy• • ^ « .• - ' * •

59 TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAM FROM THE YEARS OF DEPRESSION UNTILTHE END OF WORLD WAR II -The Company's Strategy in the 1930'sLike any other company, TUNGSRAM, too, faced thehardest — and often crucial — decision: to find realisticobjectives for investing its resources available fordevelopment. Not only did the company have tocompete on the international market against severalnon-member firms outside the cartel, but also, it wasforced to keep the pace dictated by the greatest cartelmembers — IGEC, Osram and Philips — irrespective ofthe various cartel agreements. Later on the AmericanRCA and the German Telefunken also joined the three'greats'. Although the Phoebus cartel agreement dividedbetween the cartel members the incandescentlamp market, but it also facilitated a competition ofquality between the member companies, instead ofeliminating it. The exchange of information betweenthe cartel members brought many advantages in thetechnological sphere, but the adaptation of thesetechnologies required a lot of work and money.The agreement on the free flow of information was notmuch help in the case of new products, special purposelight sources or the entirely new type of lightsources such as electric discharge lamps and fluorescentlamps. The agreement did not included a largepart of these, or if it did, then the leading cartelmembers found a way to delay giving out thedocumentation until the secured a sufficient lead in themarket. TUNGSRAM'S sales agencies all over theworld rightfully demanded that in the interest ofmeeting their quotas they should be allowed to layhands on all the new products brought out by the cartelmembers. The company could only embark on developingwholly independent and innovative productson a number of rare occasions. Everywhere else it wasforced to follow the lead on the market. Even so, thecopying of all the new developments would have beenenough to exhaust the company's resources. Thecompany's decision to narrow the production profile,to hand over the manufacturing of railway securitysystems and telephone exchanges, and to concentrateonly on two areas, on the production of incandescentlamps and vacuum tubes, seemed more and morejustified each day.Beside appearing with newer and newer products onthe market, the companies were pressed by the internationalcompetition to raise the quality of the products,too, while the growing demand and the fallingprices required, both in the production of incandescentlamps and radio tubes, the introduction of new machinery,automatization and significant increases inproduction capacity.In the early 1930s all the leading producers of incandescentlamps were preparing for the mass-productionof low- and high-pressure discharge lamps. The'all-conquering tirumph' of incandescent lamps, forthe time being, was able to hold out against thedevelopment of the new products. McFarlan Moorehad just come up with the nitrogen- and the carbondioxide-filled discharge tubes, but discharge tubesfilled either with pure neon or neon mixed with otherinert gases were already being manufactured, usinginert gases gained from air by the process invented —quite independently from each other — by GeorgeClaude and Karl von Linde. General Electric Company'sintensive development of its normal fluorescentlamp series resulted in a version suitable formass-production, as presented to the fellow cartelmembers in 1938. Philips brought out its first high-

TUNGSRAM 60pressure mercury vapour discharge lamps in 1936.In the field of radio valves, beside the earlier mentioneddevelopments, the research and developmentlaboratories of the leading companies were all intenselyworking on television receiving tubes.In defining its business policy, TUNGSRAM relied onthe experience of the previous years. This showed that— irrespective of the cartel agreement regulating thesale of incandescent lamps — if the price and thequality was right, a great deal more lamps could besold than specified in the quotas.In every ten years the world's electric energy consumptionroughly doubled and the demand for incandescentlamps increased at a similar rate. Large areasawaited electrification all over the world. The consumptionof incandescent lamps per capita — aspublished by PHOEBUS — could well indicate theprogress. In 1936 this number was equal to 1.0 (annuallyand per capita) in the advanced industrializedcountries and 0.5 in Hungary.VExperience showed that the discharge lamps andtubes, in spite of their improved luminous efficiency,were no substitutes for incandescent lamps; rather,they conquered new areas for electric lighting orchallenged the larger traditional light sources. Theoperation of discharge light sources required considerablygreater initial investment than their incandescentcounter-parts of equal luminous power;moreover, the better luminous efficiency was partlywasted, since for a discharge lamp to give out thesame amount of light resembling the frequency spectrumof day-light, more luminous power was neededthan in the case of incandescent lamps which had afrequency spectrum shifted more towards the red.Discharge light fixtures generally had larger dimensionsthan did the incandescent light fixtures, and theirinstallation also required more skill. They were lesssuitable to achieve spot light or intimate effects and,therefore, they were of little use in people's homes.When subjected to it for a longer period, many peopleget a headache from the light of discharge sources anddevelop headache.Considering the above problems, as well as otheraspects, TUNGSRAM formulated its business strategyof the period. (This strategy was never summed up inwritting, nor vocally.)1. Normal incandescent lamps provide the daily breadand butter. The quality of these normal lamps must beimproved, keeping abreast of the other leading companies.Productivity and production capacity must beincreased by the further automation of production. Atthe same time, the development of discharge lightsources, as well as their advertisement, is recommended,but not at the expense of incandescentlamps. The production of miniature, vehicle and largesizespecial-service lamps must be facilitated with theintroduction of modern machinery.2. The production of radio valves must be perfectedand increased by employing new, modern machinery.At the same time, the management must bear in mindthat the leading companies of the industry will constantlymarket new versions and following the newdevelopments would tie up a lot of financial andintellectual resources. Powerful vacuum pumps —both the rotary and the mercury diffusion types —must be designed and produced, primarily in theinterest of raising the standard of radio receiving andtransmitting tube production. Research and developmentteams must be set up in preparation for atelevision project.3. The production of parts must be modernized, increasedin capacity and iproved in quality, because itdetermines the standard of production, as well as ofquality, of all the products. For the above reason, thecapacity of the design and production of machines andtools must be continuously improved and modernized.4. The subsidiaries' demands for investment must bemet in order to be able to sell machinery and parts forincandescent lamps and radio receiving tubes, thisway substituting for markets previously supplied withfinished goods but now lost in consequence of thesecountries' efforts to achieve a self-sufficient and independentindustry.5. The utility service units, i.e. the plants providing ordistributing gas, steam, hydrogen, electric energy.^\'"••7* • • - i- '.

*">• ^:61 TUNGSRAMetc., must be developed according to qualitative, quantitativeand economic considerations parallel withother tasks.6. Beside setting down the major guidelines, themanagement must possess the appropriate flexibilitywhich will allow the company to follow the changes inthe international market, both as far as technology andquality are concerned. Production must follow theresults of research and develepment more closely. Thegap between research and industry must narrow downand a development department suitable for designingand introducing production technologies must becreated. The independence of all the managerial andproduction units must be increased without limitingthe chief executive officer's sole responsibility in makingthe final decision. (Lipot Aschner would not agreeto giving that up anyway.)7. Social institutions must be established to bind to thefactory the work-force necessary to maintain the highstandard of production. (Recreation centre, canteen,swimming pool, sport clubs, etc.)The Work and the Results of the ResearchLaboratoryin the late 1920s — as we have already pointed out —there was a worldwide attempt to improve the qualityof incandescent lamps and to produce new types oflightsources. The fact that the most important licensesin the light source industry were about to expireinspired the research and development teams andhelped the emergence of new companies outside thecartel. "The history of the incandescent lamp industryclearly indicates that the best protection against these(new companies) are the patents which improve thequality of the lamps to such an extent that a lamp ofpoorer quality could not compete against these in spiteof the lower price. Therefore, we must help the technicalprogress of incandescent lamps with real, revolutionaryinventions, rather than simply rely on themethods of step-wise refinement" — Imre Brodywrote these words in a report prepared for LipotAsxhner on 14th June, 1932, in which he appealed formore support to his ongoing experiments.In 1930 the Research Laboratory was moved to its new,two-storey building which then met the requirementsof the times. The library of the research centre wassituated in the building, as were the labs and theworkshops necessary to the research work. Accordingto a report in 1933, the sections of the Laboratorywhich dealt with incandescent lamps employedapproximately 40 people. Five of them were engineers,but there were another three engineers workingon the improvement of incandescent lamps in thefactory. Three engineers were employed in the patentdepartment and two worked in quality control. Ourreaders might be amused to learn that Imre Brody atone time also looked afterthe library of the Laboratory.In 1936 certain changes took place in the managementof the Research Laboratory. That was the time whenIgnac Pfeifer, at the age of 69, retired andTUNGSRAM'S choice of replacement fell on ZoltanBay, the 36 years old physicist of the University ofSzeged. Not only did TUNGSRAM offer him the topposition in the Laboratory with higher income andbetter research conditions, but also, it donated 300,000Koronas to Technical University of Budapest in orderto set up a department for him, hence foundingCentral-East Europe's first Nuclear Physics Department.In 1944, following Lipot Aschner's deportation,Zoltan Bay became TUNGSRAM'S technical manager.While in Szeged, Zoltan Bay belonged to the circle ofAlbert Szent-Gyorgyi. A staunch anti-fascist with progressiveviews, he did much for the persecuted people,hiding them in the final days of the war, until he wasforced to go underground himself. Zoltan Bay immigratedto the United States in 1948. The ResearchLaboratory's staff was enlarged in the 1930s: that waswhen Tibor Szasz, Pal Tury, Gyorgy Tarjan, Imre Patai,Tivadar Millner and others joined the institution.a) The GK-tungsten iAs we have pointed out earlier,*the gas-filled (nitrogenfilled)coiled filament lamps invented by Langmuir-"^•-

TUNGSRAM.-•:-V62caused important changes in the light source industryafter the First World War. The coiling process imposednew requirements on the tungsten filament. InTUNGSRAM, like in all the other incandescent lampfactories of the world, the race to develop the non-saggingtungsten filament was on. TUNGSRAM'S ownnon-sagging filament was based on the so-called'GK-tungsten' (Great-Crystal) which is still producedtoday under the same designation. BeforeTUNGSRAM'S GK-tungsten, similar research alreadytook place elsewhere in the world. For example, it wasthe Hungarian-born Aladar Pacz who introduced aprocess in the United States which enabled tungstenfilaments to maintain non-sagging properties at hightemperatures. In TUNGSRAM experiments aimed atproducing large-crystal non-sagging tungsten filamentsbegan around 1920, roughly at the time whenPacz's patent was registered. The first time theseattempts borefruits in the form of actual patents was in1924 and the success was linked to the names of PalTury and Gyorgy Tarjan. The further development ofGK-tungsten — the basic principles of which hadalready been laid down in the patent of 1924 — was thework of Pal Tury and Tivadar Millner, the two chemicalengineers and metallurgists who, while maintainingcontacts with the Laboratory, worked in the LampManufacturing Department.Through the production of GK-tungsten, Hungary becamethe leading tungsten producer of the world. Thetechnology and the additive developed by Millner andTury resulted a filament which had the desired nonsagging,large-crystal structure. The novelty of thetechnology lied in the use of aluminium additiveswhich gave better properties than did the Americans'additives orthoseof the Viennese Watt company. (TheHungarian patent of 1935.) Lipot Aschner proudlyreported to the board to directors on a meeting held on25th November, 1935: "Due to the excellent quality ofour tungsten filament, the quality of our incandescentlamps came out on top, according to the results of thecompulsory tests performed by PHOEBUS on all thePHOEBUS products. The American General ElectricCompany is seriously interested in our filaments andplaced quite a large order for starting materials. Itappears that IGEC is thinking about switching to ourtype of filament in its production."This is how Tivadar Millner remembered the developingof GK-tungsten in his inauguratory speech on theAcademy of Sciences in 1956: "The rods made frompure tungsten powder consisted of crystals havingdiameters of roughly 0.1 mm or less. The GK rods — orsometimes their surfaces only — consisted of largecrystals with diameters between 5 and 10 mm. Thetemperature at which pure tungsten filament of 0.1mm crystals goes through rapid re-crystallization isbetween 1000 and 1200 'C, while the correspondingtemperature in the case of GK filaments in between2200 and 2400 'C. In the re-crystallized pure tungstenfilament of 0.1 mm long crystals the crystallites are nolonger than the diameter of the filament, while in thecase of GK filaments they can reach a length 20 or even100 times longer than the diameter. The filamentscoiled from pure tungsten of roughly 15 microns (forexample, the double-coiled filaments soon expandunder their own weight at a temperature of 2400—2500 'C, while the GK filaments maintain their originallength for up to a 1000 hours. The re-crystallizedtungsten filaments are extremely fragile at ordinary ^temperatures, as opposed to the GK filament whichstays solid. The internationally acclaimed reputationof our incandescent lamps and radio valves is basedon the above good properties of GK tungsten." Theappearance of the krypton lamps only added to therequirements to which tungsten filaments had to standup. The first krypton lamps marketed by the FrenchCompagnie des Lampes had single-coiled filaments.TUNGSRAM began its experiments with similar filaments.GK tungsten, however, enabled TUNGSRAM toproduce krypton lamps with double-coiled filaments,further exploiting the advantages of krypton-filledlamps.b) The History of Krypton Lamps from the Patentto the Mass-Production.The greatest achievement of the Research Laboratorywas the invention of the krypton lamp. The patent was

63 TUNGSRAMactually registered under the title "Gas-filled electricalincandescent lamp with metal filament" on 1th August,1930. But the patent bearing the number 103.551in fact described the krypton-filled lamp.This is how the inventor, Imre Brody, summed up thestory of the krypton lamp's birth in a subsequent pieceof writing: "The first man ever to mention krypton as afilling gas for incandescent lamps was Jacoby. He onlyreferred to krypton there as a substitute for argon. Itwas Claude who first stated that krypton was moresuitable than argon. He recognized that, as the result ofthe lower heat conductance of krypton, the heat lossesmust be also smaller in krypton than in argon. This wasnot, however, followed up by actual experiments. Wediscovered in February, 1929 that, quite apart from thelower heat losses, the adverse effects of anotherphenomenon (thermic diffusion) can also be reducedby the application of krypton. This especially hadimportant consequences in the case of double-coiledfilaments, because the heat losses here were alreadyso minute that their further reduction was quite negligible,while the adverse effects of thermal diffusionremained the same. This way the problem branchedout in two. Naturally, one cannot produce a good lampsimply by replacing argon with krypton, so there is astructural problem. The other problem concerns theproduction of krypton."Air Liquide" registered several patents for producingkrypton in the 1920s. All these patents were based ongaining krypton from air as a by-product of oxygen ornitrogen production. This method, however, did notseem suitable for the purposes of incandescent lampmanufacturing, so next we speculated over the possibilityof producing krypton as the primary product,without having to separate the other components ofair, first of all the oxygen and the nitrogen. Weconsulated in this matter with Linde and Air Liquide.Few months later — and almost at the same time — allthree companies turned in patents showing that thismethod was viable. Our krypton factory in Ajka wasfounded on this principle and, after some initialdifficulties, it has now been working smoothly for twoyears. ., , ,., .,^„^:We set out to solve the structural problem concurrentlywith the problem of how to produce krypton.First we had to make a lamp to check the correctness ofour assumptions. This was not easy since krypton hadnever been produced in large enough quantity to fill anormal lamp. After long negotiations we managed toget half a litre krypton from Linde Company. Theexperiments carried out with this krypton provided thevalidity of our theory. But we still had to solve severalstructural problems. The poor electrical solidity ofkrypton caused a lot of difficulties, especially in thecase of double coiled filaments. We overcame thisproblem by getting rightthe mixture of the gases (USAPat. No. 2060657).Naturally, some problems still exist, as the commercialproduction of krypton lamps had only been going onfor 4 years, but we are confident that these problemswill be solved and we shall be able to make furtherimprovements on the krypton lamp.Ujpest, 1 St August, 1939Brody"This writing described the story of the krypton lampvery briefly and concisely, showing both the modestyand the confidence of a successful inventor. Let usrecapitulate the major points of the story again.As Brody's writing revealed, the large foreign researchcentres had been studying the possibility of increasingthe luminous efficiency of incandescent lamps forquite some time. The better luminous efficiency of thelamps filled with a mixture of argon and nitrogen —instead of pure nitrogen — was, at that time, put downto the poorer heat conductance of argon. Imre Brodymeasured the energy balance of a 110 V/65 Dim lampand the results (in his own words indicated that "theimportance of the heat conductance of the filling gasmust not be overestimated, because the energy of theultraviolet radiation covers the greatest part of theloss . . .Experience showed that the replacement of 1 percentof the nitrogen with argon already resulted in noticeableimprovement of the lamp. According to theenergy figures, this improvement cannot be explainedsolely by the difference in the heat conductance andother sources must also be found."

TUNGSRAM 64Next Brody went back to the relevant physics books tofind a new starting point. Again, we quote his ownwords: "After long research I found the correct explanationfor the superiority of argon in the followingpostulate of Chapmann's: If there is a spatial temperaturedifference in a mixture of gases, chiefly consistingof a light gas mixed with a small amount of heavy gas,then the heavy gas will shift towards the cooler place.This phenomenon is called thermo-diffusion. Thisbasically differs from ordinary diffusion in that ordinarydiffusion tends to cancel out the differences indensity, while thermo-diffusion often causes differencesin density. We can convince ourselves of thecorrectness of this theory by experiments. The gas-filledincandescent lamp provides a perfect environmentfor thermodiffusion. In a Langmuir-type film there is atemperature difference of approximately 2100 'C withina distance of 1 mm (the temperature of the filamentis 2700'c, and of the gas chamber, 600 'C). The smallamount of heavy gas in this case is the tungstenevaporated from the surface of the filament. Its molecularweight is substantially larger (186) than that of theargon (40) or the nitrogen (28). The evaporatedtungsten atoms are driven to the outside surface of theLangmuirfilm by thermo-diffusion. From heretheyareswept away by convection and subsequently formcondensation on the glass surface. The process, therefore,blacks and burns out the lamps by destroyingtheir filament just as it does in the case of ordinarydiffusion. Now we can understand why the replacingof nitrogen with argon improves the performance ofthe lamps. Nitrogen has a molecular weight of 28,argon has a molecular weight of 40. As far as weight isconcerned, argon is a lot nearer to tungsten thannitrogen is. That means that the harmful effects orthermo-diffusion are less substantial in argon than innitrogen. The realization of the fact that the useful lifeof gas-filled incandescent lamps are largely determinedby thermo-diffusion gave me the idea to use afilling gas of large molecular weight. In that case theuseful life of lamps can be extended at any givenfilament temperature. On the other hand, by choosingthe filament with the appropriate length and diameterwe are able to raise the temperature of thefilament without reducing the useful life of the lamp."Krypton, with its still larger molecular weight, was anobvious candidate for the next series of experiments.Unfortuntely, krypton was not available in suitablequantities at that time. Brody had the following to sayabout this: "To check the correctness of our theory,first we moved in the opposite direction: in February,1931 we built a lamp filled with the lightest of all theinert gases, helium. Helium has a molecular weight of4, therefore, in this case we expected very strongthermo-diffusion. The lamp filled with helium ... hadto be a very poor one. As the results of the experimentsentirely bore out our assumptions, we continued theexperiments using krypton."Imre Brody mentions in the announcement that thechemical engineer Emil Theisz also participated in theexperiments.After such preliminaries the first krypton lamp wasabout to be made. However, since krypton was veryexpensive and extremely hard to come by, gravedifficulties stood in the way of the further experiments.At the end a lot of money and some good connectionswere needed to buy the necessary amonunt of krypton.The first six lamps were completed on 2nd July, 1931,following the registering of the patent. The lamps weretested by Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt ofBerlin in 1932 and the results showed that the averageuseful life of krypton lamps was 1124 hours, while theuseful life of an Osram lamp of similar wattage was amere 299 hours. Krypton- and argon-filled lamps withthe same type of coils were used to determine the gainin the luminous efficiency of the krypton lamps. Thefirst experimental krypton lamps had the E-series(Einheits-form) bulbs of the argon lamps, only one sizesmaller, in order to reduce the volume that had to befilled. TUNGSRAM'S technical staff was forced todesign new shape and size for the krypton lamps inorder to economize on the expensive filling gas. Thatwas how the original mushroom shaped bulbs wereborn by administering modifications on the E-series.This form is already depicted in the Hungarian patentNo. 113.488, dealing with the volume of the krypton

65 TUNGSRAMlamp. The first mushroom-shaped bulbs were handmadein the Research Laboratory. In 1934, whenTUNGSRAM informed its PHOEBUS partners of itsplans to go ahead with the production of krypton-filledlamps, the more extensive experiments necessitatedtheapplicationof machines in the production of bulbs.In the Summer of 1934 TUNGSRAM informed itsfellow cartel members on a meeting held in Ujpestabout the success of the experiments and the company'sintention to produce krypton lamps. The twodirectors representing Philips, Dr. Geiss and Lokker,made a counter-announcement. They told that Philipswas about to market the argon-filled lamp fitted withdouble-coiled filament. Since the experiments to developdouble-coiled filaments based on the Millner-Tury type GK-tungsten proceeded satisfactorily inUjpest, TUNGSRAM announced its plans to producekrypton lamps fitted with double-coiled filament as anovelty. (The first experimental krypton lamps still hadsingle-coiled filaments.) No gas-filled candle andspherical shaped lamps had previously been producedfor industrial decoration. Therefore, great successcould be expected from the candle shaped and decorativelamps filled with gas (krypton) and fitted withdouble-coiled filament. The experiments showed afifty percent improvement on the earlier lamps of thesame size. The candle and spherical shaped lampswith opaque glass were brought out bearing this inmind. These lamps with their white light and minimalloss of luminous power later proved very popular withthe public.The experiments, again, showed that the candleshapedkrypton lamps had a few (1—2—3) percenthigher luminous efficiency than the mushroomshapedkrypton lamps of the same coiled filament,when calculated over their 1000 hour useful life. Thisgave the idea for replacing the mushroom-shapedlamps with ellipsoid ('plum') shaped ones which approximatedthe candle shape more. Such bulbs werebetter cooled by the air flowing upwards along theglass, so it was possible to design even smaller lamps.This, in turn, promised further savings on krypton.But the mass-production of krypton lamps was still along way off from the first experimental products,although their better luminous efficiency, as well astheir other advantages, were all justified in the tests.By far the greatest obstacle on this road was the highprice of krypton. For the production of the first experimentallamps the company finally managed to buy thenecessary krypton for 800 German Marks a litre — andeven that only after Osram had intervened onTUNGSRAM'S behalf! According to TUNGSRAM'Sown estimates the price of krypton used in lampswhich could be sold on the market for a realistic pricecould not exceed 6 German Marks per litre! (Theexchange rate of German Marks and Pengos in commercialtransactions fluctuated between 1.36 and 1.63)The scientific experiments aiming to solve the problemsof the industrial production of krypton wereassociated with equally complicated business negotiations.As ImreBrody himself wrote in a note to the chiefexecutive on 14th July, 1932: "In the matter of thekrypton lamps we have reached the point where themost important questions are not the technical but thecommercial ones."The work of competent scientific researchers in itselfwould not have been sufficient to achieve the massproductionof krypton lamps in Hungary; the kind offar-sighted and bold company management was alsoneeded which TUNGSRAM was lucky to have at thetime.In the matter of purchasing krypton, TUNGSRAMcontacted the companies of Linde, Air Liquide and I.G.Farbenindustrie. I.G. Farbenindustrie turned downTUNGSRAM'S offer, but the other two companiesthought it possible that their existing oxygen plantscould deliver 10—20 m^ krypton gas, although theyregarded the price offer of 20 German Marks too low.The purchase of krypton became increasingly importantfor TUNGSRAM, to the company was exploring thepossibilities of setting up its own krypton producingplant. One of the most essential licenses of the process,which concerned the heat exchange componentsused in the regenerating phase, was owned by LindeCompany. When TUNGSRAM showed interest in thelicenses, Linde gave a very poor opinion on the

TUNGSRAM 66prospects of krypton production. (The fact that AirLiquide's own efforts to produce krypton collapsedround about the same time was also incorporated inthis assessment.)Although the two foreign companies tried to discourageTUNGSRAM in the matter of krypton production,both of them quickly registered patents concerning theproduction of krypton in order to own the license,regardless of the initial difficulties. Concurrently withthe negotiations, Imre Brody, together with MihalyPolanyi (the Hungarian-born lecturer of ManchesterUniversity who also worked as an advisor forTUNGSRAM), Egon Orovan and others, worked out aprocedure for the industrial production of krypton asthe primary product. Egon Orovan, being an associateof the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut (Berlin-Dahlem), hadalready had a chance to participate in the study ofprimary krypton production. Lipot Aschner, the chiefexecutive officer of TUNGSRAM, earlier had askedOrovan to act as the company's outside expert innegotiations with foreign clients on several occasions.Imre Brody, in collaboration with Ferenc Korossy,precisely determined the krypton content of air." .. .we worked out a spectrographic method. First weremoved from air everything which was not an inertgas through a chemical process using metallic barium;in the residue — wich largely consisted of argon — wedetermined the relative magnitude of a number ofsuitable spectral lines, as compared to the spectral lineof argon. Next we artificially produced a similar mixtureof pure argon and krypton and this way constructeda formula correlating the relative magnitudeof the spectral lines to the density of krypton . . . Theexperiments — which roughly lasted a year — bore theresult of determining the krypton content of air in1.5X10 parts."The first paragraph of page 11 in the same Brodylecture contains the brief description of the Brody-Polanyi primary krypton-xenon production processusing small amount of liquid air.On 16 October, 1934 Imre Brody reported to the chiefexecutive officer, Lipot Aschner, that they had produced1437 krypton lamps up till that time. Disputingthe objections of Philips, he claimed that "We have notechnical obstacles which could justify the furtherdelaying of the establishment of a krypton producingplant."The results of Brody and his colleagues strengthenedTUNGSRAM'S position in the negotiations with theso-called 'gas group'. This group was formed by thecompanies of Linde, I.G. Farbenindustrie and AirLiquide. The 'gas group' already showed some interestin TUNGSRAM'S inventions during its meetings heldin January and February of 1933, but the variousparties all had dissimilar interests.Lipot Aschner described TUNGSRAM'S point of viewin a letter written to Ignac Pfeifer on 25th July, 1933. Onthe one hand, the company hoped to form a separategroup from the PHOEBUS members for running thekrypton factory, while on the other hand it tried topersuade the 'gas group' to undertake the installationof the krypton factory and guarantee the continuousproduction of krypton at about 6 Marks per liter.Aschner also wanted the 'gas group' to agree not tosell krypton to other factories without PHOEBUS'spermission, promising a 10 percent licence fee to the'gas group'after the krypton factory's production inreturn. The two leading European incandescent lampfactories, Osram and Philips, did not want to join theagreement on the production of krypton lamps. EspeciallyOsram's withdrawal was potentially dangerous,since TUNGSRAM was worried that the German company,being a leading force in the German economy,might be able to procure the government's help inpreventing Linde from supplying the machinerynecessary for the krypton factory. Later Osram modifiedits stance and itself introduced the production ofnormal and decorative krypton lamps with doublecoiledfilament. Philips also studied the advantages ofkrypton lamps. Although their own research verifiedthese advantages — they recorded a 3.6 percentimprovement in the luminous efficiency often differenttypes of lamps, while also registering a colourdifference not perceptible to the naked eye —, finallydecided against the manufacturing of krypton lamps.Philips — being in possession of the double-coated

67 TUNGSRAMopaque glass bulbs with the smallest light absorptionfigure in the whole world (6 percent) — responded tothe challenge of TUNGSRAM'S krypton lamps withtheir own decorative argon-filled lamps with sphericaland candle-shaped bulbs and double-coiled filament.The American IGEC also declined the offer to participatein the krypton campaign. The negotiations betweenJanos Levai, a top executive of TUNGSRAM'SLamp Manufacturing Department, and Mr. Sloan, thenthe head of IGEC, took place in 1937 about the possibilityof jointly setting up a factory producing enoughkrypton and xenon to meet the demands of the entireincandescent lamp cartel.In the course of the negotiations it became apparentthat the American company worked with an extremelyhigh profit margin — 85—88 percent depending on theacutal type —, while the same figure would have onlyreached 62 percent in the case of krypton lamps. Inaddition, they found the idea of increasing the usefullife of the lamps through krypton and xenon fillingimprudent from business considerations. In givingtheir major reason for not participating in the jointenterprise they pointed to the closure of a Frenchfactory which had exploded at the start of production.They were, again, informed of the fact that smallerexplosions also occurred in the already operatingkrypton plant of Ajka, interrupting continuous productionfrom time to time. (The American company hada point, since it was impossible to prevent the formingof copper acetate from acetylene during the process offractional distillation in krypton production, and thiscompound in crystallized state could easily react to thesmallest impact, or friction even, by explosion.)Here, again, time was on the side of research. Lindeand the engineers of TUNGSRAM (Dr. Mach, TiborMihalovits) managed to control the forming and theexplosion of copper acetate without causing dangertohealth or damage to property. Moreover, by 1939 acontinuous, safe and reliable method of krypton productionwas achieved. Although it was the Frenchcompany Compagnie des Lampes which brought outthe krypton lamps with the single-coiled filament first,later TUNGSRAM remained the sole producer, theothers being discouraged by the hazard of arc burn.The krypton-filled incandescent lamps was the mainattraction in TUNGSRAM'S pavilion on the InternationalFair of Budapest in 1936. The krypton lamp alsoappeared on the French market in the same year. Ofthe 49,000 krypton lamps produced until July, 1936,3,500 were delivered to France where they were marketedby the local Tungsram sales agency: they includedboth the decorative and the normal types, aswell as the Dekalumen series. At last, the 'gas group',which in the meantime heavily invested in kryptonproduction, was willing to deliver the machinerynecessary to equip a krypton factory in Hungary; inaddition, they started the monthly delivery of twocubic meter of krypton. This quantity was sufficient tolaunch the test production of krypton lamps inTUNGSRAM.In July, 1936 Lipot Aschner announced that the finaldeal had been concluded with the 'gas group'. Thebuilding of the krypton factory in Ajka began in still thesame year, as an independent TUNGSRAM venture.The krypton factory of Ajka, which was in fact ownedby TUNGSRAM, actually became dependent on the'gas group' on account of using foreign licenses.Imre Brody was right in that is was possible to detect acertain amount of the air's xenon content (both in thepurchased and the home-produced version), althoughat that time he was still of the opinion that theseparation of the two gases was unnecessary. In one ofhis notes dated 31st July, 1939 he already toyed withthe possibility of isolating xenon and using it to fillvehicle and mine lamps. Itwasonly after 1945 that thisidea eventually materialized.In its early days krypton lamp was a powerful wapon inTUNGSRAM'S hand in the fight against the competitorswithin the cartel. In the war waged on theoutsider companies the cartel members consideredeven as small an increase in luminous efficiency as 1Im/Watt a serious argument in favour of marketing.Compared with the argon-filled normal lamps kryptonlamps showed an improvement of approximately 1Im/Watt. Such a figure already deserved the attentionof the Hungarian economists, since in those days a

TUNGSRAM- . * • • ' ^ - ^68considerably larger percentage of the electrical energywas used for lighting than it is the case today.The krypton lamp's success laid not so much in itsincreased luminous efficiency, as in its small size andattractive appearance. Its pleasant white light and itsinherent decorative effects (spherical and candle shape)have remained valid marketing arguments till this day.We make a note here that the increased luminousefficiency of the krypton lamps and the double-coiledfilaments failed to make an impact on the Americanmarket, since the electrical energy was so muchcheaper there, and the average earnings so muchhigher, that the introduction of krypton lamps was notjustified. On the other hand, the fluorescent lamps andthe high-pressure mercury vapour lamps, whichshowed a dramatic increase in luminous efficiency,were introduced in the U.S. long before anywhere else.The efforts to cut the production costs of krypton gasand lamps did not stop at the building of the kryptonfactory.A report signed on 31st July, 1939 by Dr. Imre Brody,Dr. Gyorgy Brody and Tibor Mihalovits was sent to thechief executive to enumerate the problems of kryptonproduction. "The production of krypton lamps, andalso, of krypton gas, has reached a turning point. Thepossibility of improving the present design of thelamps, as well as that of developing new designs,depend on the purity of krypton. Our influence on theproduction of krypton is minimal and indirect at themoment. We have no ways of implementing our ownideas and suggestions; instead, we are reduced tolooking on helplessly whether Linde is willing toconclude the lessons of the Ajka plant for the futureand implement the necessary changes or continueswith the processes, invented either by itself or by us, atour expense." The report contains suggestions fornew methods of krypton production, for some ofwhich patents had already been registered.By 1941 Dr. Imre Brody and Tibor Mihalovits hadcompleted the work on a new method of kryptonproduction, which incorporated the lessons of theprevious experiments. This differed from Linde's processon two major points. Between 1939 and 1941TUNGSRAM considered the possibility of establishingone or more new krypton factories, but it was afraid ofthe patent law procedures that might follow the introductionof the new process, and was also worried thatthe PHOEBUS members might not buy the suprluskrypton. For this reason, and with regard to thewar-time circumstances, no new plants were establishedin the end.Dr. Imre Brody and his associates also stated in theirletter that the krypton problem had been divided intotwo branches: one was the construction of the lamp,the other was the production of krypton. But there wasalso a third 'branch': the price of the produced krypton!This problem did not have a satisfactory solutionimmediately after the first krypton plant had startedproducing. The production of krypton required a lot ofelectrical energy. TUNGSRAM, therefore, assignedgreat importance to the price of electrical energynecessary for the production of krypton, which would,of course, also be reflected in the price of krypton. Inspite of all the advantages of krypton-filled lamps, thehigh price of krypton alone would make them unprofitableand unmarketable. This argument ledTUNGSRAM'S management in putting forward theambitious plan to establish its own power plant —possibly in the vicinity of the krypton factory —complete with its own mine delivering the necessarycoal. The purchase of Ajkai Coal Mine of Ajka andPower Plant of Ajka was decided accordingly.With the production and marketing of the first kryptonlamps the experiments on the lamp's design did notcome to a halt, either. Several changes were executedin order to increase their efficiency. Emil Theisz'sresearch was aimed at minimizing the danger of arcburn-off in the lamps. Dr. Imre Brody's experimentswere aimed at the development of high-ressure incandescentlamps of a 100 Watt, encased in quartz bulbs.Emil Theisz, Dezso Pillitz and Tibor Krasso worked outa process to recover krypton from the reject lamps andthe dead spaces of the vacuum pumps.Beside developing the krypton-filled lamps-which hadalready been discussed separately — there were variousother experiments going on in the Research• I

69 TUNGSRAMLaboratory. It was decided on a conference held in theResearch Laboratory on 18 February, 1930 that theLaboratory would study the possibility of producingfluorescent discharge tubes. Gyorgy Szigeti becamethe specialist in this field. The Research Laboratoryproduced a number of fluorescent lamps using incandescentcathodes. Next the researchers experimentedwith high-pressure discharge light sources. TheLaboratory produced high-pressure mercury and cadmiumvapour lamps as early as 1936. In 1937, followingup Zoltan Bay's original idea, Gyorgy Szigetiproduced a discharge light source filled with highpressurekrypton which had a luminous efficiencyfigure of 30 ImA/Vatt. The experiments on these typesof lamps were discontinued after the end of the workwar II.The Research Laboratory also paid attention to suchradioactive light sources in which electrons producedby decaying soft beta radiation (such as tritium),impinging to certain phosphorus excite it to light. Suchlight sources today are used in certain countries insignalling devices (for example, in the railways). In1940 the production of discharge tubes and cathoderay tubes raised a few questions in connection with thetheory of luminescence. Several people — amongothers Elemer Nagy, Zoltan Bodo and Gyorgy Gergely— joined in the research. This work was primarilytheoretical. - ^ • -Ferenc Korossy and Dezso Pillitz also did some researchon the prevention of arc burn-off. They experimentedwith high- and extra-high-pressure (2—3atmosphere, and over 10 atmosphere) krypton lamps,in order to reduce the evaporation of the tungstenfilament. The lamps produced in these experimentsshow resemblance to the pencil-shaped halogenlamps used today for photographic purposes. Initiallythe researchers were very much interested in the roleof the traces of vapour found inside the bulbs. It wasTivadar Millner who worked out a procedure to absorbthe vapour by the application of an appropriate getter.In this chapter, which began with the description of theResearch Laboratory's initial conditions, we havecome a long way from the newly built two-storeybuilding of the modestly manned and equipped institutewhich nevertheless was unique in Hungary, bothin importance and in achievements.We have traced the story of a new product from themoment of its conception down to the realization of itsmass-production. If this story became confusing atplaces and was, perhaps, hard to follow sometimes,then life is to blame which cannot, under any circumstances,be shown in its entire complexity.The Development and the Productionof Radio Receiving Tubes from the1930'sRadios really became popular only from the 1930sonwards. That was the time when the network of radiobroadcasting was extended worldwide. Radio receiverspowered by dry anode batteries and separateheating batteries were gradually replaced with radiosets running from the mains. This was the time whenradio sets became popular in Hungary, too. While in1930 the radio broadcasting services had 300,000subscribers, by 1937 this number grew to 383,000, andby the outbreak of the Second World War the numberof subscribers reached half-a-million. TUNGSRAMwas also forced by its competitors on both the internationaland the domestic markets to intensity its effortsto develop and produce radio valves.Only part of the development work took place in theResearch Laboratory. In the early 193? the Radio Valve(Audion) Department was set up which administrativelywas only loosely connected to the ResearchLaboratory. Karoly Czukor was in change of the RadioValve Department first, to be replaced by Erno Winterwho was a prominent figure in the radio valve research.(Erno Winter, together with Karoly Czukor,developed the world-renowned cathode tube usingmetallic barium. When his appeal for a small pay-risein reward of his achievements was turned down, heleft TUNGSRAM and found a job in the Netherlands.Later he returned to Ujpest, responding to Lipot As-

TUNGSRAM•>.>-;70chner's invitation, but this time he insisted on aconsiderably higher salary.)The Radio Valve Laboratory's staff numbered approximately30 people. There were two engineers, ErnoWinter and Matyas Marton, and a physicist, ImreGlazner working on development projects in theLaboratory, while Gyorgy Szigeti and Mihaly Neumannwere involved in the production. Next to the Laboratorythere was a separate Test Production Departmentwhich was headed by Karoly Czukor. He summed upthe tasks of the Radio Valve Laboratory and the TestProduction Department (which, in fact, was anotherlaboratory): " . . .perfecting the productiontechnologies, improving the quality and the useful lifeof the new tube designs, developing new designs anddocumenting the technologies which serve the production."The Radio Valve Laboratory and the Test ProductionDepartment was situated on the second floor of thenew Research Laboratory. In 1929 Karoly Czukor submitteda proposal in the matter of equipping the newunits and suggested that an elevator be built for thestaff. Lipot Aschner marked the proposal with thefollowing comment: "A staff elevator for the secondfloor? Ins't that a luxury?" (This was how his oldcolleagues descr-bed this trait in Lipot Aschner's personality:In the essential issues he is generous, but inthe tiny matters he is as stingy as a Scotsman!)The early 1930s were also called the age of the oxidecathodes in the radio business. The low operatingtemperature and the high specific emissivity of theoxide cathodes permitted the development of a directlyheated tube series for radio sets operated fromthe mains. In this field Erno Winter and Karoly Czukorwere doing fundamental work in the laboratories ofTUNGSRAM. The directly heated tubes bearing theTungsram trademark came out in 1939. These werealready also suitable for radio sets operated from themains. The construction of the tubes incorporatingtwo or more grids and the development of Tungsramtube designs suitable for the application of pentodestook place in these years. Following the work of ErnoWinter, the antimicrophonic radio valves were developedand the cause of the grid emission was feltabout. The patents of the noble metal coating appliedin order to reduce the grid emission effects were soonused all over the world. The invention of Imre Zakariasand Ferenc Perisch — the dual cathode outlet used inhigh-frequency valves — and Erno Lukacs's discoveryconcerning the space-charge limited currents alsodate back to these days.In the late 1920s the successful mechanization of thevacuum technology reached the production of electronicvacuum tubes. The mechanization was firstaccomplished in the United States and, as a result, themarketability of the American radio valves suddenlywent up everywhere. The new tube designs ofTUNGSRAM might have been comparable to the mostadvanced American tubes, but since their mass-productionhad not been accomplished, their quality andprice was not acceptable on the international markets.The main reason behind the unsatisfactory state ofaffairs in this area was the fact that in TUNGSRAM theproduction of radio valves followed the techniquesused in incandescent lamp production, i.e. much of thetechnology required manual labour. The quality of theradios depended on the electrical properties of thetubes, as well as the other components, and thevarying quality of the tubes, which resulted from therudimentary technology, did not help the reliability ofthe radio sets.The technology of radio valve production was closelystudied in 1932, and so were the methods used inresearch and development, as well as the relation ofresearch and production. Jozsef Gabor, who was laterput in charge of the radio valve production, called thisproduction the "standardized amateurism" in thecourse of the often passionate debates which tookplace in TUNGSRAM. In 1931 the electronic vacuumtube production was moved to a new location, to therecently completed Building No. 36. Here the conditionspermitted to prepare for mass-production. Theproduction of parts (cathodes, grids) took place on theground floor, while the first floor accommodated theassembly lines and the calibrating units. The machinerywas manufactured by the already ac-

71 TUNGSRAMcomplished Machine Works of TUNGSRAM. In theproduction of radio valves the old organizational structurelived on, whereby the work was divided intoseparate phases (assembly, sealing and pumping,electrical treatment and measuring), even though inthe production of incandescent lamps the completecontruction had been done by groups of machines(units) for years.The studies carried out in 1932 showed that theexisting problems had their roots in the unsatisfactorycooperation between the research and developmentteams and the production sphere. The Radio ValveLaboratory in fact ran the whole production, instead ofsimply developing new designs. The mechanical constructionand the production technology of the newdesigns, the first provisional tools — which were stillordered from outsider tool makers — and the necessarydrawings were all designed in the laboratory.Frequently even the purchase orders were placed bythe laboratory, quite independently of the productionsphere. All these meant a huge burden for the laboratorystaff, who were left with not enough time to workout the production technology for all the new designs.Production was the area where the greatest problemsexisted and, from time to time, came to thesurface. Jozsef Gabor's report of 17 July, 1932 revealedthat the thickness of the glass used formanufacturing tubes was 1.6 mm, 25 percent thickerthan the 1.1 mm thick glass used by the Americanand other companies. At he same time, the breakagereached 9 percent in Ujpest. Jozsef Gabor noted: "Itis possible that the higher breakage is linked to thethicker glass; the phenomenon is repeated year afteryear and no one has paid attention." He found theapplication of molybdenum too high: while the costof material for a complete grid was 1.6 fillers in aforeign company, the same cost 4.3 fillers forTUNGSRAM. Also, the labour costs of the grid productionwere 31 times higher in TUNGSRAM than inthe American companies.More than 40 percent of the breakage of the finishedlamps resulted from inaccurate assembling. "In ourcompetitors' factories one tiny machine turns outfinished, identical grids by the thousands; inTUNGSRAM the same task enganges 37 femalelabourers and 2 supervisors." The combined time ofparts production and assembling was 191 minutes inTUNGSRAM the same task engages 37 female labourersand 2 supervisors." The combined time of partsproduction and assembling was 191 minutes inTUNGSRAM, compares to the 6.2 minutes which wasneeded to do the same work in the American companyRCA. " . . .which meant that in the United States onlyone-third of the 63,000 work-hours would have beenneeded in July, saving 20,000 Pengos in labour costs."He found the proportion of the producing and thenon-producing sphere unacceptable: the 240 strongproductive work-force employed in assembling and inparts production was backed by a service team of 46who were paid by the hour. According to a document,in December, 1934 the unit costs of a high-frequencypentoda and rectifier was 1.62 Pengos in the UnitedStates; the same cost 3.15 Pengos to TUNGSRAM. Thegreatest discrepancy concerning the production costswas shown in the overheads per tube: this amountedto 25 percent of the total unit cost in the United Statesand 55.9 percent in TUNGSRAM. Expressed in money,this in itself was more than the unit cost of a completeAmerican tube! (1.76—1.62)Another critical report, compiled by the Sales Office ofthe Radio Valve Department, stated that the quality ofthe tubes showed large variations. Only the first serieswere good and the following ones already provokedembarrasing criticism. This was the situation evenwith such excellent designs as the anti-microphonicvalve series. The assemblying of the tubes was veryoften not up to the standard, but the resulting faultswould only be discovered by the customers.In late 1934 Jozsef Gabor took over the management ofthe Audion Department. Earlier he had been responsiblefor TUNGSRAM'S entire electriccal power system andother electrical equipment. He was also in charge of aworkshop producing electrical measuring, ageing, etc.devices for the factory. The company's radio valve productionfirst of all benefitted from his organizational talent,which was desperately needed in the given situation.

TUNGSRAM\*-'!\?'72It had already been decided on a factory meetingheld on 3 September, 1932 that the person in chargeof the Audion Department would have to be givencontrol over the complete production. From theabove consideration the Test Production was transferredto the Audion Department and the head of theDepartment also had a greater say in the work of theRadio Valve Laboratory. The Test Production Department,being the intermediate unit between theRadio Valve Laboratory and the mass-producingdepartment, took over the job of making the first fewthousand tubes of the new designs, hence easingthe mass-producing department of the problems oftest production. The Technological Laboratory setup next to the Test Production Department was firstheaded by Mihaly Neumann, to be followed by JenoPorubszky, its task was to work out and mechanizethe glass technology of radio valve production, toorganize the quality control of the glassware and tocoordinate the work of the glass factory and theAudion Department.Following the example of the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment, a chemical plant was established withJanos Horvath as its first manager. That was the firsttime that chemical compounds were produced whichmet the requirements of radio valve production. JozsefGabor urged for the setting up ot the Audion Department'sown machine tool production and press-work,as well as for providing all the conditions necessary forthe mass-production of parts for valves. • *' ' -^On top of all these, the rationalization of radio valveproduction was very effectively helped by the patentand license agreement drawn up in 1933 betweenTUNGSRAM and the world-renowned American company.Radio Corporation America (RCA).The modernization of the machinery was based on theabove mentioned agreement. TUNGSRAM'S expertshad to adapttothe Hungarian environment the Americanmachinery which, beside being more productive,also allowed less variations in quality. TUNGSRAM'Stechnical staff had to make adjustments on themachines in order to produce tubes which correspondedto the European standards. That was the timewhen the American machines manufacturing gridswere put into service, which also had to be adapted tothe Hungarian requirements. As it had already beennoted by TUNGSRAM'S staff, the American tubes"significantly differed from the ones used in Europe,both in construction and in technical parameters". Theresults of rationalization already showed in 1934—1935. It was observed in a reportdated4 July, 1935 thatthe factory breakage (rejects) had been brought downto 19 percent in those years, compared to the previouslyrecorded figure of 25 percent. The further reductionof factory breakage continued in the followingyears: in 1936 it was a mere 9 percent. This reductionfavourably affected the production costs of radiovalves. In order to reduce the production costs stillfurther, the piece-work system was extended: whileonly 5 to 10 percent of the total tube production hadbeen organized on a piece-work basis earlier, in thefirst half of 1935 production norms were set up in 9percent of all the work phases which could be done ona piece-work basis.In 1934 the Audion "D" Department was establishedand became "the centre the orderly work and thesmooth and efficient running of production originate,and which provides the link between the various unitsof production, as well as that between the productionand the marketing departments".Those problems of production did not strictly concernthe research laboratories, although also affected thework of the researchers. On the one side, the disputesbetween the factory and the Research Laboratorybecame permanent, on the other had the unparalleledcompetition on the international market drove theresearchers to even greater efforts. It was the Dutchcompany. Philips, more than anyone else, which keptbringing out new designs in order to keep abreast ofthe large American companies. TUNGSRAM, whichhad to compete against Philips on the Hungarianmarket, was also forced into this race.On the Summer of 1928 Philips bought Vatea RadioTechnical and Electrical Co. Ltd. of Budapest, thenmoved it to a new, more spacious location in 1933 andcontinuously enlarged its production capacity — first.. I ., -.

73 TUNGSRAMof all in the field of radio receiving tubes. TUNGSRAMresponded to this challenge by starting up a subsidiaryin The Netherlands, in Tillburg.The contention between the two giant corporationsbecame very fierce: they constantly fought legal actionsin the courts. The patent and license agreementdrawn up between TUNGSRAM and RCA in 1933improved the Hungarian company's position in thecontest against its two European partners and competitors,Philips and the German Telefunken. Accordingto the agreement, the American company agreedto making available its 'Standardized notices' (a completeset of information concerning the American radiovalve designs) to TUNGSRAM. RCA regularly sent theupdates of the set right until the outbreak of World WarTwo.Beside the agreement with RCA, TUNGSRAM resortedto other measures in orderto force its competitors intomaking a deal. In 1933—1934 the company called onthose memebers of the Hungarian Trade Ministry whorepresented Hungary in the next German-Hungariantrade negotiations to object strongly to the campaigncontinued against the Tungsram tubes in German."We have repeatedly held talks, directly and indirectly,with the companies of Philips and Telefunken, whohave a detailed agreement in the radio businesscovering every international market, to reach an agreement... if the Hungarian government were to putadequate pressure on the German government torestrain the lobbying groups (Wirufa, Funkverband)from campaigning against the Tungsram tubes . . .then our prospects of selling tubes on the Germanmarket could be very good, which indirectly wouldalso improve the chances of a deal with Telefunkenand Philips to secure the growth of our radio valveexports for years." — Lipot Aschner, the chief executive,wrote these words to the deputy undersecretaryof state of the Trade Ministry on 20 February, 1934.As a result of the intervention, the company's prospectof selling radio valves in German improved considerably,which moved Telefunken to force Philips tocooperate with TUNGSRAM. (Between the two Europeancompanies had already existed some sort of acartel agreement called 'Wewag', which TUNGSRAMalso wished to join.)The representatives of the three companies laid downthe basic concepts of the radio valve agreement inChateau d'Ardenne on 14 July, 1934. It took anothertwo years before the cartel agreement known as'INRACO' (International Radio Valve Cooperation) wasfinally signed in Vienna on 5 July, 1936. To someextent the agreement favoured the two large cooperations,since they signed it as joint parties on the oneside, while the Hungarian company formed the soleparty on the other side. The IVRACO agreement ofPHOEBUS. Not all valve designs were covered, neitherwere photocells, mercury cathode tubes, cathode raytubes, gas filled controlled tubes, sound tubes synchronizedwith image etc. The agreement was signedto run retrospectively from 1 May, 1934 until 30 June,1945. Quotas for selling radio valves were determined,just as in the case of the Phoebus agreement. Theywere based on the sales figures of the parties between1 March, 1934 and 28 February, 1934. TUNGSRAM wasclearly at a disadvantage, as indicated by its quotabeing fixed at 12 percent, as opposed to the 88 percentjoint market share of the other two parties. However,the agreement enabled TUNGSRAM to increase itssales by 200,000 valves. The agreement did not coverFrance, England, Northern Ireland, the United States,Canada, Newfoundland, Cuba, Japan and the coloniesof these countries.The IVRACO agreement also brought about a certainamount of cooperation in the matter of patents andallowed the large-scale standardization of the valves,so the majority of the valves produced by the threecompanies could be used in all kinds of radio sets. Inaddition in the countries covered by the agreementTUNGSRAM was free from the pressure of having todevelop new radio valve designs. This freedom, however,had a price: the Ujpest factory agreed to pay tothe other two companies 5 percent license fee after itsproducts sold in the major European countries, and 2.5percent after the products sold elsewhere.The IVRACO deal and the agreement signed with RCAenabled TUNGSRAM to learn about the American

TUNGSRAM•.*-VV'74patents in the electronic vacuum tube industry and toobtain the necessary documentation. TUNGSRAMwas given no information about the European radiovalve designs and their production technology, since ithad no such agreement with Philips and Telefunken.This way the above mentioned companies were givena head start on the markets. TUNGSRAM only foundout about the new designs when the other two companieshad already developed the new constructions.Since radios were seasonal products and the Europeanpartners came up with new valves for the newradio sets nearly every year, TUNGSRAM was onlyable to start working on the development and productionof these new designs once these valves hadalready been out on the markets.The IVRACO agreementfailedto eliminatethecompetitionin other aspects, too. The radio valve cartel verymuch respected the interests of the American companieswhich first of all wanted to protect their domesticmarkets. Therefore, they exported considerablyless of their products than did Philips or TUNGSRAM,for whom export was absolutely crucial. (Not even theGerman Telefunken — which enjoyed monopoly in thedomestic market — was forced to fight over the foreignmarkets the way its other two partners had to, whocould only exploit their existing high productioncapacities by selling abroad what they could not sell ontheir small domestic markets.)Nearly simultaneously with the international cartelagreement the Hungarian factories, too, wanted tocome to a cartel type agreement. Orion (as anTUNGSRAM subsidiary). Standard, Telephone Factory,Engel Karoly (EKA) and Siemens first signed anagreement in 1933. Later Telefunken and Philips alsojoined this group with their Hungarian branches —probably influenced by the IVRACO deal. The Hungarianbranches marketed theirown designs — which hadbeen developed with the help of the parent companies,naturally. (When Philipsfounded a research laboratoryfor its new Budapest plant in 1935, the parent companyimmediately intervened and had it closed down.)The Hungarian cartel was formed to safeguard thefactories' interests: it regulated the retail price of radiosets, the conditions of sale, the retailers' trade allowance(rebate), the conditions of the hire-purchasesystem and the terms of the guarantee. In 1936 Orion,Philips, Standard and Telefunken also signed a cartelagreement regulating the production of goods. Thecartel agreement indirectly helped to raise the technicalstandard on the domestic front, bacause the cartelmembers annully informed each other of the majortechnical parameters of their new designs. In 1939,based on the agreement between the producers ofradio sets, a new radio design was launched whichused Tungsram valves and which, following the successof the German 'Volksfanger', catered for theaverage households. Its cheap price greatly contributedto the rapid growth of the radio subscribers, andeven if its production was not profitable, it helpedadvancing the production technology of both thevalves and the radios. The Hungarian radio cartel alsooffered other advantages to TUNGSRAM; for example.Philips was obliged to buy valves fromTUNGSRAM for its radios marketed in Hungary.During the mid-1930s the intense research and developmentwork continued in the radio valve industry.Since TUNGSRAM was only provided with the physicaldimensions and the electrical operating parametersof the new standardized valve series (in keepingwith the letter of the international cartel agreement)and the documentation of their production technologyusually arrived too late (if it arrived at all), naturally, theexperiments to develop valves which better suitedthese specifications continued in TUNGSRAM'Slaboratories.The so-called 'Allstroom' tubes, the heated universalradio valves arranged in series, running both onbatteries and mains, were completed in 1934 and werealso used in Orion radios. Then in 1938 TUNGSRAMannounced the E-series valve heated from 6.4 Volts,this time still marketed with a flattened shape.The efforts towards standardization and universalcompatibility already dominated the further constructions.In 1935 the valves of the A, C and K-series cameout. The cathodes of these designs could all be heatedfrom both batteries and the mains, D.C. or A.C.

75 TUNGSRAMBetween 1932 and 1935, following the research of Dr.Erno Winter, the company developed its anti-microphonicvalves and demonstrated the physics of thephenomenon known as grid emission. The patentsconcerning the reduction of grid emission by the noblemetal coating of the grid were soon applied all overtheworld.In 1936 the tuning in of a radio set to a particular stationwas still an elaborate procedure: those sets had 2—4knobs to fiddle with in order to achieve perfect reception.The so-called 'magic eyes' served to ease theproblem of tuning in to a frequency. The improvedversion of these 'magic eyes' were still world-famousin the 1950s. The quality of theTungsram 'magic eyes'placed them well ahead of the similar tubes producedby its European competitors.In the second half of the 1930s VHP radios became verypopular. Tube designs providing better VHP receptionwere studied all over the world. Beside the electricalimprovements, efforts were aimed at developing bettertube constructions and production technologies.The American and the European metal valve technology,the pure glass valves and, finally, the miniaturevalves were developed accordingly. "In the RadioValve Laboratory and the Test Production Departmentof TUNGSRAM we developed entire miniature valveseries already in 1937—1938 which were more advancedthan those coming out later" — Erno Winterremarked in 1954. — "Thesevalves, however, were notmarketed", he added. The so-called pure glass valves(series 21) were brought out in 1939. Their smalldimensions and the novelty of their entirely glassconstruction allowed to make further advances in thedesign of receivers, this way tracing out the valveindustry's future direction, so to speak. The pure glassseries took over the electrical parameters of the flatshapedE and U series, together with the advantagethat now it was possible to meet all the existing circuitrequirements using no more than four valves (ECH 21,EBL21,ADZ21 andEF22).This series revolutionized the production technology.Thanks to this series, the so-called flat-shaped glasstechnology taken over from the incandescent lampindustry became totally obsolote. The new technologybasically affected the internal construction of thevalves, allowing greater accuracy in assembling, aswell as the increased durability of the components.The introduction of the pure glass series took placeduring Jozsef Gabor's management. The new glasstechnology was developed by Mihaly Neumann, BelaReiss, Jeno Porubszky and Elemer Martinek.TUNGSRAM brought out its world-renowned batterypoweredradio receiving tubes as part of the pure glassseries. The tungsten cathode filament with the appropriatediameter, used for heating the valve, was developedby Pal Tury and Dr. Tivadar Millner, while theoxide cathode coating was designed by Erno Winter.The relations between reserch and production werenever without strains during the 1930s. The setting upof the Test Production Department and the improvementsin the factory organization brought some results,but the valve production between the two worldwars was always a tempestuous and more dynamicaffair then the incandescent lamp production. Followingthe increasing demands and the pace dictated bythe competition, the number of designs were alwaysgoing up.In a report written jointly by Jozsef Gabor and ErnoWinter in January, 1937 the authors observed that" .. .the designs are not allowed to became standard;it is Philips, more than any other company, which triesto reply to the challenge of the American tubes.TUNGSRAM has been dragged into this race byPhilips. We completed the development of all thedesigns, the E series included, only we did that at amuch reduced standard, compared to the oneachieved by Philips." (The report also argued for theneed to develop transmitting tubes.)In a later report, dated from 1941, Erno Winter himselfobserved that the Test Production Department was"unable to live up to the expectations". Philips andTelefunken brings out 10—15 designs annually, for theproduction of all of which the Test Production Departmentmust make preparations. "On top of this, the TestProduction Department would also have to establishup-to-date mass-production technologyforeach of the

TUNGSRAM 76new designs developed by the Radio Valve Laboratory."According to another report, also dated from 1941,Jozsef Gabor saw the root of all the problems in thefact that the number of the various tube designsreached the point where "it frustrates the rationalproduction".According to Gabor, there were less types of caps,bulbs and electrodes in the incandescent lamp manufacturing,while the volume of production was fargreater. Others thought that the situation was notmuch better in the incandescent lamp industry, either:the number of different types of lamps was put at 50 to60 thousand in 1940. Before the Second World Wartheoverwhelming majority of the electronic vacuumtubes were used in commercial radio sets, servingentertainment purposes. In the 1930s new areas ofapplication were discovered for the electronic vacuumtubes. The news about a new telecommunicationdevice called television reached Ujpest already in1932. In a memorandum written in September, 1932Ignac Pfeifer called Lipot Aschner's attention to DezsoLendvai was TUNGSRAM'S engiener delegated to theU.S. According to the report "...the first phase oftelevision experiments has been completed, as a resultof which it is now possible the receive quite primitivepictures by television sets developed right down tocommercial marketing."In the next few years there were frequent reports onthe growing popularity of televisions. The report of theAudion Export Department, dated 16 February, 1935,gave a detailed account of the television's developmentin Great Britain and the United States. Amongothers the report states: "The triumph of television hasa paramount bearing on our electronic vacuum tubeindustry... From the above mentioned facts it isevident that we must prepare, well in advance, for thebusiness potentials meant by television." The reportsuggests the setting up of a separate laboratory dealingwith televisions. This was, indeed, put into servicein March, 1937 with Karoly Czukor as its first manager,and Dr. Istvan Barta, Pal Terebesi, Kalman Mago andKalman Kincse as staff members. The laboratory waslocated on the second floor of the water-tower. It wasagreed that TUNGSRAM would be producing televisionsets. The first experimental television transmissiontook place on 21 June, 1937. The first transmittedpicture was a drawing of Mickey Mouse, the secondshowed the well-know Tungsram trademark, the letterT.The next experimental television transmission followedon 22 October of the same year, showing theportrait of Maxwell, the famous English physicist. Atthat time TUNGSRAM was very nearly up to the worldclass standard in the field of television technology. InEurope it was only Great Britain which had a dailythree-hour programme; in France the work continuedto install a TV station on top of the Eiffel tower, andGermany planned the start of the regular televisionbroadcasting in the autumn of 1938. The AmericanRCA proposed to sign an agreement with TUNGSRAMon television technology which would have coveredthe exchange of information on transmitting stationsand receiving sets. RCA also planned to send theirrepresentative to Hungary. It was the war preparationwhich interrupted the development of televisiontechnology and caused a serious setback.Immediately before, as well as during the war theareas of application were widened for radio valves:telecommunication set up for non-entertainment purposes,army equipment, etc. , 'TUNGSRAM wanted to follow the development inthese areas, too. The company carried out extensivework in the field of microwave technology. GyorgyDallos, the engineer who some years later sufferedmartyrdom, was the first to do experiments in thisdirection, to be joined by others later. The valves forthe first microwave two-way radio were built Winter,Szepesi and Budincsevics. Then a transmitter operatingon a wavelength of 58 cm was completed in 1941.Its output power of a few milliwatt was sufficient toestablish communications first with the Tungsramholiday camp and later, between Mount Naszaly andthe Research Laboratory.During the Second World War the military interestsdominated the development work. The Army ordered• . .. \

77 TUNGSRAM•'S „*'from the Laboratory — and from Zoltan Bay, personally— the development of a locator for artillery.Almost the entire Research Laboratory took part in thedevelopment which had to be kept in secret. Thetheoretical design work was done by Simonyi, Pappand Antai Soiyi; Istvanffy from Standard helped designingthe aerial, the transmitted was built by ZoltanSzepesi, and Gyorgy Dallos constructed the receiver.The first echoes of land targets were registered on 13April, 1943, but the device measuring the horizontalangle, the distance and the height of the targets wasstill to be designed and manufactured. The distancemeasuring device was built by Kalman Mago andPapp, based on the original idea of Zoltan Bay. Theartillery locator called Barbara was completed in 1944,although the army could already not make much use ofit.Those members of the Research Laboratory's staffwith an anti-German feeling — Zoltan Bay included —did not rush to complete the army orders. All of themwere more concerned with the scientific aspects of thearising problems. After the war they sent microwavesignals to the Moon from a radar working on 2.5 mwavelength which was constructed from the survivingbits of these locators. On 6 February, 1946, only a fewdays after the announcement of the experimentscarried out in the United States the same radar wasable to registerthe echoes of the signals.There were other types of experiments beside the onesmentioned already; for example. Pal Selenyi workedon the interesting subject of electrography. His results,however, were never put to any practical use. In thesecond half of the 1930s the methods of electrographywere also used in oscillographs, video-telephones andthe transmission of televised images, still and motionpictures alike. Meanwhile, however, other, more efficientmethods were developed for the same purposesand hence electrography remained a curiosity of thehistory of sciences. Scientific progress is not possiblewithout mistakes and deadends.The production of transmitting tubes began in theUjpest plant in 1933—1934. Beside the growing popularityof the radio amateur movement, there wasanother potential customer: Hungarian Postal Servicesconsidered to buy the valves for its relay stationsfrom Hungarian companies. Although in this case theisolationist tendencies seemed to favour TUNGSRAM,at the end the deal went to Philips, with the provisionthat the tubes had to be produced in Hungary. Despitemissing the order from the Hungarian Postal Service,the production of transmitting tubes continued inOjpest. Tubes worth 7—800 thousand Pengos weremanufactured in 1936—1937, some of them for export.By the end of the 1930s TUNGSRAM produced 10—12thousand transmitter tubes annually, coming in 30—35 designs. The annual production reached 33,200tubes in 1942, worth more than 2 million Pengos. Thenumber of designs fell dramatically in this yeaar andthe business was dominated by the Army orders. Theexport, primarily to neutral countries such as Switzerland,Sweden, Portugal, Finland and Spain, continued.TUNGSRAM'S experts saw great future in the productionof transmitting tubes. In 1943 they calculatedthat after the war there would be some 10 thousandcivil airports in Europe, all of which would requiretransmitting tubes in the millions. TUNGSRAM wasalso involved in the production of tubes used in microwavemedical equipment.The Further Advance of theTUNGSRAM CorporationThe worldwide economic recession between 1929 and1933 did not effect TUNGSRAM as much as it did thecompanies in to other sectors of the economy. This isunderlined by such facts as the purchase of Coal Minesof Ajka,the building of the Krypton Factory of Ajka, theestablishment of the mechanized glass factory inUjpest and the further expansion and development ofthe foreign sales agencies and factories.a) The Founding of the Krypton Factoryand the Power Plant of AjkaIn the previous chapter we have already pointed out on

TUNGSRAM-.^.•.v=78more than one occasion that at the tinne of inventingthe krypton lamp TUNGSRAM was still a long wayaway from the mass-production of the new lamps.Imre Brody already knew — and we have pointed thisout also — that the key to the problem lied in theindustrial production of adequately priced krypton.One precondition of the industrial krypton productionwas the founding of TUNGSRAM'S own krypton factory.We also discussed that the so-called 'gas group'was willing to equip a factory in Hungary producingkrypton as the primary output. The production ofkrypton required a great deal of electrical energy,because for the separation of just one liter of kryptonfrom air through a procedure called 'washing' onemillion liters of air had to be pushed through the cycle.In order to be able to secure cheap electrical energyneeded for the production — and, partially, also tospeed up the negotiations with the 'gas group' —TUNGSRAM bought Coal Mines of Ajka, for 3,268,786Pengos. This vertical expansion also ended the longbattle which was waged between TUNGSRAM and thecoal mines for years on account of the high price ofcoal, its poor quality making it unsuitable for gasificationand the high cost of transportation caused bydelivering the coal from distant mines.The coal mines of Ajka had been producing goodquality coal (3600 calories on average) since 1868.Their daily output at the time of the purchase was 130wagons, but there was capacity for more. The pit inPadrag was opened in 1943, and with that the dailyproduction already reached 200 wagons. Another factalso featured in the decision to buy Coal Mines of AjkaCorp., namely the additional power plant which hadtwo-third of its capacity immediately available forproviding electrical energy to TUNGSRAM'S plannedkrypton factory. The purchase also solved the problemof finding location for the krypton factory, since the1000 kW power consumption of the factory could bemet locally.The German Linde company undertook the design ofthe factory, delivered and the installed the machineryand provided the technical documentation necessaryfor the operation of the machines. On behalf ofTUNGSRAM Janos Levai, Tibor Mihalovits, Egon Orowan(outside expert), Imre Brody and the architectDezso Antal took part in the work.The factory had the following major economicalparameters: 36.7 kWh/1 krypton-xenon, daily productionof 560—580 liters at a unit cost of 1.26 P/1krypton-xenon. The factory started the production in1937. This was the world's first operational kryptonfactory. (Although Air Liquide's factory had been builtearlier, it was closed down for the regular occurrenceof explosions.) The total investment of setting up thefactory was 1,847,000 Pengos; from this the factorybuildings cost 441,000 Pengos, and the equipment,1,252,000 Pengos. TUNGSRAM had seven blocks offlats built for its workers next to the factory.TUNGSRAM invested a total of more than factory.TUNGSRAM invested a total of more than four and ahalf million Pengos in the two enterprises connectedwith the production of krypton (the krypton factory andthe coal mine), not counting the costs of the experimentsand other relevant expenses, such as the highpressurekrypton purification, the development of themachinery producing bulbs and lamp, etc. :- .,The performance of the krypton plant of Ajka did notlive up to the expectations in the first few years. Therewere constant disputes with Linde, the company deliveringthe equipments, about the quality of the kryptonand other problems. The major source of these argumentslay in the fact that the German company,referring to patent agreements, did not give access toTUNGSRAM'S experts to study the workings of themost important equipment. They had their permanentrepresentative in Ajka who called out Linde's ownmechanics from Germany for the occasional breakdowns.Continuous production started in the krypton factoryin the spring of 1938. Its output in May totalled 12m^ofkrypton. They were only able to get 0.851 krypton from1000 m^ air, which was less than expected. The energyneeded to produce one liter of krypton was 44.6 kWh.By the autumn of 1938 the plant was runningsmoothly. The monthly production reached 17.5 m^,corresponding to the planned annual performance.

79 TUNGSRAMThe resulting krypton was filled in bottles in Ajka andsent to Ujpest. The engineer Tibor Mihalkovits, whowas appointed by TUNGSRAM to act as technicalsupervisor, greatly contributed to the smooth operationof the plant. In close cooperation with the companymanagement he succeeded in forcing Linde toamend the faults and, working together with ImreBrody, he came up with a new method of producingkrypton. The old power plant of the mine could onlymeet the energy needs of the krypton factory temporarily,an additional factory which was on the cardsat the time. Therefore, TUNGSRAM embarked on thebuilding of a modern power plant with an annualcapacity of 250 kWh energy already in 1938. Thekrypton factory of Ajka would not have needed thismuch energy, so it was suggested that those units ofthe factory which required a lot of electrical energy (forexample, the planned electrical glass furnaces of theglass factory) should be moved to Ajka, also. (Therewas even an experimental electrical glas furnace operatedwith direct current in the Ujpest glass factory.) Butthe plan was discarded and other electricity consumerswere found to utilize the suplus energy capacity.TUNGSRAM started talks first with Aluminium OreMining and Industry Co. Ltd. and later, with HungarianBauxite Mining Co. Ltd. in order to find buyers for itssurplus electrical energy. Both these companies hadsizeable bauxite mines in the counties of Fejer andVeszprem and now wanted to establish alumina factoriesand aluminum furnaces which also needed a lotof electrical energy, possibly at a low price. In 1940 —almost three years after that the krypton factory hadstarted producing — a deal was made by TUNGSRAMand Hungarian Bauxite Mining Co. Ltd. about the saleof an annual 210 kWh of electrical energy. After signingthe deal the building of the power plant began on a siteof 96,000 hectares (1 hectare = 2,471 acres). A sum of28 million Pengoswas budgeted forthe building of thepower plant and the related pit of Padrag. According tothe plans, the first block of the power plant would havebeen running in November, 1942. The governmentalso helped financing the project with 18 millionPengos, bearing in mind the strategic importance ofthe industry. The boilers were designed by the Swisscompany Sulzer and some of the accessories werealso delivered by the same company. The boilers usedpowdered coal for fuel; their heat-exchange wasbased on radiation. The boilers were made from asingle molybdenum steal rod, and had their maximumpressure set at 80 atmosphere and maximum temperatureat 530 'C. This was the first high-pressure boilerplant in Hungary. Sulzer was represented in Hungaryby the engineer Laszio Heller. Nevertheless, LipotAschner invited Heller to direct the design and theconstruction of the power plant as an outside expert.Representing the company, Istvan Gyarfas, TiborMihalovits and Gyula Viola took part in the work.The coal-dust mills and the high-pressure turbo supplypumps were also purchased from abroad. Because ofthe war, the majority of the goods already arrived late,but the captiousness of the Hungarian officials madethings even worse: the appointed (and incompetent)government representative, always surrounded withgendarmes, was himself the cause of a number oftechnical blunders. So, it is only understandable thatthe contruction work dragged on and the expenseswere constantly going up. As a result of concertedefforts, the first boiler was at last operating in February,1943, three months after the original deadline.The second boiler, however, was not working untilMarch, 1944, and neither was the turbo generator. Thepower generator started working in 1943, althoughbarely half of the planned power was produced: 100kWh. The construction costs had reached 34 millionPengos by early 1943, even though the inflationbrought on by the war also contributed to that.The power plant was only completed after the SecondWorld War. • . .• • • ^b) The Building of the Mechanized Glass Factoryin UjpestThe increased incandescent lamp and radio valveproduction required an increase in the production ofthe necessary glassware.Before 1932 TUNGSRAM brought the necessaryglassware parts from its glass factories in Tokod and

TUNGSRAM 80Ujantalvolgy (Utekac), and partly from the factories ofInwald in Mossbrunn, Austria, and Osram inWeisswasser, Germany. The glass factories of Tokodand Ujantalvolgy primarily produced blown, pressedand ornamental glassware under the direction of suchdistinguished .experts as Jeno Eggenhoffer, VilmosFrommel, Jeno Schlisz, to name but a few. Bothfactories had very good furnace staff and glass-blowers.The lead-glass tubes and rods, the back insulatingglass rods and grits and the various special and hardglass components were bought from outside theconcern, from the already mentioned Austrian andGerman companies. The company, therefore, wasalways exposed to the danger of its competitors'exploiting the situation, either through price policy ordesign strategy. It did not come as a surprise then thatTUNGSRAM'S management decided in 1930 to widenits glass manufacturing. They expected this way to freethe capacity of the existing manual glass furnaces forthe production, of the special bulb designs which couldnot be produced on machines. By setting up amechanized glass factory in Ujpest the quite substantialtransportation costs could also be reduced. Still inthe summer of 1930 TUNGSRAM bought from Osraman American-built machine capable of producing70,000 glass balloons a day. This machine was called'Ivanhoe' and it had been working in Osram's plant inSiemestadt. TUNGSRAM also bought Osram's automaticglass tube drawing machine of a type calledDanner. Lipot Aschner made a deal whereby Osramwould be providing professional assistance throughoutthe design of the Ujpest glass factory and wouldalso help in the training of the Hungarian staff. Thedesign of the furnaces would be done by the Germanfactory's team specialized in building furnaces, underthe guidance of Professor Gelhof, Osram's glassphysics, chemistry and technology expert.In 1930, after signing the agreement, work on thedesign of the glass factory's building began, while theconstruction work started in September of still thesame year, using bauxite cement in the fashion of theage. (This construction method led to the ripping out ofa railing and the death of a young worker.)Simultaneously with the construction work, a delegationwas sent to Germany to study the productiontechnology on the spot. Janos Levai was appointed tocoordinate and direct the whole project.The glass factory was built up in one year, costing4,200,000 Pengos, but the start of production wasdelayed until 1932. Although the Hungarian staff of theUjpest glass factory immediately manufactured glassbulbs with the required precision, the glass material ofthe bulbs became so full of bubbles after a few days ofoperation that is was not suitable for light bulbs. Theproblem of setting things right was further frustratedby the fact that the German professor had died in themeantime, leaving TUNGSRAM'S staff on their own toface the difficulties. Even the American experts of IGECwere unable to add anything to the analysis of thehome staff, even enlisting the expertise of the chemicalengineer Dr. Oszkar Knapp. They came to theconclusion that the problems arose from the separateheating of the melting area and the work area of thefurnace, as well as from the arrangement of theconnecting channel below the bottom surface of thetwo areas. This arrangement slowed down the flow ofglass between the two tubs and, as a result, the airbubbles of the glass in the work tub were created bythe automatic suction heads of the glass blower,staining the glass bulbs. After rectifying the faults, theproduction of the mechanized glass factory becamestabilized, so much so that TUNGSRAM was unable torun itto full capacity. But since theproductionwasonlypossible with fully utilized furnaces, and since the workforce also had to be engaged continuously, the companyprepared for the manufacturing of new products.The company first started producing water-glass forthe paper- and the textile-industry, then it attempted tomanufacture chemo-resistant glass tubes for medicalpurposes. These were later turned into ampules byHungarian Tungsten Incandescent Lamp Factory —the company which in the meantime had gone into thepossession of TUNGSRAM.•'••'•^(w,'i

81 TUNGSRAMc) Further Stages in the Growth of the CorporationBeside strengthening its position vertically,TUNGSRAM also worked continuously to improve itsstanding both within the increasingly prosperous incandescentlamp cartel and in the domestic markets.The famous Viennese incandescent lamp and radiofactory Joh. Kremeneczky A.G. nearly went bankruptduring the economic depression of 1929—1933. Theexecutives of TUNGSRAM were of the opinion that byacquiring the Viennese factory they could take over itsquota in PHOEBUS, while also ridding themselves ofan annoying competitor in the domestic incandescentlamp and radio market.It was TUNGSRAM'S Viennese subsidiary. Watt A.G.,which formally bought the Kremenetzky factory in1930. (The Kremenetzky name and trademark had sucha good ring on the international markets that evenWatt A.G. switched to using the Kremenetzky nameuntil 1942.)The Hungarian Tungsten Factory Ltd., which manufacturedand marketed the Orion radios in Hungary,formally retained its independence in spite of thechange in its ownership; nevertheless, there wereconsiderable changes in the structure of its productprofile. The manufacturing of incandescent lampscontinued, although at a much reduced intensity.While in 1931 the production of incandescent lampsstill reached 2.4 million pieces, only 1.5 million wereproduced in the next year. The production of incandescentlamps then stayed roughly at this level right untilthe end of World War Two. The Orion, the Watt and theFerrowatt designs were not stopped, either; suchtrademarks were retained by the Tungsram corporation.By taking over TUNGSTEN Factory Ltd. cartelquota TUNGSRAM was entitled to use thesetrademarks.The increased production of radios meant the greatestchange in the life of Magyar Wolframgyar Rt. Egyesiiltizzo — that is now TUNGSRAM — delivered the radiovalves for these radios. It also delivered parts to theHungarian Tungsten Factory started producing thealready mentioned ampules to make up for productionlost elsewhere; then in 1937 it began to producethermos flasks. The machinery for both new productswere delivered by TUNGSRAM'S Machine Works, andthe necessary glass material, by its glass factory.Hungarian Tungsten Factory Ltd., despite being asubsidiary itself, began to expand in the 1940s. Itbought Remix Electrical Ltd. for 400,000 Pengos in1941. This factory produced electrical components(resistors, capacitors, etc.) for radios in its TuzoltoStreet plant, exporting about 60 percent of its production.It employed approximately 260 people in theyear of the purchase. The organizing talents of MiklosFodor, one of the one-time owners of Remix, provedvery valuable to TUNGSRAM in other projects of thecorporation (for example, the building of the PowerPlant of Ajka). Remix also retained its formal independence'after1941.Hungarian Tungsten Factory Ltd. — again, with thehelp of TUNGSRAM — bought the Francia Street plantof Enamel-, Metal-ware and Electrical Factory ofBudafok and also, the shares of an electrical companycalled Agrolux Ltd. (previously known as Hajos andSzanto Electrical Company).In 1941 TUNGSRAM acquired the majority of theshares of the glass factory of Feketeerdo, in the countyof Bihar (now in Rumania). Then in 1943, by acquiringinterests in the Glass Factory of Zagyvapalfalva,TUNGSRAM secured the leadership of the entire Hungarianglass industry.In the years that followed the economic depression theisolationist tendencies dominated the economy ofEurope, but one might even add, of the whole world,also. International trading was, of course, at a low ebb.The isolationist tendencies also meant that a significantnumber of the countries moved in the direction ofself-sufficient economy, making the import of completeproducts more difficult and, at the same time,agreeing to the import of parts more readily. Theisolationist tendencies in the incandescent lamp industryresulted in the proliferation of companies outsidethe cartel. Even PHOEBUS's efforts were insufficientto reserve this process and the cartel members.

TUNGSRAM 82case of radio valve factories, radio valves, whoseimport was not permitted or was not rentable onaccount of the high custom duties.Such a divergence in the company's profile broughtabout the development of the machine works inUjpest, specializing in the manufacturing of machinesused in incandescent lamp manufacturing. What oncehad been an in-house workshop, now became one ofTUNGSRAM'S fundmental branches.To give an idea of the size of the TUNGSRAM Corporation,we present a table showing the break-down of itswork-force (30 April, 1929):FactoryUjpestJoh. Kremenetzky,ViennaHungarian TungstenFactory Ltd.MilanWarsawTillburgLondonBucharestParisGlass factory,KlaraUtekacGlass Factory TokodTotal work-forceCoal Mines of AjkaTungsram salesagenciesA grand total ofofficeworkers80823212739722735601287141,572302501,852workers426412257035619881129651226318608,356970739,399total50721457830952701081641252506388749,9281,00032311,251Asa result of the new acquisitions, the total number ofworkers employed by the corporation had reached13,846 by January, 1943, giving a further increase of 20percent.The subsidiaries and branches constituted a complexorganization. Every company retained its share companystructure enjoyed prior to joining the corporation,and even the foreign agencies were reorganizedinto formall independent companies. This striving forindependence was explained by the rising nationalistmood exhibited in the various countries. To tackle thenationalist tendencies, such organizational structureswere formed which made the foreign branches financiallyinterested in one another; for example, theYugoslavian sales agencies and assembly plants wererun as if they had been the subsidiaries of theTungsram factory in Zurich. j wIn the growing isolationist mood the transfer of profitfrom the subsidiaries to the parent company becameincreasingly more difficult. This difficulty was bridgedby license agreements concerning various patentsowned by the Ujpest factory, as well as other agreementsabout certain consultation fees due toTUNGSRAM, drawn up first between the assemblyplants and TUNGSRAM and later between the assemblyplants and Swiss holding company set up just forthis purpose. Then the Swiss company used theproceeds to buy basic materials on the internationalmarkets. This source of acquisition enabledTUNGSRAM to continue with its production throughtherefore,other ways of securing their markets had tobe found.To adapt to the new circumstances, TUNGSRAM, likethe rest of the large international companies, set upfactories (assembly units, more precisely) workingbeside its existing, registered and legally independent,foreign branches which, in fact, were sales agencies, incertain cases these moves were connected to theruthless competition against the great opponents onthe market. When the Dutch company Philips boughtshares in Hungarian businesses, TUNGSRAM respondedby acquiring a small Dutch company. RadiumTillburg, and turned it into a radio valve and incandescentlamp assembly unit. Later this company evenmoved into radio manufacturing. An incandescentlamp factory (assembly plant) was established inMilan in 1930, a radio valve factory in London in 1934,another incandescent lamp factory in Bucharest in1936, an incandescent lamp factory in Bratislava and aradio valve factory in Paris in 1937, and an incandescentlamp assembly unit, again, in Paris in 1939. The

83 TUNGSRAMWarsaw branch added the assembling of radio valvesto its list of products in 1938; two factories went intothe possession of TUNGSRAM in Yugoslavia, in Zagreband Panchova, specializing in the assembly ofincandescent lamps, and then came the setting up ofthe factory in Belgrade. The establishing of assemblyunits were on the cards in Argentina, Switzerland,Sweden, Egypt and Turkey. A large part of the machineryfor the Argentine factory had already beencompleted, when the war came and ruined the plans.The listed factories all had production capacities in theneighbourhood of 2 million incandescent lamps or, inthe case of the radio valve factories, between 300,000and 700,000 tubes.All the foreign branches were fitted with machinerybuilt in Ojpest and — wherever the law of that countrypermitted — were provided with parts and technologyimported from Ojpest, working under the guidance ofthe technical staff, again, delegated from Ojpest. Theirproduction, both in volume and structure, entirelyfollowed the directions issued in Ojpest. Most of thetimes these factories produced normal lamps or, in theout the war. In 1941 TUNGSRAM'S Ojpest plant hadenough copper to last three years, its tungsten supplywas enough for five years, nickel and molybdenumenough for two years, tin for four years, etc.The Production and Trade Figures ofthe Company from the First Year of theDepression until the End of World WarTwoThe famous Wall Street Crash broke out in New Yorkon 24 October, 1929. It marked the beginning of aworldwide economic depression. The crisis did notacknowledge geographical barriers or national borders:it soon spread to Europe. As a result of theDepression, masses of goods became unmarketable,prices rapidly fell, industrial production took a nosedive and mass-unemployment followed. The Depressionwas very acutely felt in Hungary, too. The situationwas especially bad in the agriculture and theindustry, first of all in the heavy industry, whereproduction fell by more than half. Atthesametime,thefood industry and some other companies, mostlyproducing consumer's goods, were slightly less hurtby the Depression.TUNGSRAM also belonged to those companies whichproduced consumer's goods and, therefore, were lesssusceptible to the effects of the Depression of 1929—1933. The opening phrases of the report prepared foraboard meeting assessing the company's performancein the fiscal year of 1930—1931 described the company'sgrave situation throughout these difficultyears: "The economic crisis has been felt in almostevery country, where we are present on the marketwith our products, unfavourably affecting our trade.We have been only able to achieve sales figuresapproaching last year's performance, because wecould further develop some of our recently introducedbusiness projects."The second sentence in this report refers to the factthat, while the volume of production significantly fellin the incandescent lamps business, the production ofradio valves rose.Year192919301931193219331934incandescent lampsproduction in pieces22,157,00023,429,00012,970,00010,194,00011,084,00015,670,000radio valves642,0001,123,0001,936,0001,834,0001,611,0002,345,000It is evident from the table that the two charts showquite a different story. While incandescent lamp productionfell by 60 percent in 1932, as compared to therecord figures of 1930, the volume of radio valveproduction grew year after year until 1931 — it trebledin two years! — and, following a two-year long slightsetback, rose to a new record in 1934, crossing thetwo-million valve barrier. . .,

TUNGSRAM 84Behind the drastic drop of incandescent lamp productionthere was also a certain amount of speculationon the part of TUNGSRAM'S management. While thestocks were piling up in almost every branch ofindustry during the Depression, in the same periodTUNGSRAM significantly reduced its stocks, bothhome and abroad, by holding back production. In 1930TUNGSRAM had 16,383,000 incandescent lamps inTUNGSRAM stock; by 1934 it had only 7,043,000. It istypical of TUNGSRAM'S business performance that itspublished figure showed a profit even in the years ofthe Depression. The profits went as follows:and another one, the new mass-production block (No.36) which accommodated the extended radio valveproduction, as well as the new Machine Glass Worksand the Recreational Centre. In orderto provide centrallocation for its warehouses and offices, TUNGSRAMbought the Eotvos Street plant in the 6th District, andalso established a swimming pool and a rowing clubby the banks of river Danube, straight across theUjpest plant. These new developments significantlyadded to the value of the company's fixed assets. In therecords the value of the factory sites, buildings andequipment went as follows:Fiscal yearProfit (in Pengos)1929-19301930-19311931-19321932-19331933-19341934^19353,897,7603,991,0983,527,2932,719,9811,380,6841,486,034Fiscal year1920-19301930-19311931-19321932-1933Profit sum in Pengos14,675,00016,320,00020,076,00023,226,428Analyzing the profits we must bear in mind that, as aconsequence of TUNGSRAM'S peculiar position, itsbusiness performance was only reflected in the bookswith a one- or two-year delay. It was the final clearingupof the PHOEBUS accounts, which took longer thanusual, although the accounts of the foreign branchescould not be completed until after the end of the givenfiscal year, either. This was how the company couldshow the largest profit in the worst year of theDepressison in 1930—1931, and the smallest — barely40 percent of the previous profits — in the years of theeconomic recovery!In drawing the balance of the company's actual performanceduring the Depression we must also take intoconsideration the new investments TUNGSRAMrealized in the corporation in these years. It bought theViennese company, Joh. Kremenetzky in 1930—1931,and significantly expanded the Ujpest plant. The companybegan the construction work on the new headquartersof the Research Laboratory in 1929, a threestoreybuilding was completed (No. 37.) for Standard,The increase in the company's wealth invested in fixedassets was nearly 9 million Pengos within these fewyears, giving an almost 58 percent growth.The company presumably financed these significantadditions from its reserves stashed away in, the previousyears and cleverly concealed from the records.This business policy — and the generally improvingeconomic environment — brought about, from themid-1930s on, another boom in the company's performance,which lasted right until World War Two. Thegeneral economic boom which resulted from thepreparation for war from the mid-1930s onward didnot help TUNGSRAM much, since it was hardly at allinvolved in the production of war materials. On theother hand, the isolationist tendencies, also loominglarge at the time, had an unfavourable influence onTUNGSRAM'S trade. Nevertheless, the company wasable to maintain its position both on the domestic andthe foreign markets.

. •85 TUNGSRAMThe profits of the next few years are shown in thefollowing table:Fiscal year1934-19351935-19361936-19371937-19381938-19391939-19401940-19411041-19421942-19431943-1944(Profits in Pengos)1,486,0341,777,3192,262,8802,248,0912,392,7712,539,8852,534,5293,514,9954,338,0384,721,562Tungsram's profits continued going up every year inthis decade, too. This was so in spite of the fact that thecompany also continued to invest in this period at thesame rate as it had done previously. This was the timewhen the krypton factory was built, the coal mines ofAjka went into the company's possession, the powerplant of Ajka was established and several foreignbranches were set up, beside the permanent constructionwork in the Ujpest plant. The cost of all theseinvestments was about one million Pengos each year.In the 1930s the company also bought large pieces ofland. In 1937—1938 it bought from the Karoiyi familyan approximately 43,000 square fathom (1 sf = 38.32square foot estate complete with buildings includingthe inn of Megyer. Certain chemicals — fluoride acid,colloidal cotton, etc. — were stored here. TUNGSRAMalso bought nearly 6,000 "square fathom" of land fromthe Franciscan Order in 1940. Before the said purchasesTUNGSRAM and its subsidiaries owned nearly360.6 cadastral yokes (1 cadastral yoke - 1.42 acres)of land home and abroad.The next table shows the company's wealth investedin fixed assets (factory sites, buildings and equipment):Fiscal year1933-19341934-1935193&-19361936-19371937-19381938-19391939-19401940-19411941-19421942-19431943-1944Total in Pengos23,450,79323,860,000

TUNGSRAM• > . ^86In 1937, for the first time since the Depression, theincandescent lamp production reached the twentymillion barrier, never to fall below that mark again.In the late 1930s the incandescent lamp productionhad the following breakdown:Lamp designs* Normal vacuumlampsNormal gas-filledlampsuptolOOWlamps from 150 WFestoon lampsSpecial lampsPearl sealed lampsGlow lampsKrypton lampsA total ofFisca1937-19386,132,168.• '7,789,564958,258162,5224,327,2263,091,33913,1282,675,69425,149,899year1938-19394,906,9347,620,0971,008,830162,8233,394,7911,874,80244,8974,718,94323,732,117Looking at the table the sudden growth of the kryptonlamp production, going up by nearly 80 percent withinone year, becomes evident.According to the scedule, in 1937 the production of 9.2million incandescent lamps were targeted in the first 4months of that year; furhter 6.5 million lamps were tobe manufactured in the summer months — betweenMay and August —, and in the remaining 4 monthsanother 9.3 million lamps would complete the roundfigureof that year's total of 25 million lamps. ' j ^The variety of designs shown in TUNGSRAM'S productionwas matched by the fluctuating intensity of theirmanufacturing throughout the year. Generally, threeperiods were distinguished within each year.The reason for this was that the quality of the lampsproduced during the summer heat was inferior to thatof the lamps manufactured in the cooler months. Forthis reason, and also to protect the health of theworkers, in that period the factory only ran for sevenhours a day, or 35 hours a week, since only maintenancework was done on Saturdays. The productionpeaked in December and in the following couple ofmonths. Experience showed that the "cheapest andthe best quality lamps were produced' in thosemonths. The cooling air had a lowertemperature in thewinter months, allowing to fill the lamps to a higherpressure. The workers' productivity was lower duringthe summer months, in the inefficiently cooled and oftoo low clearance work halls.The incandescent lamps were being marketed primarilywithin the framework of PHOEBUS in this period,too. The cartel's trading was also hurt by the Depression,as it can be seen from the trade figures ofTUNGSRAM:Year193019311934193519361937Number of lamps sold19,616,00013,045,00016,430,000 "• '.18,223,00021,600,00027,361,000The table clearly indicates that the trading did notreach the level of business done in the first year of theDepression until 1937. The trade figures could haveeven been better, had the company always been ableto meet its inflated quotas during the mid-1930s. (Forexample, in 1935 TUNGSRAM missed its quota by 2.5million lamps TUNGSRAM'S quota came to 10.13percent of the cartel's total business in 1939.The company's export had the following break-downone the international market in 1936:.V,

-»v^,87 TUNGSRAMCountryAustriaBelgiumBrazilThe NetherlandsItalySpainIndiaCeylonSouth AfricaOther AfricansGuayanaMaltaCyprusMauritiusAdenAlbaniaBulgariaBohemiaSyriaAngolaIraqMozambiqueTanguanyikaEgyptPalestineRumaniaHungaryLamps291,6571,047,5002,692247,589595,49026,221409,3521,216211,59111,2149111,0143,21312,2343,8716,517112,8331,250,6033,689771666,036239,869114,6212,006,0063,000,965CountryChinaGermanyFranceSwedenSwitzerlandTurkeyPortugalMadeira is!.ArgentieCongoBoliviaColumbiaEcuadorIranPeruThailandUruguayVenezuelaDanzigEstoniaDenmarkFinlandGreeceLithuaniaNorwayPolandPhilippinesYugoslaviaLamps36,9126,962,0131.128„20239,790501,709269,09016,1511,692323,2831,1129,10081,56820,50843,97084,47033,942177,28919,51016,8529,272171,033700232,206148594,557411,44937,447682,653A total 21,514,665Approximately 79 percent of the above was the shareof the TUNGSRAM companies, roughly 11 percentoriginated from the Kremenetzky factories and theremaining 10 percent was bought from other companies.Osram, for example, contributed to the Germansales with 1,621,000 lamps. On the other hand,TUNGSRAM also helped out other cartel memberswith deliveries to meet their allocated quotas. Thesearrangements were to the advantage of both parties. Theholder of the quota saved money on the cost oftransportation and the lamps were still sold with itstrademark. From the published list it is evident that thelamps bearing the Tungsram trademark reachednearly every country in the world — not in equalvolume, of course. By the end of the 1930s the cartel'strading, and TUNGSRAM'S quota in it, had grownsignificantly. Concurrently with the expansion of thecorporation, TUNGSRAM'S foreign subsidiaries increasinglyshared in the growing sales.The complete incandescent lamp trade of the corporationis shown in the next table, showing the contributionof the various members of the corporation.Corporation memberTUNGSRAM, BudapestJ. Kremenetzky, ViennaRadium,TillburgHungarian Tungsten FactoryOthersubsidiariesA total ofThe total exportSales in HungaryCorporation memberTUNGSRAM, BudapestJ. Kremenetzky, ViennaRadium,TillburgHungarian Tungsten FactoryOthersubsidiariesA total ofThe total exportSales in Hungary1939-194027,909,9206,359„576515,7651,456,0105,437,15841,678,42936,385,9475,292,4821941-194226,600,1396,079,311192,2921,585,1736,701,16241,159,07733,433,9147,725,1631940-194123,011,5605,456,220129,7971,166,7604,533,42634,297,76327,632,5056,665,2581942-194325,643,6865,176,664191,0551,641,8586,229,01439,422,27731,688,1887,734,089The table clearly shows that in the years just beforeand during the war basically there was no change inthe production of the corporation, neither in the volumeof its export; it was only the destination of the

TUNGSRAM-.^••V88export which changed. The export sales to neutralcountries went up — to Switzerland, Sweden, Portugaland Turkey. As a consequence of Hungary's provisionalterritorial gains, the domestictrade of incandescentlamps increased significantly (by two millionlamps, roughly). The fact that the import of incandescentlamps to Hungary was practically non-existingalso helped to bring about such an increase. In 1941TUNGSRAM managed to come to an agreement withits domestic competition outside the cartel, which hademerged in the meantime, on how the domesticmarket should be divided up. The agreement guaranteedthe following quotas to the other four companies:Factories1. Zwack and AssociateMrs. S.Stommer,Merkur IncandescentLamp FactoryLaszio PrerovszkyEterna Rt., KolozsvarA total ofUnits379,000375,000365,000241,0001,360,000It was also agreed that TUNGSRAM would deliver thenecessary parts to these four companies; moreover, itwas decided that ".. .the much reduced prices whichresulted form the several-year-long price war shouldbe brought to a uniform level".In fact, the agreement signed in 1941 meant the settingup of a domestic incandescent lamp cartel whichreaffirmed TUNGSRAM'S position in the domesticmarket.From the above table it is apparent that the number ofradio valves produced by TUNGSRAM stabilized atover two million after the mid-1930s, only exceeding 3million in 1936. We do not have a complete breakdownby designs of the company's radio valve production. In1941, for example, approximately 250 designs wereproduced on eight machine lines, or ten, if we includethose produced in the Test Production Department. Toavoid the frequent switch-overs, one machine linegenerally produced no more than four designs in amonths. This method, however, required that thestocks of each design be kept at a high level. The radiovalve stock fluctuated at about one million pieces eachyear.The radio valve cartel founded in 1934, which guaranteeda market for each of its members, undoubtedlyhelped to stabilize the sale and the production of radiovalves. The cartel only covered a smaller portion of theworld, but TUNGSRAM made a separate agreementwith the IRAVCO members, concerning the British,French and Spanish markets. Otherwise,TUNGSRAM'S share of the cartel's total sales came to12.28 percent, and the Tungsram valves reached everycornerof the world.In the first ten month of the fiscal year of 1937—1938the sale of electronic vacuum tubes in the variouscountries went as follows: , ^^CountryArgentinaAustraliaBulgariaBelgiumNorwayAuatriaPolandPortugalBrazilDenmarkGermany '•'" -aff--,:.Finland -• ,.The NetherlandsIrelandItalyYugoslaviaAfrican countriesRumaniaThe Soviet UnionSweden--^Valves112,7832,19317,400163,52350,207111,067171,5381,5712,149129,2581 194,63327,20659,4632,42968,88449,43522998,47619110,561

89 TUNGSRAMCountryValvesCorporation member1941-19421942-1943SwitzerlandBohemiaHungaryNumber of valves soldwithin IVRACO's territory:a total ofNumber of valves soldoutside IVRACO's territory:FranceSpainEnglandA total of54,748166,966144,5381,741,276961,43622,280751,9913,475,393By the end of the fiscal year of 1937—1938TUNGSRAM had fulfilled its quota and sold 2,932,000valves within the IVRACO territories.From the next table we can see that the total productionof the corporation exceeded three million valvesin each but one year. At the same time, the overalltrend pointed downward, and it was especially apparentin the case of the parent company's production.The import restrictions which followed from the wartimes, greatly contributed to this fall-off. At the sametime, the domestic trade of radio valves nearly doubled.This could be traced back to the effects of boththe territorial gains mentioned earlier and the importrestrictions operated by Hungary.Corporation memberTUNGSRAM, BudapestJ.Kremenetzky,ViennaRadium,TillburgHungarian Tungsten FactoryOthersubsidiariesA total ofSales in Hungary1939-19403,172,154303,61076,056207,93142,2213,800,972328,6721940-19412,223,258246,50896,129242,0254,1402,803,060353,439TUNGSRAM, BudapestJ. Kremenetzky, ViennaRadium,TillburgHungarian Tungsten FactoryOthersubsidiariesA total ofSales in Hungary2,128,834443,956203,977232,760581,7313,591,259863,4491,888,695539,715164,489251,782561,3053,405,986775,203In 1943 the domestic sales of radio valves continued togo up, reaching nearly one million (954,300, to beexact). Two major factors had contributed to thisgrowth.More than 200,000 valves were sold to the army, ofwhich Standard, alone, bought 174,000. The numberof tubes sold to operate the imported radio sets alsowent up: 100,000 valves were boughtfor Philips radiosand 36,000 for Telefunken radios. The Orion radios ofHungarian Tungsten Factory required 270,000 valves.The business figures and achievements we have outlinedso far almost completely conceal the hardshipsimposed by World War Two. The corporation sufferedvery serious losses during the war. The Warsawbranch was nearly completely obliterated, when Germanyoverran Poland in 1939. The Yugoslavian factoriessuffered very heavy damages in 1941. Thecompanies in Great Britain were declared enemyproperty and were taken over by the government. Itwas getting increasingly difficult to continue with theexport; on several occasions the deliveries got lost orwere bombed on the way. There were problems withthe supply of materials, although the stocks which hadbeen filled up in the previous years assured the factorya smooth production for still some time to come.TUNGSRAM'S results between the two world warsreflected the success of a company which could adaptto the Hungarian circumstances well and could keepabreast with the foreign competition, both in qualityand in technical development. TUNGSRAM occupied a

TUNGSRAM 90prominent place among the factories of the west,home and abroad.Of the European companies only Philips could havebeen considered to have essentially the same profile.The German Telefunken — just like the American RCAor Siemens, another Gernnan company — only producedelectronic equipment and parts, while Osram limiteditself to manufacturing incandescent lamps. The twoAmerican companies, IGEC and Westinghouse, mainlyproduced high-powered equipment and machinerybeside their incandescent lamp businesses, making allv comparisons with TUNGSRAM impossible. Anyhow,TUNGSRAM'S exports between the fiscal years of1932—1933 and 1938—1939 slightly exceeded that ofits famous Dutch competitor — that is, if the articleabout Philips published in a Dutch paper on 11 May,1939 is anything to go by.On the home front — as far as the total capitalinvestment of the individual Hungarian companieswere concerned — TUNGSRAM, with its equity of 25million Pengos, came first among the electrical companiesand was third in the entire industry, accordingtotheCompassof 1938—1939.The fundamental source of these achievements, besidethe flexible and courageous business policy, was- the creativity of the excellent Hungarian physicists,engineers and technicians and the assiduous andcompetent work of several thousands of employees,all working forTungsram., ,..-. . . -...-• ;. ...U'-.-The Social Structure of the Factory.The Workers' Material and CulturalCircumstances in UjpestLike any other company, TUNGSRAM, too, was morethan just a multitude of buildings and equipment; itwas also a given social formation, a community of veryspecific internal structure. A factory's community isnever as stable as are, for example, the walls of itsbuildings: it is in perpetual motion, changing with thesocial-economic-political relations of the given country.It does not follow from the above, however, thatevery factory in Hungary had the same structure, wage **policy, social and cultural conditions. TUNGSRAM'Scommunity was, in many respects, unique; its overallsocial structure digressed from the general pattern inHungary in many ways. These differences were partlylinked to the financial status of the company, itsproduction profile -see, for example, the relativelyhigh proportion of female employees —, and partlyderived from the specific qualities of the factory'sleading elite, from their general attitude.Throughout the period between the two world warsTUNGSRAM was run in an organizational form whichcorresponded to the Hungarian laws regulating theoperation of share companies. Formally, its highestexecutive body was the annual general meeting of theshareholders. The board of directors submitted theirreport about the passed fiscal year for approval onthese general meetings, the company's a financialbalance and the report of the supervisory committeewere presented here, and the shareholders elected thenext board of directors, who would conduct the company'saffairs in the interval between the two generalmeetings.... •Only the major shareholders were present on thegeneral meetings: they were the representatives of thebig banks and corporations holding large blocks ofshares. TUNGSRAM'S general meetings were formalaffairs almost without exception. In the importantissues the major shareholders had come to an agreementwell in advance on meetings from which thepublic was excluded and the decisions of which did nothave to be reported to the official state bodies. (Thematerial of the general meetings had to be submittedto the registry court.) The officially elected board ofdirectors usually consisted of 9—12 persons, representingthe major shareholders. Its chairmen were alllong provided by Pesti Hungarian Commercial Bank,("Pesti" is an abbreviation = "of Budapest") in thepersons of Henrik Fellner, FiJIop Weiss and LajosValko. TUNGSRAM' standing was reflected in the fact

"91 TUNGSRAMthat the afore-mentioned chairmen had all come fromthe top management of the bank. Until the end of the1920s the members of the founding family, the Eggers,who by then had been living in Vienna, were alsorepresented on the board. Certain members of the^ Hungarian aristocracy, together with a few expoliticians,appeared on the board in the 1930s. The boardmembership was not at all a bad deal: every memberreceived an annual sum of about 10,000 Pengos. Aboard meeting was called usually three or four times ayear; also, there used to be an executive committeeuntil 1940 which was selected from the board membersand had quite an operative function in the managementof the company, especially during the 1920s.Until his abduction by the Germans on 19 March, 1944,Lipot Aschner (AsakiJrt, 1872—1952) was entrustedwith the position of chief executive off icer on the majorshareholders' recommendation. Lipot Aschner was aborn manager. Restarted out as a minor administratorand rapidly roseto thetop of the management. Atonepoint he was even elected vice-president of the industry'sinternational organization. According to the survivingsources and his contemporaties, he was ahard-working man who gave his whole life over to thecompany. The public life — with the exception of sport— did not interest him. Inside the 'house' he had thelast word; he presented the reports to both the boardmeetings and the executive committees and representedTUNGSRAM in the most important internationalnegotiations. His characteristic signature, anangular letter 'A', features on masses of documents,making one wonder how he could possibly have timeto read them all. His memory was legendary; not onlydid he read and sign the documents put in front of him," but also, he remembered their major points. LipotAschner did not have large quantities of TUNGSRAMshares; still, all the major stock exchange transactionsof the company are associated with his name — herepresented TUNGSRAM everywhere. The salary ofthe chief executive was determined by either the boardof directors of the executive committee. According to a" document dated from 1938 — when the three-yearcontracts of the top managers were signed — LipotAschner's annual salary was fixed at 118,000 Pengos,which was almost as much as the Prime Minister'ssalary. In addition, he also filled top jobs in the otherbranches of the corporation; for example, he waschairman of the board in Telephone Factory Ltd., andlater, in Standard Ltd. These positions brought infurther income for him. We cannot determine his totalannual earnings exactly, but he must have been one ofthe highest-paid managers in the Hungarian industry.He rightly deserved it.It must be added that, according to a memo by themanagers heading the company in 1947, between1940 and his abduction by the Germans Lipot Aschner"... in response to the anti-Jewish legislation, gave upthe salary due to him, this way making it possible forthe company to keep the ordinary employees on thepay-roll, without reducing their salaries."Lipot Aschner survived the war in the most extraordinaryway: the major shareholders of the companysecured his release from the concentration camp ofMauthausen by paying 100,000 Swiss Francs to theGermans. He was taken to Switzerland by some SSofficers in December, 1944, just before the end of thewar. He returned to Hungary from there in 1947 andacted as vice-chairman of the board of TUNGSRAMright until his death in 1952.Jozsef Pinter was also on TUNGSRAM'S board ofdirectors until his death in 1928. He had been thetechnical director of the company since 1887, the timewhen the company's Huszar Street plant was established;later he became the deputy of the chief executiveofficer. The memory of this widely respectedfigure is preserved in the memorial plaque in a streetnamed after him near the factory. Ignac Pfeifer, thefounder and the first head of the Research Laboratorywas also a board member. In addition to the work hedid forTUNGSRAM, Ignac Pfeifer played an active rolein the bourgeois liberal opposition throughout theHorthy era. He became a member of the CapitalMunicipal Authority and was also involved in thestruggle to stop the spreading of fascism. He did muchto protect and help the ordinary people.Beside Lipot Aschner, there were five or six executives

TUNGSRAM 92looking after the affairs of the TUNGSRAM corporation.Leo Fischmann followed Jozsef Pinter in theposition of deputy chief executive; the foreign marketingwas directed by Vilmos Rosenfeld, and DavidAschner was in charge of the domestic sales. The chiefaccountant was Jeno Hirschbein.The managing directors of the factory were, in thatactual order, Frigyes Baumann, Miklos Hegediis,Janos Levai and Arpad Telegdy. (The latter rathercommitted suicide in the final days of the war, thanparticipate in the evacuation of the factory.) Bertalan•^v Nemenyi, who was heading the legal department, wasalso a company director. Following the mid-1930sseveral changes were made in the line-up the companymanagement. Zoltan Bay became the head of theResearch Laboratory and Hugo Zaia was appointed tothe post of chief accountant.Denes Jankovich and Zoltan Bay took over the runningof the company. Zoltan Bay got in contact with theHungarian resistance movement in 1944; he helped tohide the left-wing workers' leaders of the factory andhe did everything in this power to keep the Jewishengineers in their jobs. As a result, he, too, was forcedto hide out when Szalasi the Hungarian nazi leadertook over the government.In the factory hierarchy the managers and the chief, engineers came right next to the directors. In 1938 the• directors' salaries were fixed between 20,000 and60,000 Pengos annually.Leo Fischer's salary was 56,000 Pengos at that time.Zoltan Bay, who had just joined the company, 'only'received 34,000 Pengos. The managers were paid20,000 Pengos, the same as Janos Levai was. ErnoWinter received 14,300 Pengos then, which was morethan the salary of Jozsef Gabor, who headed theAudion Department. We only have information concerningthe salaries of the people working in the loweradministration from earlier times. According to adocument from December, 1928 the chief engineers(two persons) working in the production were getting717 Pengos a month, the engineers heading the workshops(18 persons) received 525 Pengos a month, thesalary of the engineers working in production (35persons) was 344 Pengos, the engineers working in theoffices (23 persons) were given 275 Pengos, while thepaid 305 Pengos a month. In the same period thehourly wage of skilled labourer was 91 fillers onaverage, and the most they could get was 1.25 Pengos.(Assuming 200 working hours a month, this wouldroughly come to 200 Pengos a month in the yearspreceding the Depression!)The administrators, even the typists, were given 13months' wages a year, because the company handedout from its profits an extra month's wages to themalmost every year.In return for the comparatively high wages,TUNGSRAM demanded through professionalism andhard work from its management and administration.The requirements included, for example, the proficiencyin a foreign language, and that was not onlyexpected from those, whose work had something todo with the export. In the 1920s German language wasextensively used in the company's administration;several important documents were written out inGerman. However, the international character of theconcern often necessitated the knowledge of the Englishand French languages.From 1929 the company operated its own pensionscheme for its administrators. In 1938 —after 40 yearsof active service — Lipot Aschner's pension was fixedin 36,000 Pengos a year.The total number of office workers was progressivelyincreasing from the second half of the 1930s onwards.In 1935 there were still only 540 administrative workers;by 1939this numberwentupto855, reaching 1006by 1942. The upward trend continued during the war.While there had been 15 administrators for every 100workers in 1935, this number went up to 18.5 by 1939and to more than 20 by 1942. A defensive tactics tosabotage the anti-Jewish legislation was partially responsiblefor this increase. Rather than laying offJewish administrators, the company took on more andmore non-Jewish staff in order to reach the required'Christian-Jew' ratio. But the over-regulated wartimeeconomics also demanded more and more administrators,hence also contributing to the swelling up of

93 TUNGSRAMthe administration. The company also set very highprofessional standards for its technical staff. Theirtasks included the translation and adaptation of thetechnical-technological documentation which resultedfrom the various agreements with the largeinternational companies on the exchange of technicalinformation. Together with the departmental heads,they had to direct the different test productions and tosolve any technical problem that might have emergedin connection with the new ventures and the constructionwork carried out within the factory. They had toanalyze and evaluate the data concerning the performance,the quality and the efficiency of production ofthe subsidiaries and to see to the training of the staffworking there. Sometimes they were working abroadfor years, starting up a new factory or an assemblyplant. The rapidly expanding corporation and thewide-scale international cooperation, however, alsogave them numerous opportunities to advance theirknowledge and skills.The company's Research Laboratory was more thanjust the heart and soul of TUNGSRAM'S technicaldevelopment: it proved to be the Alma Mater of theentire telecommunication and light source industry.Several members of its staff — Gyorgy Szigeti, ErnoWinter, Pal Selenyi and others — became the leadingauthorities in their field after the end of the World WarII.; many people, Zoltan Bay included, brought fame tothe name of their old laboratory through their workdone outside the country. A number of TUNGSRAMmanagers and employees fell victim to Fascism, to thedevastation of World War Two. The company managementdid much to rescue its endangered employeesfrom the most severe consequences. They managed tofind shelterfor Imre Brody in the camp set up inside thefactory until September 1944. However, when ImreBrody discovered that his wife and daughter had beencarried off to the labour camp in the brickwork of(!)buda, he left his relatively safe hide-out, declining allwords of caution by saying: "... if they are slain, I don'twant to live, either." So he, too, became a victim of theHolocaust. i • ^,,The community of the Ojpest factory largely consistedof workers. The factory's working-class society itselfwas split into several strata. The skilled workers werethe elite on the top. They were not only able tomanufacture the company's special-purpose machinery,but could also turn out a rapidly growing numberof machines for export. It seemed only natural for themto learn how to operate and maintain those machines,too. The shift leaders and the group leaders ofTUNGSRAM'S numerous assembly plants and othersubsidiaries producing parts for incandescent lampsand radio valves mostly came from the ranks of theseskilled workers. This group was even able to supplyexperts for the foreign branches to pass on the knowhowat crucial times, such as the starting up of a factorywas, for example. In manning the factories of Tillburg,London, Bucharest, Pozsony and Paris the crucialproblem — beside the appointment of the chief engineerof the new plant — was to find at least oneHungarian foreman to do the fine adjusting of themachinery. In fact these Hungarian skilled workerswere the ones who fitted the equipment, put thefactory into operation, trained the foreign personnelworking on the machinery and they were also the oneswho ran the production in the first few years. Back inthe parent plant this middle and lower managementwas burdened with the increasing volume of developmentproblems and test productions which were implementedin the production units, possibly withoutdisturbing normal production, even after the variouslaboratories had been established. As an example, weought to mention the name of the tool-maker JozsefHegedCis whose book titled 'The Handbook of Tool-Making' was published by the tool-makers' section ofthe Hungarian iron- and metal-workers' union in 1936and was considered a basic book in its category at thetime.The following tables will be helpful to give a picture ofthe company's work-force. The published data mostlyrefers to the Ujpest plant, but it is necessary to clarify afew points in advance.The office workers of the Ujpest factory managed theaffairs of the whole corporation, not simply that of the

TUNGSRAM 94Ojpest plant, and, therefore, the presented ratio ofworkers versus officials is slightly misleading. Thetotal work-force showed large variations even withinjust one year, often reaching 300—500 workers, whilethe published data refers to that year's average. Thereis no reliable information to decide whether shiftleaders and group leaders were counted as workers orofficials.From the above considerations it follows that thepresented data is purely informative, although it givesan accurate enough picture of the major trends.Year1930193119321933193419351936193719381939194019411942Work-force2,3382,2242,1481,905—3,1693,2814,088,. 4,1534,6354,230. 4,395* . 4,975Total numberemployees2,5472,4432,3732,1273,1843,7093,7704,6284,8835,4905,0665,2865,981Year193319381942Male7091,7322,252374145Female1,1962,4212,723635955Interestingly, the percentage of female workers wentdown in these ten years and, unlike in the statistics ofthe Hungarian industry as a whole, this tendencycontinued during the war. While the female employeeswere in majority all along — their percentage alwaysexceeded 50 percent —, there was not a single womanin the company management, starting from departmentalheads upwards, in the period between thetwo wars.A document dated 30 March, 1937 gives informationon the composition of the work-force with reference toage and length of employment:Length of service0-10 yearsover 10 yearsA total ofNo.ofworkers36954134108Percentage9010100AgeNo.ofworkersPercentageThe table clearly shows that between the first year andthe last the increase was more than a 100 percent.During the years of the Depression, between 1929 and1933, the total work-force went down, but the decreasedid not even reach 20 percent. The number of employeesalready showed a substantial increase in 1934and the trend from there onwards is continuously —although not linearly — going up.The female workers were in majority in TUNGSRAMwork-force. Sampling a ten-year interval, the nexttable shows the ratio of the female and the maleworkers:less than 3030 to 4040 to 50more than 50A total of2616104229515541086425254100According to the table, in 1937 less than 10 percent ofthe employees worked in TUNGSRAM for more than10 years. Interpreting the figures one must bear inmind that the total work-force showed a significantincrease precisely in the years of 1936 and 1937,_--.«^- • . - - . ( • • • • '

95 TUNGSRAMadding up to a more than 100 percent increase since1933. At that time TUNGSRAM took into considerationin its wage policy the years already spent in employmentwith the company. Each year special gifts werepresented to those who had completed their 25th yearwith the company.According to the table, 89 percent of the workers inTUNGSRAM were less than 40 years old. Thisphenomenon could not be regarded as positive altogether.The relative youth of the work-force partlyoriginated in the general practice whereby the femaleemployees would only remain with the company untilthey got married or had their first child. On the otherhand a considerable part of these women assembledtiny electrical components straining their eye-sight,consequently very few of them over 40 years could dothis job.Having seen the composition of the work-force accordingto sex and age, let us consider its breadkdown bythe level of training and wages.In the Ojpest plant on 31 December, 1933, this was asfollows:MaleworkersTheworker'slevel oftrainingLampand AudiondepartmentsNo ofworkersHourlywages(fillers)No ofworkers'E'DepartmentHourlywages(fillers)No ofworkersGlass factoryHourlywages(fillers)Skilled workerTrained workerDay-workerapprentice94179821195635027177418814926448226040878614821Total366—320—108—

TUNGSRAM 96FemaleworkersTheworker'sstatusLamp and AudiondepartmentsNo ofworkersHourlywages(fillers)No ofworkers'E'DepartmentHourlywages(fillers)No ofworkersGlass factoryHourlywages(fillers)Skilled workerTrained workerDay-worker1,5001647382137138Total1,516—21—1—As the table reveals, the workers of the Ujpest plantcould basically be divided into four groups. The skilledworkers made up the first group: lockmiths,mechanics, turners, tool-makers, etc. They weremostly working in the 'E' Department, the unit whichmanufactured and serviced the machinery. They werethe best-paid workers in the whole factory — and therewas not a single woman among them!The most numerous group was that of the trainedworkers, the so-called machine-workers. Women hadan overwhelming majority in this category: there were1500 female workers, opposed to the 260 male employees.They were all working in the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment and the Radio Valve Department.There were only 94 male skilled workers helping the1500 female trained workers in these two fundamentaldepartments.The third group consisted of the untrained labourerswhere, again, men had the outright majority: the ratiohere was 38 women against 178 men. There were nowomen in the last group, either, where the journeymenand the apprentices were lumped together.TUNGSRAM is still remembered by many people as afactory which used to pay its workers above theaverage. And indeed, this was so in the final year of theDepression, in 1933. According to a report dated 1December, 1933, the hourly wage of a skilled workerwas 7 fillers more in TUNGSRAM than elsewhere,while a trained worker received 5 fillers less and atrained female worker, 2 fillers more in TUNGSRAMthan their counterparts would get in the factoriesbelonging to the Association of Iron and MachineWorks.That is to say, the skilled male workers were paid 3Pengos more, the trained female workers 1 Pengomore in a week, than they would get working in thefactories of the afore-said association. In the sameperiod one kilo of sugar cost 1.30 Pengos, one kilo offat was 2.10 Pengos, brown bread cost 40 fillers andthe price of 1 kilo of beef was 2.40 Pengos. By payingthat little extra, TUNGSRAM had the edge over theother employers in the eyes of the workers, when itcame to doing their weekly shopping.Between 1933 and 1938 the labour costs hardlychanged at all in the entire Hungarian industry.The hourly wages were only raised significantly duringthe war, but in real terms these raises were worthnothing because of the simultaneous price rises. Highinflation in the second half of the war had the effectthat the wages could not keep up with the rising prices.Hourly wages in the various ranks of the workersduring the war went as follows:... I

V97 TUNGSRAMStatusSkilledworkerTrainedmaleTrainedfemaleUntrainedlabourer1938-19391939-19401940-19411941-19421943-Aprilaverage hourly wages in Pengos0.830.580.480.460.840.600.490.470.980.710.560.551.220.860.640.681.350.930.660.80If we compare these figures with the ones showing thesituation on 1 December, 1933, we will find that thehourly wage of a skilled worker in 1938—1939 was lessthan it had been in 1933; the same applied to thetrained male workers, while the hourly wage of trainedfemale workers remained unchanged. Nevertheless,the substantial difference between the hourly wages ofmen and women did not disappear; on the contrary, itgrew wider as the war went on: the hourly wage of themen went up by 35 filler, as opposed to the 18 filler payrise which women received in the same period. Skilledworkers were getting the most: a 52 filler pay-rise.Since TUNGSRAM did not contribute much to the warindustry, its wages began to fall behind the nationalaverage. Male skilled workers, for example, were paidonly 94 percent of what workers earned in the factoriesbelonging to the Steal Works, while the trained maleworkers of TUNGSRAM took home even less: 77percent of what their counterparts were getting in thesteal industry.The general pay rises issued by the governmentplayed a major role in the growing wages. A sevenpercent wage rise was ordered on 7 October, 1940,followed by a further 8 percent wage rise on 1 May,1941, and then came the national inflationary compensationof 30 percent in the summer of 1943. However,even these repeated wage rises could not counter theprice rises which accompained the war. The realwages per capita only increased until 1940; in 1943these already fell behind the 1939 figures by 20percent.The wages are not the sole indicators of the positionand the current circumstances of the working class.Workers were not indifferent towards the environmentin which they had to do their job, either.In the early 1920s the sight which greeted the visitorsentering the workshops (the tinting, the staining or thespiral corroding workshops, for example) was shocking.The strenuous physical work was done by sicklycoloured and wasted figures in rooms filled withpoisonous gases, with minimal or no ventilation at all.The manual pressing of the glass inserts of the incandescentlamps required an immense bodily effort. Onecould often witness female workers and mechanicswith mutilated hands, working on the newly fittedpress machines which still completely lacked all kindsof protective gear. The technology of incandescentlamp and radio valve manufacturing presented awhole list of potential dangers: explosion, fire hazard,pollution of the work halls and the environment bypoisonous gases and vapours which were either left tofloat inside the factory halls until escaping through theairing passages or were artificially ventilated into theatmosphere without any neutralization and pollutedthe air of the immediate neighbourhood. The workhalls were over-crowded and far too low built ingeneral, making the ventilation of poisonous gasesdifficult; the majority of the machinery were operatedwithout protective equipment; electric hazard wascaused by the complete lack of earthed circuits; thevarious high-voltage equipments were fitted withoutthe minimum of safety precautions. It was only in thelate 1920s that a campaign against the various healthhazards was launched by the staff of the MachineWorks Department in an almost spontaneous fashion.It was also the time when the complete automation ofthe production of vitrit-glass took place followed bythe semi-automatization of the inside frosting process.In the production of incandescent lamps the individualpress machines were replaced by machine-lines whicheliminated the extremely hazardous manual feeding.

TUNGSRAM 98The surveyance and the documentation of the utilitysystems — gas, electricity, hydrogen, compressed air,electrical power lines, etc. — and the earthing of thecircuitry was carried out in the mid-1930s. Most of thesafety problems arising from the designing and theintroduction of the electrical measuring devices andequipments were solved simultaneously with themodernizing of the radio valve production. The headsof the various deaprtments (Lamp Manufacturing Department,Radio Valve Manufacturing Department) allsupported the idea of mechanizing the hazardous workphases and raising the level of health protection.Janos Levai, head of the Lamp Manufacturing Departmentwrote the following in his memoirs: "...theimplementors of the efforts were given effective supportby the trade unions and the workers' shop-stewards,which was very much needed since the workersdirectly affected bythe measures very often resisted tothe introduction of the new work methods and theapplication of protective attachments, partly, becausethey feared fortheir jobs and partly, because they wereonly be able to attain their previous level of earnings inthe new routine after another learning period."Beside the improvements in health protection andwork safety, there were other national measures toadvance the position TUNGSRAM'S workforce. In 1937the Hungarian government introduced the legislationfixing the length of a working day in 8 hours. The factthat during the preparation of the legislation themanagement of TUNGSRAM was strongly against thebill by declaring that ".. .we find the introduction of the48-hour long working week impossible to implementin our factory" brings them no credit. A list of othersocial legislations followed the introduction of the8-hour working day. Minimum wages were determinedand the workers were entitled to a paid holiday(six days a year), as well as family supplement aftertheir children. Family supplement was fixed at 5percent after one child. At the time of introducing thelaw — in the late 1930s — family supplements werepaid after some 2,000 children in TUNGSRAM.These late measures of social legislation were, indeed,late, considering that a number of them — the 8-hourworking day and the paid holiday included — weresuspended in autumn, 1939, following the outbreak ofthe war.The other emergency measures introduced in theaftermath of the war affected the workers equallyseverely. Sugar was rationed in 1940, promptly followedby the rationing of fat, flour and bread; in 1943meat and milk coupons were issued, and very soonnearly every commodity became rationed: clothing,footwear, etc. Next to the centrally regulated marketwith restricted prices a black market economy flourished,where everything was available at a considerablyhigher price than the one set by the government. Thiswas when the prices in general continued to go up,with the wages lagging further and further behind.The severe problems in the food supply and thegrowing anxiety of the public which followed movedthe government to alleviate the workers' hardships bymobilizing the companies. From 1941 onwards variousrelief programmes were organized in TUNGSRAM,too. The workers were allowed to plant beans, greenpeas and potatoes on the empty land of about 58,000square meters owned by the company. They wereeven provided with the necessary seeds and plants fortheir agricultural projects. In addition, a separate foodstorewas set up to supplement the employees' foodsupply. This served to ease the problems of shopping,since it was the working women burdened with thehopeless job of shopping for their family in the emptystores, who were the worst affected by the war. Moreand more of them were forced to stay away from work.In the Food Store flour, fat and soap were sold forgovernment coupons, but once there was also acampaign to raise pigs, for example, which aimed togive a boost to the supply of fat. Large quantities oflegumes, potatoes, onions, etc. were brought up fromthe provinces, often directly bartered for goods producedby the company. In 1942 500 wagons of wood,250 wagons of coal and 70 wagons of coke weredistributed among the employees. There was anothercampaign to collect footwear and clothing for theworkers. A payment-in-parts scheme further eased theproblems of the employees of the factory. On top of the

99 TUNGSRAMgovernment allowance, TUNGSRAM paid a nnonthly35 Pengos to the families of servicennen. In 1942 cheapmeal was served in the Recreation Centre: a meal withmeat cost 62 fillers, and one without meat was 40fillers. Seven hundred meals were served to the employeesdaily in 1942.It was part of TUNGSRAM'S company policy to attractand keep the work-force by providing social, culturaland sport facilities to them. Prior to the afore-mentionedgovernment acts TUNGSRAM had already providedits workers-mostly its office workers — withfacilities not generally afforded by other companies inthe Hungarian industry in order to meet the social andthe cultural demands of the employees. In the RecreationCentre which was built in the early 1930s aspacious and nicely furnished canteen and a modernkitchen was set up for the convenience of the employees.This kitchen was, at that time, a remarkableaccomplishment and nothing like it could be found inany of the other factories of Ojpest.On the first floor of the Recreation Centre there was anindoor tennis court which was unique in those time notonly in Budapest, but perhaps in the whole country.The outdoor courts were lined up infrontof theAudionbuilding. The changing rooms used to be, where thesurgeries are today. Tennis was definitely considereda gentleman's sport at that time and the manualworkers did not frequent the TUNGSRAM courts.Actually, chief executive officer Lipot Aschner was agenerous supporter of sport. He was elected presidentof the Ojpest Gymnastic Club, predecessor of thefamous football club, "Ojpesti Dozsa" in 1925. Theclub received regular and wide-ranging support bothfrom Lipot Aschner and TUNGSRAM, and severalsportsmen were given jobs in the Ojpest plant.The river Danube, being near to the factory, offered anexcellent opportunity for water sports. A boat-housecalled 'Ampere', near to the Glue Factory Leiner, hadalready existed in the early 1920, and was available tothe office workers of TUNGSRAM. After the silting upof the channel between Palota Island and the Ojpestbanks, however, the boat-house suddenly becamesurrounded with dry-land. The company later establisheda new, much larger boat-house complete withswimming pool and beaches on the land bought fromthe Karoiyi family near the Inn of Megyer.TUNGSRAM 'crossed' the Danube in 1942. It built a —by the contemporary standards — enormous holidaycentre and boat house on the other side of the Danube,providing weekend recreation simultaneously to nearly10,000 people. Regular ferry service linked therecreation complex situated on both sides of the river.(It is still in service today.)Cultural life in TUNGSRAM only began after WorldWar One. The 'Tungsram Male Choir and TheatricalGroup' was formed in 1921 which, according to theentry form, offered its members an amateur theatre, achess club and a library.First the old choir was revided: the 55-member malechoir was later converted into a mixed one. Beside thehome concerts they also took part in national competitionsand received invitations to perform in variousprogrammes organized outside the factory. In the late1930s Bela Andras was the chorus master. Thanks tohis and the choir members' endeavors, the compositionsof Bartok and Kodaly were already performed byworkers' choirs at a time when it was not at allcustomary to sing such 'new wave' music.The amateur theatre could only be formed after theRecreation Centre had been completed. By contemporarystandards it had a well equipped permanentstage, rehearsal room and an adequate concert hall.The actors of the theatre company worked as a teamfor many years and understood each other well. Theyregularly performed classical and popular plays, operettas,etc. which corresponded to the fashion of thecontemporary audience.It was, again, only afterthe Recreation Centre had beencompleted that the Library found a worthy surrounding.In the early 1920s it had no more than one or twothousand books, but by the 1930s the figure reached10,000. There is no information concerning thenumber of its regular readers, but its voluntary staff,who were devoted to the cause of culture, looked afterthe library enthusiastically.

TUNGSRAM 100The management of TUNGSRAM was not nearly asgenerous towards culture as they were towards sport.The running of the Recreation Centre cost nearly100,000 Pengos, the choir received an annual grant of3,000 Pengos. In the same year the company spentnearly 1 million Pengos on maintaining the sportsfields and supporting Ujpest Gymnastic Club.>*Aitdl^noslatkep

101 TUNGSRAMList of Literature*^- , m,*1) Orszagos Leveltar (National Archives, OL in the following),U 40-462: according to the report of the board of directors,dated 15 September, 1898, Egger B. es Tarsa (B. Egger &Associate) was founded in Vienna in 1862.2) Sandor, Matlekovics: Magyarorszag kozgazdasagi es kozmuvelodesiallapota ezer eves fennallasakor (The Economicaland Cultural Conditions in Hungary at the Millenium),Vol. 8, Budapest, 1898, pp. 923-924.3) The original of the trade license issued by FovarosiCegbirosag (Trade Registry of the Capital) under the referencenumber 243/1874. The Viennese company of Deckertand Homolka also opened a branch in Dorottya Street atnumbers.4) Kozponti f rtesfto (Central Bulletin), 1876, No. 114.5) Official extract from the list of joint ventures compiled bythe Viennese Commercial Court, issued by Fovarosi Cegbirosag(Trade Registry of the Capital).6) OLK 231-2-42775/18997) Abudapesti 1885-6s orszagos kiallitasfojelentese (Reporton the National Exhibition Held in Budapest in 1885), Vol.1,Budapest, 1886, pp. 53, 558) Az 1985. evi budapesti orszagos kiallitason kitiintetettkozremukodok jegyzeke. (List of the Award Winning Participantsat the National Exhibition Held in Budapest in 1885),Budapest, 1885, p. 176.v/.9) Jozsef, Szekeres — Arpad, Toth: A Klement Gottwald(Ganz) Villamossagi Gyar tortenete (The History of theKlement Gottwald [Ganz] Electrical Company), Budapest,1962, p. 84: Ganz had produced arc lamps since 1885; itsannual production of arc lamps exceeded 9,000 after 1898.10) Fovarosi Cegbirosag (Trade Registry of the Capital), No.313/1887, Trade licenses issued by the Prefecture of the 7thDistrict.11) Dr. Ferenc, Kardos: A Tungsram gyartmany- es tudomanytortenete(The History of Tungsram's Production andDevelopment), Manuscript, p. 13.12) OL z 40-462 and K 232-2-1548/1894: The production ofincandescent lamps closed the fiscal year of 1889/1890 witha loss of 27,387 Forints, which was reduced to 14,472 Forintsby the fiscal year of 1892/1893.13) OLK 232-2-1548/189014) OL K 232-2-1548-37400/188915) OLK 232-9-3541/188916) OL K 232-1548-9641/189417) OLK 231-2-5528/189318) OL K 231-2-5528/1893: Egger B. and Co. imported thegenerators from its Viennese factory, and thus created anunwelcome competition for Ganz.19) OLZ 40-46220) OL K 232-2-1548-96041/189421) OLK 232-2-1152822) OLZ40-46223) Vilmos, Sandor: Nagyipari fejiodes Magyarorszagon1867-1900 (Industrial Development in Hungary, 1867-1900)Budapest, 1954, p. 47524) OL 41-1123: the company had a sales agency in theKossuth Lajos Street in Budapest.25) OL Z 41-1123/B-1: of the Egger brothers only David Eggerwas living in Budapest. Bernat-Bela Egger stayed in Hungaryonly from time to time.26) OL Z 41-1123: Jakab Egger and Associates put up assecurity the shares received for the merger of VillanyosIzzolampagyar Rt. (:Electrical Incandescent S.C.:) for CommercialBank.27) OL 40-462 . '^ " i.28) OL 40-462-9: the Huszar Street Plant suffered from theshortage of storage space: instead of the 2,200 m^ needed, itonly had 930 m^ available for storage.29) OL Z 40-46230) OLZ 41-1123/kk-lll: The Viennese NiederosterreichischeEscompte-Gesellschaft bought shares in Egyesijlt VillamossagiRt. (Electrical Incandescent S.C.)31) "Magyar Posta" (Hungarian Mail, periodical). No. 1931/5Otveneves a magyar tavbeszeles (Fifty Years of HungarianTelecommunication), pp. 278-280. •• ,. _„ -. ..

TUNGSRAM 10232) OL Z 40-462: report of the Board of Directors, 15September 1898.33) OL Z 600-5: Minutes of the meeting of the executivecommittee held on 29 November, 1899.34) Sandor, IVIatlekovics: Magyarorszag kozgazdasagi eskozmCivelodesi allapota ezer eves fennallaskor (The Economicaland Cultural Conditions in Hungary at the Millenium),Vol. 8, Budapest, 1898, pp. 923-924.35) OL Z 40-462: participation at the Paris Universal Exhibitioncost 10,000 Koronas. s' '36) Kereskedelmijnk es iparunk az 1899. evben (Our Tradeand Industry in 1899 Budapest, 1900, p. 171: the companygave the volume of exported lamps in hundred kilos in areporttothe Hungarian Chamberof Commerce and Industry.37) OLK 231-2-1548/189938)OLZ 195-15227/1899: 94.41 percent of the profit was taxfree in the first fiscal year; the company had to pay taxes onlyafter 5.59 percent of its profits originated from repair works.39) Compass Finanzielles Jahrbuch, Vol. 2, Vienna, 191640) OL Z 601-681: the contract concerning the cooperationbetween the Budapest and Vienna companies, 1 July, 1900.41) Sandor, Vilmos: Nagyipari fejiodes Magyarorszagon1867-1900 (Industrial Development in Hungary, 1867-1900)Budapest, 1954, p. 47642) OL K 2321-42775/1899: in an application addressed to theMinistry of Trade, EgyesiJlt Villamossagi Rt. (United ElectricalS.C.) mentioned that the first telephone set had beenproduced in the Budapest factory of Egger B. es Tarsa in1884.43) OL K 2321-42775/1899: it was decided on the generalmeeting of the company, held in the autumn of 1899, that thenew factory would be built in Ujpest.44) OL Z 611-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 11 October, 1899.45) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committe'smeeting on 9 December, 1899.46) OLZ 195-23115/189947) OL Z 601-51: the company had to pay 5 percent interestafter the arrears of the sales price at the manorial accountingoffice of Fot.48) Dr. Istvan, Harkay: A 75 eves Izzo kulturtortenete (TheCultural History of the 75 Years Old Izzo), manuscript, p. 2.49) OLZ 601-50: the company's application to the prefectureof Ojpest.50) OL Z 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 10 February, 1900.51) OL Z 41-1123 n-IV: the minutes of the ConstructionCommittee on 10 April, 1900: Bela Egger was against thebuilding of a new factory, because in his opinion it waspossible to increase the production volume of incandescentlamps in the Huszar Street plant, too. '-52) OLZ 195-8687/1900 ' '53) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 4 July, 1900.54) OL Z 599-2: the minutes of the general meeting held on 5October, 190055) OL Z 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 19 January, 1901.56) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 22 March, 190157) OL Z 41-1123-14/XXIII: the minutes of the executivecommittee's meeting on 17 July, 1901.58) 0LZ41-1123 k/XII: memorandum of commercial Bankon30 September, 1901.60) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 26 June, 190461) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 26 June, 190462) OLZ600-4/1912-1913 ' • " '63) T. Ivan, Berend — Gyorgy, Ranki: Magyarorszag gyariparaaz imperializmus elso vilaghaboru elotti idoszakaban(Hungarian Industry during the Imperialist Period before theFirst World War), Budpest, 1955. p. 101.64)OLZ41-1123kk/lll65) OL Z 41-1123 m/XVIII: the minutes of the executivecommittee's meeting on 29 February, 190466) Tibor, Balazs: A tudomanyos kutatastol az ipari gyartasigaz izzolampa tortenete nyoman (The History of IncandescentLamp From Scientific Research to Industrial Production),Budapest, 1965. p. 6267) Jozsef, Szekeres — Arpad, Toth: A Klement Gottwald(Ganz) Villamossagi Gyar tortenete (The History of theKlement Gottwald [Ganz] Electrical Company), Budapest,1962. p. 96: TUNGSRAM is not mentioned as the owner of

103 TUNGSRAMthe license, although Ganz and TUNGSRAM jointly boughtthe production license of the Nertz lannp. Later they carriedout the experiments jointly, too.68) OL Z 600-5: the nninutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 21 September, 1900.69) OL Z 600-6: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 13 June, 1901.70) OL Z 41-1123 mA/: the agreement with Ganz es Tarsa(Ganz & Co.) on 3 December, 1902.71) OL Z 599-3: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon the fiscal year of 1902/1903.72) Tibor, Balazs: Atudomanyos kutatastol az ipari gyartasigaz izzolampa tbrtenete nyoman (The History of IncandescentLamp from Scientific Research to Industrial Production),Budapest, p. 63.73) Dr. Pal, Gado: Az Egyesult Izzo kutatolaboratoriumanaktbrtenete (The History of TUNGSRAM'S Research Laboratory),manuscript, p. 49.74) OL Z 600-3: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 13 December, 190475) OL Z 599-3: directorial report on the fiscal year of1903/1904.76) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 7 January, 1905.77)OLZ41-1123kk/lll78) Magyar Ipar (Hungarian Industry, periodical) Vol. 1901, p.258: Ipari Ojdonsagok. A betiiiro gyorstavfro: Jozsef, Virag aMagyar Mernok es ^pitesz Egyletben bemutatta a Virag-Pollak-fele betui'ro gyorstelegraf-rendszert (Industrial Novelties.The printing Telegraph: Jozsef, Virag Introduced theVirag-Pollak Type Printing Telegraph System in the HungarianEngineer and Architect Club).79) OL Z 40-462: minutes of the managerial meeting ofTUNGSRAM held in Vienna.80) OL Z 601-681: contract between the Viennese andBudapest companies concerning the transfer of the branchproducing high powered electrical equipments.81) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 31 October, 1904: Gyula Egger's report on theproblems of producing high powered machinery.82)OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 13 December, 1904: debate on the future of theproduction of high powered machinery.•-83) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 29 May, 1905.84) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 23 April, 1906: the plant producing power currentelectrical goods was built on the site of TUNGSRAM.85) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 19 November, 1902: the sales agency in Madridwas set up by the director, Emil Mezey.86) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 7 January, 195.87) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 9 September, 1904.88) OL Z 599-3: the report of the directorial board meeting onthe fiscal year of 1905-190689) OL Z 41-1123 m/XVII: the minutes of the executivecommittee's meeting on 23 December, 1903.90) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 4 March, 1905: A magyarorszagi szocialisztikusmunkasmozgalmakaz 1905. evben (The Socialist Type WorkingClass Movements in Hungary in 1905), Budapest, 1906, p.69091) OLZ 599-3: the report of the directorial board meeting onthe fiscal year of 1905-1906.92) Technikai fejlodesijnk tbrtenete (The History of OurTechnical Development), Budapest, 1929, p. 92593) OL Z 41-1123 k/XIV: the minutes of the directorial boardmeeting on 10 March, 1906.95) OL Z 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 20 September, 1906.96) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 16 October, 1906: Dr. Just and Mr. Hanamanwere also present at the meeting.97) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting held in Vienna on 26 November, 190698) OL Z 600-6: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 15 January, 1908: investment costs of thetungsten lamp factory amounted to 986,000 Koronas untilearly 1908 instead of the 730,000 Koronas.99) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 11 January, 1907.100) OLZ 600-1: Ferenc Hanaman's contract of employment,18 April, 1908.101) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee's

- ^ • . . .TUNGSRAM 104meeting on 9 January, 1909: FerencHanaman, who was sentto the United States to market the license of NemzetkoziWolframlampa Rt. (International Tungsten Lamp S.C), informedthe company management that he had been offereda job by General Electric Company.102) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 17 June, 1908.103) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 9 January, 1909. ->,104) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 25 February, 1907.105) OL Z 600-5: using another metal instead of platinummeant a saving of 15,000 Koronas in the case of every500,000 lamps.106) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 26 November, 1910.107) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 7 February, 1909.108) OL Z 601-292: the transfer of Dr. Just and Hanaman'spatents to Nemzetkozi Wolfram Lampa Rt. (internationalTungsten Lamp S.C.)109) OL Z 40-462: the regulation of the business managementof Nemzetkozi Wolfram Lampa Rt. (I.T.L.S.C)110) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 12 September, 1910.111) OL Z 40-462/5: Jozsef Pinter's briefing on the expansionof the tungsten lamp factory.112) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 26 November, 1910.113) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting in November, 1910: Jozsef Pinter's calculation onthe projected costs of the new investments.114) OL Z 600-5: the report of the directorial board on theagreements signed with Linde Company of Munich and onthe handing over of the hydrogen plant.115)Balazs,Tibor: ibid. pp. 64-65116) OL Z 600-5: the report of the directorial board on theoperation of the Lamp Manufacturing Department on 4November, 1911.117) OL Z 41 -1123 nA/lll-1: the memorandum of CommercialBank underlining the need of securing the license to produceincandescent lamps with drawn filament.118) OLZ41-1603/m: the memorandum of Fulop Weiss, chief'executive officer of Commercial Bank, on the negotiationswith the incandescent lamp factories of Berlin.119) OLZ 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 19 April, 1913.120) The 'Tungsram' trademark which was born from combiningthe words 'tungsten' and 'wolfram' (English and Germanfor tungsten), was registered on 28 April, 1909. Its firstsuccessful application, however, only took place in 1912.121) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 9 January, 1913: the reduction in the cost ofproduction was 6 fillers per lamp in the case of 5,000,000lamps.122) OL Z 41-1123 m/XV-5: the minutes of the executivecommittee's meeting on 30 October, 1913.123)Dr. Gado: ibid.p. 53.124) The executive committee raised Aschner's tantieme,who was going to get 2 percent of the net profits.125) OL Z 600-5: the report of the directorial board on the 15-year tax free status of the tungsten lamp factory.126) OLZ 41-1123 m-XV-9: the Ministry of Trade's letter onthe tax free status of the tungsten lamps with drawn filament,14April,1904.127) OL Z 41-1123 X/1: the Commercial Bank's instruction tobuy Hungarian Tungsten Lamp S.C. shares owned by SandorJust.128) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 17 June, 1909: the sales of incandescent lampsusing carbon filament dropped by 8 percent in the fiscal yearof 1908-1909.129) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 4 November, 1911: the trading of the companiesrepresented by the incandescent lamp cartel fell by 15percent in 1911.130) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 9 January, 1909.131) OL Z 600-5: after Western Electric Company's takinginterest in the company, TUNGSRAM elected the Berlinindustrialist. Otto Zwietusch, Western Electric Company'sEuropean representative, to its board of directors.132) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 14 April, 1914.133) OL Z 40-462/5: Jozsef Pinter's memorandum urging forthe keeping of the weak current branch.. 1

105 TUNGSRAM134) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 7 February, 1909.135) OLZ 40-462/5: Erno Egger's report on the production ofweak current merchandise.136) OL Z 601-49: contract between TUNGSRAM and UnitesElectric and Machine Worlds S.C, 21 October, 1910137) The Huszar Street building was mortgaged at CommercialBank of 288,000 Koronas.138) OL Z 601-51: purchase agreement with Count LaszioKarolyi.^/'139) OL Z 41-1123 kk/lll: notes on the company's foreignsales agencies.140) KereskedelmiJnk es iparunk az 1913. evben (Our Tradeand Industry in 1913), Budapest, 1914, p. 134. - .j^-MI) OL Z 606-1: Gyula Egger's contract of employment, 16March, 1906142) The chemist, Armin Helfgott was the brother of DavidAschner's wife, therefore, was also related to Lipot Aschner.143) OL Z 606-2: Aladar Perczel's contract of employmentwas already signed in Vienna on 1 December, 1909.144) The annals of Magyar Vasmuvek es Gepgyarak OrszagosEgyesulete (National Union of Hungarian Iron andMachine Works), 1913, p. 234.145) The uniform industrial work regulations were preparedby Magyar Vasmuvek es Gepgyarak Orszagos Egyesulete(National Union of Hungarian Iron and Machine Works).146) 01 Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 8 June, 1907.147) Dr. Istvan, Harkay: Az Egyesult Izzo Kulturtortenete (TheCultural History of the 75 Years Old Izzo), manuscript, p. 85148) A magyarorszagi szocialisztikus munkasmozgalmak az1907. evben (The Socialist Type Working Class Movementsin Hungary in 1907), Budapest, 1908, pp. 1100-1101.150) A magyarorszagi szocialisztikus munkasmozgalmak az1908. evben (The Socialist Type Working Class Movementsin Hungary in 1908), Budapest, 1909, p. 1215.151) A magyarorszagi szocialisztikus munkasmozgalmak az1912. evben (The Socialist Type Working Class Movementsin Hungary in 1912), Budapest, 1913, pp. 536—537152) OL Z 599-3: report of the directorial board on the fiscalyear of 1914/1915153) Hevesi, Gyula: Mernokaforradalomban (An Engineer inthe Revolution), Budpest, 1965, p. 77.154) OL Z 41-1123 m/XV-14: the minutes of the executivecommittee's meeting on 6 April, 1915.155) OLZ 600-5: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon the production of half-Watt lamps, 24 January, 1916.156) OLZ 600-5: Jozsef Pinter's report on the problems with*lampafej* (lamp-base).158) OL Z 600-5: the board of directors' report on theoperation of the tungsten lamp department in the fiscal yearof 1915/1916159) OL Z 600-5: the contract with the Berlin lamp factories.160) OLZ 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 11 October, 1916161) OLZ41-1123n/VIII-5: the memorandum of CommercialBank on the production of Izzolampagyar (:Lamp Factory:)between 1 May, 1917 and 31 December 1917.162) Dr. Ferenc, Kardos: ATungsram gyartmany-^studom^nytortenete(The History of Tungsram's Production andDevelopment), manuscript, p. 77.163) Jozsef, Arvay: A magyar ipar (Hungarian Industry),Budapest, 1941, pp. 267-271; Bay, Zoltan: Azelektroncsoiparfejlodese Magyarorszagon (The Development of ElectronicVacuum Tubes in Hungary).164) OL Z 606-68: the report of the telephone and telegraphdepartment on the radio valve, 2 October, 1919.165) Dr. Ferenc, Kardos: ibid, p. 75. '"ik166) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 11 December, 1916.167) OL Z 40-1123 n/VIII-6: the notes of Commercial Bank on ,,the financial state of TUNGSRAM in the fiscal year of 1917-1918.168) OL Z 601-437: contract with the Viennese companyGlas-Fabriken und Raffinerien Josef Inwald A.G., 8 Ma, 1917169) OLZ 41-1123 nA/lll-5: report of the Commercial Bank'sauditor, 14 February, 1918.170) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 16 May, 1917171) OL Z 600-5: the report of the directorial board on thepurchase of the Viennese incandescent lamp factory. Watt.172) OL Z 600-5: report on the restructuring of the VienneseWatt.

TUNGSRAM 106173) OL Z 600-1: contract of Ferenc Hanaman's employmentsigned in Vienna on 19 April, 1918.174) OL Z 600-1: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 7 March, 1918: the license agreement drawn upbetween TUNGSRAM and the lamp factories of Berlin wouldhave expired in 1922. It was the ambition of the managementto rearch, by then, a technical level which would havepermitted the signing of an agreement with General ElectricCompany on the free exchange of patents.175) OL Z 600-4: memorandum concerning the importanceof new investments, 4 June, 1918.176) Hevesi, Gyula: ibid, pp. 85-88.177) Hevesi, Gyula: ibid, pp. 97-98.178) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 14 June, 1918.179) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 4 December, 1918.180) The documents describing the company during thebourgeois revolution of 1918 are extremely fragmented.181) OL Z 600-5: the minutes of the executive committee'smeeting on 4 December, 1918.182) Only Gyula Egger, Jozsef Pinter, Lipot Aschner andHenrik Fellner participated at the 4 December, 1918 meetingof the executive committee, the members of the Viennesedirectorial board were absent.183) OLZ 600-1: the minutes of the directorial board meetingon 28 December, 1918.184) OL Z 601-84: the accounts of the incandescent lampfactory concerning the number of employees and the productionbetween 15 February and 15 March, 1919.185) OL Z 601-84: the accounts of the telephone and telegraphfactory on the work-force and production between 15February and 15 March, 1919.186) Szocialis Termeles (Social Production, magazine) 1919/1,p.15.187) Szocialis Termeles (Social Production, magazine) 1919/1,p.15.188) OL Z 601-84: the accounts of TUNGSRAM on itswork-force and production during the Council Republic.189) OLZ 601-681: the letter of Commercial Bank's BusinessCommissar to TUNGSRAM'S Production Commissar, 16April, 1919.Tibor, Balazs: Atudomanyos kutatastol az ipari gyartasig azizzolampa tortenete nyoman 1830-1940 (From ScientificResearch to Industrial Production Down the Track of theHistory of Incandescent Lamp 1830-1940), Publishing Houseof the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1965.T. Ivan, Berend — Gyorgy, Ranki: Magyarorszag gazdasagaaz elso vilaghaboru utan 1919-1929 (Hungarian EconomyAfterthe First World War, 1919-1929), Budapest, 1966.T. Ivan, Berend — Gyorgy, Ranki: Magyarorszag gyaripara amasodik vilaghaboru elott es a haboru idoszakaban 1933-1944 (Hungarian Industry Before and During the SecondWorld War, 1933-1944) Budapest, 1958.Sarolta, Czako — Karoly, Jenei: A Telefongyar tortenete1876-1976 (The History of Telefon Plant 1876-1976),Budapest, 1976.Devics-Karolyi-Zador: A magyar muszaki ertelmiseg 1918-1919-ben (The Hungarian Technical Intelligentsia in 1918-1919)Akos, Koroknai: A Vatea es a Magyar Philips Miivek szerepeaz elektroncso gyartasban 1923-1951 (The Role of Vatea andHungarian Philips Plants in the Production of ElectronicVacuum Tubes 1923-1951) Budapest, 1969.Sandor, Meszaros: Atungsram elektroncsogyartastortenete(The History of Tungsram Electronic Vacuum Tubes Production),Hiradastechnika (Telecommunication Technology,magazine). May 1968.Jeno, Redl: A budapesti tavbeszeld tortenete es uttoroi. Azotveneves magyar tavbeszelo (The History and the Pioneersof the Budapest Telephone. Fifty Years of Hungarian Telephone),1931.Erno, Winter: Hazai eredmenyek az izzokatod kutatasban(Hungarian Results in the Research of Cathode), TermeszettudomanyiKozlony (Natural Sciences Bulletin), October,1960.Manuscripts*«^Tungsram Rt. tortenete II. (1919-1945) (The History ofTungsram Rt., Volume 2,1919-1945), Tungsram, 1985.Pal, Gado: Az EgyesiJIt Izzo kutato laboratoriumanak tortenete(The History of EgyesiJIt Izzo's Research Laboratory).Dr. Istvan, Harkay: 75 eves az Izzo. Kulturtorteneti fejezetek(Izzo Is 75 Years Old. Chapters in Cultural History).'"X.

107 TUNGSRAMDr. Ferenc, Kardos: A Tungsram gyartas- es tudomanytortenete(The History of Tungsram's Production and Development)Andras, Kosik: Az EgyesiJlt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.fejiodesenek rovid attekintese es termekeinek vilagpiacihelyzete a masodik vilaghaboru utan (The Brief Summary ofthe Development of EgyesiJlt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.and Its Products on the Internatinal Market After the SecondWorld War).Andras, Kosik: Az EgyesiJlt Izzo sportmozgalmanaktortenete(The Sport History of EgyesiJlt Izzo).Janos, Levai: Megjegyzesek es kiegeszitesi javaslatok a 75eves az Egyesiilt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.(TUNGSRAM) cimu mu keziratanak II. reszehez (Remarksand Suggested Additions to the Second Part of the ManuscriptEntitled Egyesiilt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.[TUNGSRAM] Is 75 Years Old).Dr. Pal, Pitroff: Az EgyesiJlt Izzolampa es Villamossagi Rt.tortenete (The History of United Incandescent and ElectricalS.C).Dr. Gabor, Szilagyi: Az Orion gyar tortenete 1931-1945 (TheHistory of Orion Factory 1931-1945).'Sources in ArchivesEgyesiJlt Izzo Rt. (United Incandescent and Electrical S.C.)documents of Magyar Orszagos Leveltar (Hungarian NationalArchives)Pesti Magyar Kereskedelmi Bank (Pesti Hungarian CommercialBank) documents of Magyar Orszagos Leveltar (HungarianNational Archives).• • > «.

•..V

And now pictures and figures:1896-1945V^ f" /|ll^I ^^^B^UL^y~^x«>n '^^'SL,l^^JWir^P!!L 1 ni ^•^•** • 1^ '^^ . ^

, % • • • • *5>^•>c'y>"^-''-x.^ytc"'-r.' *T'r.v#--s^.•>*>..•-.T*'

111 TUNGSRAMThis print of the Danube Embankmentwas made in the last century.It was somewhere here, in DorottyaStreet, where the Egger company,which was established in Vienna in1872, set up a sales agency andrepair shop to market their telephoneand telegraph equipment.P 6fim*iOS'i^^ • •fiTT^i'^r'06'.uCin.t»*tPfAfter the humble beginning, thesmall family business was quicklytransformed into a prosperouscompany, which necessitated tomove the factory to a new location.This sketch from 1887 shows theground plan of the new site. Todaythere is a pub here.•ff&&

TUNGSRAM 112V,>•>Carbon filaments used in the firstincandescent lamps.This is a plaque commemoratingJozsef Pinter who had been one ofthe founders and, for decades, thetechnical director of the UnitedIncandescent Lamp and ElectricalCompany Limited that is "TUNGS­RAM" (and further here alwaysTUNGSRAM). The plaque isplaced near the present headquartersin the street named afterhim. .-.

113 TUNGSRAM••*'»»"ym^^^^ ^^•^^ "-^'-^'^.jt»^*.'^

TUNGSRAM 114r « 9 t * r V n g a r l s o b * Co r o l » l - B » B KVlr batMii alt, IhiMm jrols*nd*s ••r«iHtakrtiI.Wlr wert«n bi* »pMt»«t«iMi 1.August •.•e.clM Aetl«»-aMvlischart. grund«n, tabllss(MMnt« In Buteyast. mA W1«Bdor unor Blgsntm bUdendin yiraa B.lgger A Co.iUt 0«lt.iiag *«• !.*•••"&r IBM ub«rg«b«n aaliactaaft 1B ainvamahaan alt. Ihnan faateataan, und dla 0«n«tlt«lnaitin dar Wclaa vomataaan, daas dla Oenatimlgung und rrotekiOlliXuac *»rOoaaliacbaTt durch daa k.ung.Rondaia-und Vechaalgarlolit arfOlB*. Olaarat^ Bllans dar nauan OaaallactaaTt, vird pr SO.Junl IBBT aufsuatcllMlaaln.IZZ. Dar Sltz dar su grun^endnn Oeaallaeliart ist> BlMlaipeat.rv. Dla Direction dar OesallacbaTt wlrd MM a«lit Ultgliedernund dar Aufaiclitar&Ui aus ft'jir jUtgliadam Baataban. Bta ssr*den dr-^l, reap.zwei von dlaa^n ilifltglladom und vlr dla raatllobMi Itttgliader>u delogiran haben. T&lla la Laufa imr Oaltuag dla«a« tBaralnkoonanaeinzalna Mltglladar auaachaidan, vlrd derj-mlga Ikall dM aaazuwaehlenda:jlt«llad su dalagiran hal>an, dar d»a Mia«aaelila4wM ittVglleddelagirt hat. Dla Slractlon dar OaaaliaobaTt vlrd ihr* SaaolUwis*•tatutnnaoaaalg alt StlaaanBahriiait faaaan. Wt vlrd JadooJi Mia«rvakilOivaralnbort, daaa die durch Sla d»laglrtan 2litcltad«r in aliasirlchtlgen Imogen aln Vatoracht taaban Bol>an In dar ValMi, daaa ataad^lioschluaaa, gagen dla dlaaa Mltgllador odar alnaa daraalkaa Br«t««tts«Bnlc»it zur Auafuhrung gaiangan darTan. tolltan aaloBa BasoUiiaaa daMiden Wlderspruch dnr durch 81 o noalnlrtan Ultglladar dcwieoli arBraoiit ~*und au.gerihrt nmrdun, ao atoht UuMn daa iMjBt su, aaloha BaMklMM•»''*->'^The Egger family's proposal to theHungarian Commercial Bank(Budapest) about establishing apublic company. The date is 8 July,1896. ^, >i-

115 TUNGSRAMi.-VMAGYAR ASZFALTRteZYENY-TARSASAGMIDAPEST, ANDRASSY-OT 30. SZAMASZFALTBURKOLOFALSZARITO MUNKAKnawiifgn Uhtrdmk Urman> v4tU*r» it mB-TELBFON.Nagyobb gepgyar Hudapestcn,mieldbbi bclepesre kcrcsfiextaltechniknst,ki tobb e\i miihelygyakorlattalbir es szerkezeti munkikat 6n-^loan v6gczni kepcs.Pr6baid6 4 h6t. Hizonyit\anym^ksolatokkalellAtott. rfezletesajinlatok fG6pgy4r ioo> jelalatt e lap szerkesztSjehez cimzend6k.iia-i—1moxjiVII.j3. £8 j ^BUDAPESTkcF.. >(usziF-utca 7. sikm,tf TELEFONOK «VUlamos yHigit£»€m ertfitritclAn advertisement of Egger B. &Co. (TUNGSRAM'S predecessor)from 1895. The company's earlierproduct profile is still dominant,although the electric lighting, thefuture star product is already mentioned.CSILLAROX (LUSZTEREK)i4»-»-t5VILLAMHARIT6K stb. 8tb.XOlta^gTcUMk infxen is bermtntrt.SS^jfif^^WWflftWW^WWWWWWWWggggggW

TUNGSRAM 116OrimAmm

117 TUNGSRAM^lanflKfiixT->>f-The first page of the minutes recordingthe proceedings of thestatutory meeting, held on 1 August,1896. Here, and for decadesto come, the company is mentionedunder its original name.United Incandescent Lamp andElectrical Company Limited.TUNGSRAM has been the trademarkof the company since 1905; itwas only in the past few years thatthe company became to be knownbythenameTUNGSRAM.V^tlv^tAtatt BwlapaatM 1896 osig naa k4MpfoabMi4116 ba'Utal*aooo4a asan cs4c k4asp4ns J«iars4a« 8005. lta«r Ojrula 8003. aMl«r D4vld 8004. Dr. Dautaoh Zaldor toe. Vaa S. V^r«ncs to6. Dr. Hasal M6r toT. Milahim P4t«r WO8. Daut«oh Mdr 6009. rmb4r Uikmm. •Q•.lAlrt r4aaT4iijmy«l ,>JLn41f(w« » aa-as kllanos r4asv4n]r«a klkSaasaaaa 0000darab r4aBv4n]ni]r«l m* alapitidval mtf^itr. mx •c4aa r4asv4n]rtAk4t, k4pvla«-11k, ¥*n Jalan. BlnSk tahat a ktHiKyai4at az 1876 4vl XXXVXI. toz. 164.$-oaakl^ b«k«zd4B« 4a 165. >-a 4rt«la4b*n aacalakulUiak 4a taatArosatk^paanak Jalantl kl, a kesKy(U.4al JatorzSkiinyv 'v«zat,4a4r« Dr. Datrtacli Zaldorurat, aonak hltel«alt4a4ra Malahlm P4tar 4a Dati^aoll N6r urmkat k4Mfal 4a as alakul6 k8zKrai4at aagnyltottnak daklarolja.Slnttk falhlvja a k«si()r(il4at, hotcy as 1876 4vl XXXTZI. tcz.164 i.-onak 1. pontja 4rt«lB4b«n as alapt^k4n«k kallfi al41nU 4a baft-2et4a altal tOrt^nt blz%oaittiaar61 mmmKrO*Miut, asarassan 4a a Uuwwtnn

TUNGSRAM 118'^uraaOit vtllanjroaMkcl r*Mnr4agrtArMUiic' •OAkulAr4ar«4Q|«lAlr«i nj^i^Mlim Vte B.cy»laa v«s«t«a4««l kt ••«• ••«**•*•« •IfopMlv* lraMi«MMlLj»» kaar •jaiaa >c)r««k(l(unm«i x/. •. MM«1% mrix«tkofls% tMHMiaft mmmttA, m•Ml •lakuld MH«)r«l«Mr* iwl—iiyt r«««v4ay«lL*lr6 hMie Mitaa M«-• - \'«. — "\-'I. TKlm6 6. myr TllXaariU«lt«al «• Mr«*«vt%»li•r B. «• «tea» 'topvvtt 4a M«al h«J. wMa wmm t41l« h»U««l* mmt. lta*r (tml*. Ml•t-*«•'!*.-r• •«

119 TUNGSRAMECTESOLT fiUilOSSiCI itSITQlT-TMUUCUJPE8T 4.

TUNGSRAM 120W^ - g ^^ ^ 4 ^ .^^^^^^f^i^"^^z^•*^t. .Qi'^-^ •«'»-The Trade Minister's letter to theChamber of Commerce and Industry,dated from 1899, informing thelatter about the conditions onwhich the continuation of TUNGS­RAM'S special government privilegeswere made pendant after thecompany's moving to the new location.

121 TUNGSRAMM^liMH9A.2i.1GyArvizsi^lati jelent^sI. Adatok.I. iltaM«M k^rMMk.I. A gfir n«l7 •iwini|llli«> ••ip' fM||TartmaMT('^*( .^cMi .ukli.U«tlu——*••«Kor••lalitr*Mw>«• M.'

TUNGSIVIM 122This group photography, whichwas taken still back in the HuszarStreet plant, radiates the aura ofthe Franz Josephian period-andalso, that of the heroic early daysin TUNGSRAM'S history. The manwith blond hair sitting in the nniddleof the front row is Jozsef Pinter,the technical director. Second tohis right is Lipot Aschner whosename has been associated with anentire period in the history of thecompany.

123 TUNGSRAM^f^f^^^*^^\. / .-^ 7**/ *^»»^ "

TUNGSRAM 124%*. ^ . ''^yv^w^ ^y^

125 TUNGSRAMIZZOLAMPA OSZTALY:5>ff^/ne/'^^^k*e£y**^'«^«eW^«^^*

TUNGSRAM 126This old Russian TUNGSRAMposter bears out what has justbeen claimed in connection withthe company's good eastern tradeconections. The letter which comeslast in the Cyrillic transcription ofthe word TUNGSRAM only servesto harden the sound of the previousletter, the letter "M". This letterwas judged as superfluous andwas abolished under Lenin. Theinclusion of this letter suggeststhat the poster dates back to the1910's, the same way as the drawnfilament incandescent lamps do.

127-w.•kTUNGSRAMEQYESOLT VILLAMOSSAQIatSZVtXY-TAKSASAaMMmuOrr BOUKH U m TAH«A• f•••!'v'tR!> kaasuiakalnkai aaltan aorossa akuirolden aloallttelt lafkltunokb hason ffyartaanyok koza. ''lla^o-•an Iffaiolja ast as Is, he>• hazai talafon-halotatokon kl.ulroiofinla, Uulaaria as Oorofforssac la .«t.a!t/an blstak a»g bannunkattaiafon- as )c62r«nt,l kapcsolc kasitiakak szanitasava!.A talafonsryartasaal *s/l iajulaa kasdawtuk :.>^c % /i i-'.acca Izsc'.as. %k alMMltjtsat Is as t .lol^iB.^a••a/aru^>_^xi_P»•* : In.iwr. \ l%aAb

TUNGSRAM 128ti.-'J-VC.-url t-l*Xr :.. r.iitcif';*iplUdl XliltiMj ssialaIOin*iinaMl«»lo•KKMfttok IMl . 19M IprXllm »...I MtynJUJSLDetails of the bills in relation withthe construction work of theUjpest plant.

129 TUNGSRAMEgyesult Villamossagi ReszVeny-T^Psas^gIZZdliAMPA-OSZTAUY."TSB^BBBIPTt«li(*irt6 suiM 10-01.vtnsT. noa.4.W IST. CZk, lOk ic A not «-ui

TUNGSRAM 130IZZOLAMPAOSZTALV.a^oL*^ vif-A****'*^^^*• • * » > * »t ;i

T3tTUNGSRAM^tiSZVl'-NY- TARSASAGAMl'Lh'ir UJl'EST.10-01.TEW-ONl«-UBudiptttmtllML1003. JulluM 2Korozv6ny>KiSretiisX a tiszteXt oaxttlyfonok urak,hocy exen korozv^nytocztilyak notlen tlaztvlstlolvel tBdeaisslvittl v^e*tt kozolntssivesktijetitk iIn this memorandum addressed toall the unmarried administrativeemploees, the company-in orderto protect its reputation-announcesthat in future it wouldonly permit its staff to marry oncetheir income reaches a certainlevel. (The regulations of theHabsburg Monarchy's imperialarmy laid down similar conditionsfor its officers.) This level of incomewas fixed at 3,600 Koronasin the case of those woking incommercial or technical positionsand 3,000 Koronas in the case of allthe other staff members."4r6«34cuak f.-^l. Jnnluc ho 17.-4n neftortott ircssB^osi;! iilcc'in es irnzr«t.os£c • kovetke^o httirozctot l.octa :A t£.rcas£: notlan tlcztvisclol

TUNGSRAM 132to V L r. I. MG LU H LAMPEN-CATALOGDER VEREINIGTEN ELECTRICITATSACTIEN-GESELLSCHAFTOLUHLAMPEN ABTHEiLUNGThe company's first catalogue advertisingits incandescent lampswas written in German and it described74 different designs. Asthe old form of the company'sname was used, the cataloguemust have been published sometimebefore 1905.\ & ^UJPEST BEi BUDAPESTTCLeORAMMei JMPtMt, UJPCST-!•• ii»iii M« ua van^ LUM" M in VMIn UMV« H« XD VanMk 4-47•-•. I»-M. M-MInh alt:iMwrnN IMMrii eh fUfdnctt • mMlltwiii ifHf^ mtz;:^—1[&,"^ct 1• LWit IT -». J»-tlH.. 1«t 1• 14»•1It••ff••1"MMLIItn»mmmM»nmN»un17ITITITM»»MM14MMSM4i4kf«tWMlM>nn*MWMaaa••*7TTn%n»•naaWi•4a«M*T•••Ma•aISa"1"m«lataatMlIMMkMlt«41a»T«IS»14a»21IfM-laMTMI>laIWwIHIMUftatIM»10lewwwaaa1012aatIIla ' IIta ! 13ai 13atIIat 12a4 ! 12at ISat 1 MtMM-"-1 l-'l"Nr.MIO-2ao-v.•-• wJ'^t

133 TUNGSRAMThe following six pages show aselection of a characteristic assortmentof TUNGSRAM carbon filamentlamps towards the beginningof the century.,^-—CV

TUNGSRAM 1349V,T^Jil Vl*. SB Knrni< --v's:>4-:-cr"TlraF" -Jtrritr...X.

135 TUNGSRAM\>-»••Kr. t».«l Hi V.>llK nil.! I'l Krf/rtiOtlwwniWMntr t a M) i30M I4>l I I'l Vi.ll-"» uml IJ Kn/.i.n.lI ». i;'. V..;'II. k. r...V-.•.*^:

TUNGSRAM 136(irMWimtAilKr KM MDuriiMviettvr 75r. * - \^X

137 TUNGSRAM20 IV, Vntt1 irntl S Krr/ci'Mr. I*.mtt RandM Ml Voll5. A und U> KrrrrnXr. II.31 lis VollH iiml 10 Krf/m\r.Il«.I7ti JSt VoltV H iittj M> K'rf/mv^ca M (OnamnnUnfc^ 3(MnammtUnKe ca 101) f[>ufvhn*e«»cr MOr%Ammttlni;r iji I lu mnl>titihinr*«rt W

TUNGSRAM 138• > ., ^ - y •Jlr. It Voli rnt!^^ gtft'.vrrr fiwiH tIMr. IM^«> IJ» VoMS, • uiMl II tinttnOil—iiiaimrlit«itMr. rta40 in V'4I10 Wld Ift ktrirn4U «S Vo«3 und } Krmn.OnamNrtMngc ca 63 r M> V..II3 und IS Krrfrnr caaaiDunhmtutt . 22/-.^^'..vr^^^it ;|• • V ,.j •*-.• •• 'v .

139 TUNGSRAMOld TUNGSRAM bases for lampsusing carbon filaments. One cannot help noticing how well thesedesigns stood the test of time, assome of them are still being marketedtoday.OK \K Wt Wt r^K .«K.•ooooolM JJ > 35 3« " .» >K• * : ' ; ^ -

TUNGSRAM 140M«nU«*>«*>>t ilHKft. evi ilr hA t:i-Aii.MAuY V. ^ ^ Ki KIR'9'SZAHADALMI H H M IVATALSZABADALMI LEIRASV.VllhOSZTALYBU4r** wolfrAmb-)! TSflj MoIybdteMn •tektrouM icaAlimpAkkos rmUisadtMtak •IMlUOsAr*.D" JUST ALKXANDKR VKfiYRSZ RS HANAMAN FKRENCZ MCRNOKEIi>BB BECSI. JELENLEG BUUAPESTI LAKOSOK.• itilntliliifc aafiia U^ Jwtw M t^Uuk HII»I t>l-Utfig pMiMt- Tagyu Militett MaekMI U\6 be-VOMM •ioAHMMn. A_js)eo taUlminyrzekkel •!«•>•• tincU watfran- Ta^y •»-TybdiialMMl an isstantiak eMAHftMUniOttaft. 1(fl«ak oxybalogtaraoUletoi pLoxyeblMmia, akM iaaMrMM, viirflt intolUt.fta, talni«lgr

141 TUNGSRAMJust and Hanaman's tungstenlamp. The carbon filament wascovered with a tungsten suspension;once the tungsten adapted tothe shape of the filament, the carboncontent was removed viaheating. This procedure was laterreplaced by Coolidge's powdermetallurgic method of drawingtugsten wire. TUNGSRAM, preciselyon account of its own patentcovering the application oftungsten as filament, was able tobuy the latter patent under favourableterms.A contemporary picture postcardsent from Ujpest. The pictureshows how the street in front ofthe factory looked like some 80years ago. The faded Czech writingon the top of the picture refers tothe-widely known-fact thatTUNGSRAM had to employtrained glass workers from theCzech-Moravian region of theformer Austro-Hungarian Empire.

TUNGSRAM 142> •-•, i^ J- -'\.'•^.r^-v-This photograph was taken in oneof the workshops ofthe old telephone-telegraphdepartment.Here gas lights are still competingagainst the electric ones. If we lookat the ceiling we can see that linseof electric lights alternate withlines of gas lights. For the timesbeing!As we have already mentioned,TUNGSRAM inherited the telephoneand telegraph productionprofile from its legal predecessor.But the company was also involvedin making and installingtelephone exchanges, some ofwhich are still working in Budapest.This photograph showing telephoneoperator ladies wearingromantic long skirt no doubt aboutthe date of origin: sometimeduring the 1900s.;. •S?v

143f 1• KTUNGSRAMThe Budapesttelephone exchangeknown as "Terez", manufacturedand installed by TUNGSRAM, havingbeen renewed, it is still operatingtoday.-•xOne of the many shares (or rather,an order form for it), dated 1 May,1906. It is perfectly in order-exceptthe director's signature is missing I' t -.,.,,.•• • ^.•.

TUNGSRAM 144The clothing of these women-semiskilled labourers leavingthe factory at the end of theshift- proves that the company'smove to Ujpest from the centre ofBudapest, indeed, fell in the categoryof rural industrialization.TUNGSRAM provided good workopportunity to the population ofthe villages and settlements northof Budapest.This is how the Machine Workshoplooked before the First WorldWar. ^'X.

145 TUNGSRAM^tM»t «»/^ tiMniU 'The picture, mailed as a postcard,was talcen during a group outing ofthe TUNGSRAM employees inJune, 1913. The management-Lipot Aschner and his team-isshown sitting around the big tablein the front.>^•.•»A.'.WMMMt*-'*"ifi-« X*"^ipa

TUNGSRAM 146The bases of the lamps are beingproduced on stamping machinespowered by a transmission systemin the 1910s. The semi-skilledworkers operating the machineswere mostly country girls.^*> ^v if •^^Q NV/ < ..'An old map of Ojpest when it wasstill a separate town, and not just adistrict of Budapest. TUNGSRAMwas built in the outskirts of thissmall town in the first years of thecentury. From the viewpoint oftransportation the site had twogreat advantages: one was theshort distance to the river Danube,the other was that the first Hungarianrailway service, built betweenVac and Budapest, passed throughUjpest.

147TUNGSRAMmMMrtAt KU.NRl- II TintOUUXUTMlBUOAPESTEN..Ar '•"iar'^s ilt vlll>>ao«sA«t.-*»«T*nTtAr»»»*flin»»V,B u d * p a « t a « .Ax lFJp«at«n aoat ApdlX cy*rt«l«pJkr« Mrt poatitlUvntxlrel41llt4B4t n Im-in1r>i1nlawlcir1 •. ktr. •inl.Btar ur tolr6 *rtAprill* t\6 30-An 8VM8 sm. K. kalt FanMX«t4v«l aiwadAlrast*, Mn.^Ir' U'tM »«onbflii, hofgr « t. r^as-rtnylArsoaAg r> hl\rMtf>l osAljKir*,v>vl"«int a kinevaxanaA poatwaaatar r*a*4ra vOr4aal falAjAolottinorenas neljrla^cakat, iMakai6at«a • hivrntMll haiyii«^alr*• )• postxaesbar IfikAaAiytk dtjaantaa fOMaAt «a vllA«it4aAt lasnUbb8t /:&:/ *vre kfltalau'la* bintoaitaM^ A hlvwtwlnok folT*Avl "'Jftuaxtus h6 1-An laand^ BAffiurltAaM Irtat liitA«k«daa.a»ive»ka

TUNGSRAM 148ARJEGYZEK"mwxvoriMTll.hl ON:lu-ul :: /A-Mfa-w :•• /ft-"4I ovi:s(li TI//1 )i A\ll>Ars\ll I AMOSSA(-,IUllll'l SI 4.SZ£NSZALASIZZ6LAMPAK.GyvrtyaftayS «• 10It. 35, 325, 10. 16, 23. 325, la !«. 2S, 32L KSrtoaUka Wmpik.FtuiUMivollokbu31-13544—135136-175156-250trrtmym1914 4priUa 1-KL100 dvaboaWBti irkorona4*.—4i.—UL—n. Sfaaa 4» easmut KyartTaalakB KipAliiatm» |y«rtyaal«ku Unpikra a kSrtaliinpik irai • BlUrI I ill WAtnl 4rv«iiy

149 TUNGSRAM021.P^a^aato A^i^ ^^ii^4^ti-iThe eventual victory of the coiledfilament incandescent lamps wasinevitable. This little notebook,kept by one of the workshop managersof the Lamp ManufacturingDepartment between 1913 and1918, discloses a number of interestingfacts.Mfa»*> Era'" '-••"IVi

TUNGSRAM 150TUNGSRAM SPIRAL DRAHTLAMPtN.Mlf"--)! (•""J5V,.1 ^ I•»H. t4-(«94,«-niyj, N. US i»o„ lino.TUNGSRAMKUGELLAMPEN.£5?iH%»-»)S. ^-AV,,AAOHOCHKERZEN90-260 V.«' -*^"*.vD -170 • W 200- :oo • • «oo• 2^o• • 600• S'.O • • -(000El.VRT- OPiSr-I v'The following pictures show pagesfrom this notebook. On the firstpage we see the dimensions ofspherical-shaped and coiled-filamentlamps.

151 TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAMBIRNLAMPEN.f-^7-*> '5*f--S>ec. — ' »• --* -—H w-*» H. i W .1 W i W- iSl/4t«o-4.Mt *oW10v^ Uor r5W. IOO-2IOV. 1«0W.»*-a&«V 19«W Vk-tJev a««w 50-aSo« 300W kO-«Ull 900W ZM-UdMwi

TUNGSRAM 152TUNGSRAMTASCHENLAMPEN> IT1r**-^-rMA*--

153 TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAM .S' SPINNEREISZOVQDELAMPEN,•5*-^WHifJ,^e-85. s-i-^^^ja-so. W-M/,6,DUSE LAMPEN EJGNEN siCH FUR 50LCHE 5TELLEKI. WOGROSSERE ERSCHUTTERUNGEN SJND, ALSO SPlNNEREi-EN,MASCHiNENFABRlKEN, WAGGONBELEUCHTUNG ETC. UNDKONNEN FUR NORHALE SPANNUNGEN -- >I6 - SO KERZENHERGESTELLT WERDEN.E-IVR-T-UJP£sr- A/X- -l'9^6"S" lights (S meaning Spinnerei =weaver's workshop). They standupto shaking very veil, so they canbe used in weaving workshops,nnachine factories or in trains.The figures below show the dimensionsof festoon lamps andtubular lamps.fcCCTUNGSRAMtiO90-150/^4CJ i? N» j.-.c ?tso90- lSO/^43dN: s-'-^i > '2(0«0- 250/2^4N2 3' ; >j3^0y- aso/3a.soSOFFITTEN UN6 ROHRLAMPEN.Nt S5ip tfi•o-aso/,,00XT ^I Hi/sr«ss«r-SS-0t~ 1,0 ->*I CM I1 U.JH.2

TUNGSRAM 154NORMAL LAMPAK HIBA»yzWATT LAMPAK TORESf>!:tlUK.T. UIPIST -tMB-V'S- tJ.V.P.T. UIM?! 49-IMI 25MxirThe possible faults and the pointsof frequent breakage in the case ofnormal and half-Watt lamps.HTOiS>jJ)lUt('-I-Gg-^r^f40/i tlf - 45zsi&io3i-554k -•;/^,4 - Z6^2^?- ^9^9«_ 3^rj/i- 3^*33«- 3/J/ - -toII¥Hf dsAvll^tt^/^io J5 - ^h Aty*jL^i^- - // '/4 - 4g!14 - Lo1•"Z-fii•L5 - £^?JO? - 35^ t3^ J3 - 3^ '55 i>1 - J^o*-'1V'-^-ys.The W/HK specifications of normallamps. (HK is short for Heffner-Kerze (Heffner-Candle) and was ameasure for luminosity. The termwent out of use decades ago.)

155 TUNGSRAM1/iiWATrTYPE^oo-•^20v/ AO W(50W)LAhPEN GEWICHT5 TABELLL.GEW.6RAMMAOTYPEGEWGRAMM30H65V/ 50OW(^0G0H^ 2^030n60V/60-7SW(-i00m)50200-260V/ 500y(

TUNGSRAM 156KGYKSOLT YILLAMOSSAGI RiSZYfcNY-TARSASAGI'.II'I :>i'l\ eicUtt E6«ER B. «• TARSA. l'.IIM;S'r.-Caroai irod* •• csU.larT&lKta.T: BX7SAFEST, VI.. Andraaay vit 7. aMxak.Villamviligitis, er64tvitel, izz61imp4k, telefonberendezisek, hizisUrgSny^s vill«inhirit6k.1*. .-"v>AI MUr»mSudipest, 1908.

157 TUNGSRAMEgyesttlt Izz6Umpa €s Vlllamoss^Reszv^nyt^u*sas^ -2^ Ujpest, 4.TAVBESZ£L6 SZAM10-01 es 16-19SOROONYCZIM:Aaipara, UJpattOn Jhis advertisement the tungstenlannp still appears in the companyof telegraph and telephoneadverts, the profile inherited fromthe predecessors.Dr. Juat-Wolframldmpa70"/" irammcgtakaritisa sz^nfonaluizzol jtnpakkal szemben.Kdlemes egyetiletesfeher f^y,f

TUNGSRAM 158iHTf: JTletailumMEttaui^X!KreTnenezkij-7aTio5-1iudape5tV.Vaci-ut. 74IffM. M ^Miir W IS-te t-i- 1Egyesult izz61dmpa ^villamoss^ r.-tW' « «• w-ii Uipest.4.L 1»Dr. Just* - Wolfra*I wait 70' ,-os arammitg-^am takaritas. m^Telefonok, ttUfon-berende^isdt,bd^isurgotty herendeiisi -*,-x:s"''

159 TUNGSRAMVII. ktUkr»m. nu

TUNGSRAM 160X. MolyaM. BucUpnl, 1917. evi iprilis ho l-*n.EQYESOLT IZZ6LAMPA «S VILLAMOSSAQIUJPEST 4.T*l«fonaz*mok:T«-5a. 7S-S4.7«-M. 10-01.i R.-T. 1SUrgtfnyclm:„AM|HM« UlPMt.*'XT*M«a M«v ••»*!Spiralisclr«ll«mp*li.THiiasram-cirAtiAmpAit.ItlO. *n ipfWi M 1-4*-V'

161 TUNGSRAM• •* •v^.Further posters advertising coiledfilament lamps. TUNGSRAMs. lamps are claimed to be superior,lasting-longer and indestructible.i. JM / -" lit III — i'r >•'•TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAM!^ (l*^^^S.htuiitt druttala legjobb ii legtartdsabblEgyesult IzzdUmpa H VillamossAgi R.-T. UJPEST 4.TF i:((isSORNVCZIMwAMPtm. UJPEST.

s;'TUNGSRAM 162MTonpsrar Wolframliiinparug^kony dr6taz*rk«z«tt«i 75" » iram m*gtakaritit.tatisokoakelleiUUl.x -\ -•«»< ,-rf-vHoMzi4gtel tartan.Sz*p,kellemet,feh^r ff^ny.Egyesult IzzAlainpa es Villamossigi R.-T.M II |(»N 7rt V.UJPEST, 4.JK%',t.,PKST,*'-^%.This poster advertising the tungstenlamps of TUNGSRAM wasdrawn in a typically art nouveaustyle, at a time when the postersstill followed the trend set by thepainters. The lady is said to bemodelled after Mr. Aschner's wife.

'Vf . •,•163 TUNGSRAMThis electronic valve was one ofthe first ever produced byTUNGSRAM. It was built into thearmy field radio made by TelephoneWorks under the codenameKLERA during the FirstWorld War.* » • •An incandescent lamp assembly linein the Vienna WATT WIEN A. G.,the factory in which TUNGSRAMheld shares.

TUNGSRAM 164• \This photograph shows the boathouseof the company's "AmpereSport Club". It was only one of therecreation facilities where TUNGS­RAM employees could relax andenjoy themselves in civilized surrounding.-^

165 TUNGSRAMThe devaluation of the Hungariancurrency peaked in the mid-1920's.In contrast, the value ofTUNGSRAM'S shares remainedsteady and when the new currency,Pengo was introduced theshares were converted to this currency.This way the companystarted the post-war period withgood prospects.**,^*^-^''^'>^-o,^.This letter-head shows the factoryof TUNGSRAM as it looked in thebeginning of the century. Significantalterations were only madein the 1930's. The four-digit telephone-numbershows that thecompany's customized stationerywas in use during or before theFirst World War.SURGONYCZIM.AMPCKI UOPIST'AVBfc S/E LO r.//\M70-52 rasaro-s'i tooiEGYESULT IZZOLAMPA ES VILLAMOSSAGIRESZVENY-TARSASAG//rosnM/nmt *

TUNGSRAM 166XIn the 1920s, when this picture wastaken, telephones were still beingassembled in the Machine Worksof TUNG SRAM.The manual switches of the telephoneexchanges were also madehere. ,„^

167 TUNGSRAMThis diagram, taken from a Hungariantechnical publication,shows the number of workersemployed by the Telephone andTelegraph Department ofTUNGSRAM between 1910 and1930.o ^ c g ( o ^ m u i ( ^ CD T-M«f>'4'«'t«oS^«» E^VSZXMAZ E.I.V.R.T. TEL^STAV. FOOSZTALYANAK ILL.A STANDARDVILL.RT-MAK MUNKAS LET5ZAMA 1910 — 1930.

TUNGSRAM 168villamvila^iiasi t,•^x^-\.•t*0

169 TUNGSRAMWe might find this 'jungle' oftransmissions fascinating, but itwas a perfectly usual sight in theTUNGSRAM Machine Works duringthe 1920s.The assembly workshop of telephoneand telegraph equipment inthe 1920s.

TUNGSRAM 170The lathe workshop of theMachine Works (later became aseparate company called Standard)between 1925 and 1930.Today here is the Machine DevelopmentDepartment and theworkshop known as PreventiveMaintenance.;^.This room in the Machine Workswas used for the inspection oftelephone sets (1925).

171 TUNGSRAM_ti«»^The assembling and testing ofmanual telephone exchange systemsin the Machine Works duringthe early 1920s.Telephone assembly line in the1920s.

TUNGSRAM 172'^The Jozsef Telephone Exchangewas nnanufactured and installedby TUNGSRAM in the early 1920s.(It is still operating.)The engine-room and the switchboards of the Jozsef TelephoneExchange. TUNGSRAM had contractsto manufacture completetelephone exchanges and subcontractedother Hungarian companiesto supply the power unitswhich it did not manufacture. .

173 TUNGSRAM:5*^-/^u->«f.^ -a-^/i--**^-*, ••Wo ••^>.r-*"^ /'r- >,. 4 .'?' 'ir^^^L^^.?^.^/» y/#g^^ifjci. ftt >/ycffT-rrti/-» •*• *- 1r ,»)r2/«' At^-a • ^ ^

TUNGSRAM 174A f) I ii (1 \ •ilfruiulaniprii .\.l>iirji.Drainnirn^ I.aiii|>rik. I)ranitiit-ii. 'K-raiii Kahrira

175'KTUNGSRAMPHOEBUS S. A.GEN£ve0«vtLO«««NTOtFABTMCNTu.;..c. (uiaroF.;-JALITY CO .;-ITTEE)GENERAL LETTF ::o. 83Septe.r.ber 3, 1938Next i:»atlnf;.Jentleir.en,The next meeting Is definitely called forTuesday October 11 in Budapest. We arepreparing an agenda and a progran, and wouldbe giaU to rucwive any sjggeatlone In cbri-rnection therewith.Hrieese let as know, if for any reason, itwill not be possible for you tc attend ther.eetlngiThis letter was sent from PhoebusS. A., confirming the date andplace of the next meeting. Thenames of the invited parties werelisted in alphabetical oder on theleft margin.Yours very trulyAtherton(^i4- .'^'^^

TUNGSRAM 1767 » rA."..'!*!* ' In l-Jf ''ol;'* "(J-''•'»«*•>-*'t 31''>il»op«o. Alu nniVen. •>«'V«ni.BP T»rprilfllittt uiih «»«-T "^r. .T-i«t JS ^v.AT«Hi« l!Mm l«'artl(>wr, ''nt*rn«hr>*D in (lTi>^n"f«laV«» TlF'nBiVift. «• i •» xl.s *'nt»r»i»N«»-,5t.•«n»o>-iift«r oUr 'IK t»i1 t«r >»l'!atr««-»B -inlv»in ler«Tttf»« ''nt-rn^hn'n nuf i--f«n'K!1'!>>« "•tm. J»tl (• il'irih ?»ri«tnr:f o1«r inro* i?«ttTt«''J» oi«r nor«ll8nh«Unt«r>t'lttnn{r tx> fHMtrn. ^o*«rT«' HIKO ntuhft-" «tnMln»n 'illc tin* su^lTiiVH^ht r** .-17tr« In^xniivr STleohtn !)*n *el>t«r ?iirt«t

177• J^^''i\TUNGSRAMN..And that is how the decade-longdebate between the inventor andthe company ended. This memowas sent to the chief executiveofficer Lipot Aschner, informinghim about the death of Dr. Just.The company was willing to payfor the cost of the funeral.Hint V«s1rlcKS

TUNGSRAM 178The assembling of stems withdrawn tungsten filament fortungsten lamps in the beginning ofthe 1920s.- ;^.The production of discs sometimeduring the 1920s.J-

179 TUNGSRAMt'ji'Stem production in the end of the1920's.Lamp production had the followingphases at that time:1st phase: stem construction andassembling2nd phase: sealing-pumping3rd phase: the fitting of bases,final quality control, packing.

TUNGSRAM 180"N-^Lamp production using 24-way automaticvacuum pumps in the1920s.Lamp production in the end of the1920s, following the automatization.In the right-hand line we seeunits consisting of a 16-way sealingmachine and a 24-way automaticvacuum pump.

181 TUNGSRAMLamp production in the 1930s with"unit"-type production lines.On the left side of the photographwe see the basing and the preheatingmachines, on the right, theso-called "Sealex" automatic unit.At this time the fitting of stems wasstill manual, but the fixing of theglass bulbs was already automatic.On the right hand side of thepicture we can see the conveyerbelt with the complete stemps.Incandescent lampductionin 1920.basepro-•if.

TUNGSRAM 182•\..The workshop producing vitritglass for lamps before the introductionof automatization in the1920s.'feThe purification of low-pressureinert gases in the 30s.S?'

183 TUNGSRAMAutomatic sealing of lamps in the1930-s. On the left we can seeTUNGSRAM'S own construction:an automatic glass-bulb feeder.Assembling the stemps of gasfilledlamps. The company, by theway, is known for the frequentreconstruction of its existingfacilities according to the varyingdemands. Today this hall accommodatesTUNGSRAM'S internaltelephone exchange.

TUNGSRAM 184: ^ ^Iv•V .' V': •KThe pumping and sealing of vacuumlamps with General Electric's16-way sealing machine and 24-way automatic pump at the end ofthe 1920s.< ~• » ' ,

185 TUNGSRAMT»«FgfMM»• "kG*Pl^f Kiserolap.f^^^i^iViJj^

TUNGSRAM 186TUNGSRAM TiDUnASPIKAtliHMDIMtWHW tOUOZATmiiJ"Replace a coiled-coil lamp! Youreyes, as well as your valet willbenefit from it! "-says theTUNGSRAM advert in the Marc 17,1935 issue of the periodical of theAssociation of Hungarian Engineersand Architects. The "D"sign and the 'Dim' (decalumen)stamp referred to the luminosity ofthe lamp. The cartel members hadthe edge on the outsider firms inproduction technology. They wereable to produce lamps which providedmore light without usingmore electricity. The 'Dim' stamp,therefore, distinguished thePhoebus lamps from the othercompanies' products. The samestamp was used on the exportedlamps and only went out of usewhen Phoebus was abolished.*', V;Measuring the luminosity of incandescentlamps in a photometersphere in the 1930s.

187 TUNGSRAMFor your information-as well as inway of remembrance-we wouldlike to show you the choice ofTungsram lamps from the periodpreceding the introduction of kryptonlamps. The diagrams comefrom TUNGSRAM'S cataloguespublished between 1926 and 1928.Figure 1: Vacuum GSL (General ServiceLamp) with coiled filamentFigure 2: Spherical shaped lamp withcoiled filament for decorationFigure 3: 'Resista' (vibration-resistant)vacuumlamp with coiled filament>4-

TIINGSRAM 188Figure 8: Gas-filled GSL lamp over 100Watt output for industrial use, withsingle coil, having a luminous efficiencysuperior to that of the vacuumlamps, and fitted with opal bulb toreduce glare. It could be used without aseparate luminaire.Figure 9: Gas-filled GSL lamp over 100Watt output for industrial use, withsingle coil, having a luminous efficiencysuperior to that of the vacuumlamps and fitted with blue glass bulb togive out light similar to daylight.8. 4br>. 9. 4bra.Figure 10: Economy lamp with twoseparate filaments. By pulling thestring it switched from normal toeconomy mode, giving off less light. Itwas designed for bedrooms, hospitalsand hotels.Figure 11: It had the same characteristicsas the lamp in figure 9, except itcame in various colours to be used fordecoration and in dark rooms.II. Om.Figure 12, 13, 14: Candle-shaped vacuumlamps with coiled filament, havingstraight, twisted and conic glassbulbs of Askania type.Figure 15: Tubular vacuum lamp withcoiled filamentFigure 16: Vibration-resistant tubularvacuum lamp with coiled filament forsewing machinesIS. 4bca. 16L ibra. 17. Om.Figure 17: Slim tubular vacuum lampswith coiled filament used for inspectingwine-barrels

189 TUNGSRAMFigure 18: Festoon lamp with horizontallymounted coiled filament. Madeespecially for illuminating mirrors,shop-windows and paintingsO^TUNGSRAMt t 1 L l^_l t L .^18. ihn.Figure 19: Gas-filled lamp with singlecoilfilament running on low voltage(20-60 V)Figure 20, 21: Vertically and horizontallymounted projector lamp 19. «bm. TXtthn.libralira.VimiJln balTulWaval6 kmailalra21. 4Wm.a ttn 2X iWm at. ikra B. Ikra 3k «W> 31. iWmFigure 22, 23, 24, 25: Vehicle lamps forAmerican carsFigure 26, 27: Vehicle lamps for BritishcarsFigure 28, 29: Vehicle lamps for GermancarsFigure 30: Vehicle festoon lamp forcarsFigure 31: Vehicle lamp for French carsnWCSMMQ3B. ihn 39. On 30. On 31. ttra

TUNGSRAM 19032. ibniniWSRAM3X Abn 34. thn 47. ibra 48. abra.Figure 32, 33, 34: Vehicle lamps forvarious carsFigure 47, 48: Battery operated vacuumlampsFigure 49, 50: Gas-filled lamps operatedwith battery/ •Figure 51: Xmas tree lampFigure 52: Low-voltage lamp for decoration49. tbra. SO. ib». $1. ibn S2. ibra S3, ibr*Figure 53: Vacuum lamp for decoration,operated from the mainsC^C^$4. ibra SS. ibra 56. 4bn 57. ibr*Sa ibra ». ibra61. ibn6S. ibraLapoa gombalak64. ibra 213. .i. feijalCacppalak (Coacordia-fej cuppal)Sit. ax. itti«lFigure 54, 55, 56, 57: Flat-ball headminiature lamps operated by dry batteriesFigure 58, 59, 60: Bicycle headlightlamp and battery operated miniaturelamps ••.'•••.'•.. - .. •. . •' •.' ••:%'Figure 61: Telephone pilot lampFigure 62: Telephone check lampFigure 63: Earth leakage indicator lampFigure 64, 65: Vacuum lamps withdrawn filament used in minesV-

191 TUNGSRAM-v;i'Edison-(«iek.:5>fiGMitNoimil-EdiMnKia-EdMonI0Tdrpc-EdiMMSwan-fejekPausil-fejek *-**,'-l.jThe most frequently used bases,. for the above-listed TUNGSRAM' lamps# Q OSwan Kit-Swan Wolfram Imme & Lobner A. £, G.

TUNGSRAM 192A21& «z.30 IMB. ilmird221. M.20 mm itmiro834. sz.15 mm. itm^rdi --^-S'«t# -Bases used for TUNGSRAM vehiclelamps

193 TUNGSRAMThe radio workshop of theMachine Works in the second halfof the 1920s.This is how the electroplatingworkshop looked like in the end ofthe 1920s.

iTUNGSRAM 194This is what was left after a devastatingfire broke out on 15 July,1928. On the other hand, this firecleared the ground for the largescaleconstruction work launchedin the 1930s.•t'-^^'W:-k.Machines, used for producingelectrodes and grids, are assembledin the early 1930s.

195 TUNGSRAMMachine assembly line in the beginningof the thirties.s.N•• •A*'**'S...r>/v.. V'.The company's own electricpower plant was built in 1900 andworked for more than 50 years.

TUNGSRAM 196This compound steam enginemade by Lang Plant was also putinto service in 1900, at the timewhen the Ujpest factory was built.It worked in full time until 1928.Later it was used as a back-up, inorder to provide electricity duringelectric power cuts to thosemachines which could not be stopped.This gas purifying equipment operateduntil 1941. Then the companyswitched to purification onhigh pressure.

197 TUNGSRAMIgnac Pfeifer left his professorshipin protestagainstthe general politicalatmosphere in the universitiesbetween the two world wars. Hewas then invited by Lipot Aschnerto head TUNGSRAM'S ResearchLaboratory. It was here that heestablished his own 'school' ofvacuunn engineering.Lipot Aschner (1872-1952) wasemployed by TUNGSRAM eversince its foundation (1896), rightuntil 1952. From December 1918as chief executive officer, he wascontributing to the building up ofTUNGSRAM'S world-wide reputationand the trade markTUNGSRAM for decades.This photograph was taken stillback in the heroic days of theResearch Laboratory's history.The person in the background, sittingin the middle, is Imre Brody,while the director Ignac Pfeifer isshown on the right, in dark clothes.

TUNGSRAM 198^-2?s.-J rslanlcn-B." tti oaiTy*alii£--'t.ir-- y^f •^•—3l^-^-:ic lestlBDr- a d«t Orrcrnl Teehrleal JMidtte *t tlw '.Itc r -:o«rt icinp l;:n taotazlnir Joar-cel«>.ver''rU:tfea •••,•.;••>•~>a< (>c D«« n 'Ircnelorier a.-b^r licb r. rit ta Tao-ndeapfB teroaceail.'. ':er leib. ett ta< itt fnonuaarlr U rpa «•! ta Is M* mrbttrl b-^-iaUea -ir.iChiaar 4aa "fl"-""irvhte« trrtfl*. Ak x cma'k toniUam 'vBicsM abr aelMa.sor •« aot D'.lir.tlaaal elat ntloatfU*kethoi* MX Mtm^tfaplelliva ar3 ur:E»X«IO>»aaMnr arar Mepaa Unrya aa9ia£.sMlt«a,aB aiT1 le keaf*':ob«a tbcr.'l'iealfF n aaoMn .\ipiaa d«r r^lraaaleataruraalpatar aDflk ia M^ana B« -\ lot aa aettir^jtaaalbaa ta. fa aa^ Jaa JUrAMaaar itaXmuaacBt braiwtt -airavMdt alaaz faeabanniAMtaiaafayakaaa tynaaiag•ad 4aa Barobaaaaaiantaas lla £aairla»* • • - ' . %*v * 'C.•ciuaad tea laaaaaaa al«'«B vlaleh aala.T)ta•aa alaktriaaka l««.The first page of one of Brody'sscientific papers, written in 1924.The text suggests that he wascommissioned to write the papermost probably by one of the committeesof the incandescent lampcartel. -v

199TUNGSRAM^ ^ .yuA,tJV6fCllc^UL^y ' "° '^i'^^T_.on a square ruled paper for Endre (1#V JJ 1 J 3 34k~A^V.V"'^Redl. The mathematical calcula- ' 'tions-the Fourier series of the sig- /t • x -v . j. . ij. , X , ,t 11. t\ k x ^i 'Ainal of an electrical component- A ^ ^ - ^k^

TUNGSRAM 200Two eminents persons from thestaff of the TUNGSRAM ResearchInstituteThe physicist Gyorgy Dallos tookthe lead doing experiments inTUNGSRAM in the field of microwavetechnology. Later also hebecame a victim of the fascistgenocide in a labor camp.• \This photograph shows the physicistPal Selenyi with his favouriteelectrostatic image transmitterwhich was later bought by theAmericans for a ridiculously smallsum. It worked on a similar principleas the modern Xerox machinesdo. -^

K201 TUNGSRAMRedl EndreMillner TivadarTheisz EmilDr. Knapp Os/karA few of the faces recorded forposterity in the l-department'scollection of cartoons-withoutanyway ranking them. Several ofthese people gained internationalrecognition as researchers orplayed prominent role in the administrationof TUNGSRAM.Brody ImreLevai Janos

TUNGSRAM 202• ^llpesl/no^yolVDUPOSJ ••~>^The map of Ujpest when it was stilla separate town and not the 4thdistrict of Budapest. The trapezoidshape of TUNGSRAM is shown onthe map between the Danube andthe sports fields of UTE (UjpestAthletic Club).

203 TUNGSRAMThe production of radio valves inthe 1920s. We can see the assemblingand sealing of the MRvalves.The production of radio valves inthe 1920s. The vertical pumpsseen here are used to create vacuuminside the valves.

TUNGSRAM 204Trained labourers work on the vacuumpumps in the Radio ValveDepartment in the 1920s.The assembling of radio valvesrequired perfect eyesight and alight touch. For this reason thiswork was almost exclusively doneby young women. Needless to saythat when they were not so younganymore and their eyesight wasgoing, they had to go, too.

K •205 TUNGSRAMBefore the mass-production ofelectronic vacuum tubes—in 1920,for example—experimental prototypesof the various designswere made in small series. Someof them are shown in the nextpictures. The pear-shaped tube isobviously one of the direct predecessorsof the H2 and H3.The tubes shown here were designatedas H2 and H3. These werethe first two radio valves whichwere produced by TUNGSRAM inlarge quantities. These tubes hadtungsten filaments and consumedonly slightly more energy than twoflashlight lamps. Of course, theirluminous intensity was also in thesame range. They had a transconductanceof 0.3 mAA/.' f - ,•r-

TUNGSRAM 206TUNG 5^^^RAD/o.^^^ RENT S 1' 1WU>KHt?MHf.UH4UU4IMM-Xk.-.-W."'H A N• * NM A S11 A N 1MANEM A N '44264'4»"vSi"''V-J5.0«J-IS ' S«»l»-l«M-433-yaaij;030?Moi"•j »-[_•-«..&».»-«»-!»2»-IW~i»-K)0rhALihoN.•>-?5r»-j 1127.I,,!,« a6-«~4»-»I?'V«ilwl^fcll•to••HI/ :>" M 1 Mi 2Dto »'0 4*t I'VXIO0 4 ."4100M AMDOA I.'000lHit>l>r^|tll*'li«>li) rUH'iA S 1M NM A S44•aoioTo«»T~»-l«040-2^?-».•^.11 .nri rtft U.4to AOOOS "woee(14 mooMUMM A S4^s^-^•5Ottl 1 J-.6-a*-• Utm**U^mt III Itr1 •• U.iUrH mr.trw « 4(1 ^r«H MHI IMHIIIIII *•—fimlM 11 l«i«i

207 TUNGSRAMThe first loudspeakers came out inthe late 1920s; before that the listenershad to use earphones. Theperiod loudspeaker on this poster,the style of which is in harmonywith the times, was produced byTUNGSRAM on a Western Electriclicence.

TUNGSRAM 208The first design of the bariumcathodeera was known as MR-406(1927). This still had a platinumwire as filament.In the next-admittedly very longphaseof the barium-cathode erathe filaments were already madeof tungsten. The design shownhere—one of the first types in thephase-was called G-406.

209 TUNGSRAMThere was an illustrated advert inthe 18 December, 1927 copy of thenewspaper Magyar Hirlap, sellingelectronic vacuum tubes designatedas P-410, P-415, G-408 andR-408. The following little verseappeared in that advert:"Here come the BARIUM VALVEboys, with the compliment ofTUNGSRAM, sounding a divineand lovely voice. Here come theBARIUM VALVE boys."TUNGSRAMBARIUM VALVES.2 VOLT SEKIKS.P215 LAST STAGE POWERVALVE.CODEWORD ; DUFOR.TV NG SRAMBARIUM tuBtThe design P-215 was made in1912 and belonged to the 2-Voltseries. Here the barium cathodemade the heat-controlling resistorsuperfluous, but the batteries hadto match the heating voltage.The P 215 is a speciallow frequency amplifier butcan advantageously also beused as detector or asoscillator and modulatorin heterodyne apparatus.Owing to its fine slope tliisvalve operates large loudspeakersat 90 volts, andat 120 volts it even operatesloudspeakers for largehalls. For an undislorted-36 "., • -T"Filament Voltaffc••eception the grid biasFilament Currentshould be taken as follows:Anode VollaUe50—150 VolU.with an anode voltage of Normal Anode Current60 volts, about 4 volts Consumption .... 12 mA.90 .. . . 8 „ Total Emission35 mA.Amplification Factor . . 5.120 „ .. 12 ..Slope 1,5 mA V.150 „ .. lb ..Impedance330

TUNGSRAM 210The title page of TUNGSRAM'Sinternal telephone directory beforethe Second World War.•«''*-'>VAn old employment registry book.Its owner, a factory worker, wasemployed by TUNGSRAM'S predecessorin 1891.S'';

211 TUNGSRAMThe Viennese factory in the early1920s.• ^

TUNGSRAM 212The basing of incandescent lampsin the Viennese factory in the1920s.( •*»-VThe photometric workshop of theViennese factory in 1925.

213 TUNGSRAMThe packing of incandescentlamps around 1920.\.The TUNGSRAM building in Zagrebat the beginning of the 1920s.

TUNGSRAM 214'VThe TUNGSRAM sales office inBucharest.J'IZZOLAMPAVALTOKfLETES, F E N Y I R O SOl C '^ O VII AOI^'Af.^v*:A couple of TUNGSRAM advertsfrom the various yearbooks of theSociety of Hungarian Engineersand Architects. The one on the leftis from 1927, and the one on theright, from 1933.sv

215 TUNGSRAMThis advert announces the coiledcoilfilament's arrival on the marketin 1937.H'->:'The advert on the right featuresthe Hungarian translation of thepopular German slogan "bessersehen, besser horen TUNGSRAM-Lampen, TUNGSRAM Rohren".("better see, better hear =TUNGSRAM lamps, TUNGSRAMtubes")•K*»A TUNGSRAM share from 1930.

TUNGSRAM 216¥»>•—isa»SZCIV^NY-UTALVANY.Ha^ntwauAa«. flQ4H2«mm, urn. n(tiM2RilJMBOir moUMPA (; MUMonAot iOntNV-MWMg«t I I III iiiiMnaw».i iriirOMir/te^V,UMawMMMiu l«.•WM'^K4Mt|Si -•«'\#«4M0•;?^.And those much-talked-aboutcoupons...

217 TUNGSRAMvy:R6szveny-s/amSZELV^NY-UTALVANY' < . : ' • ' •A2.E6YESULT IZZOLAMPA ES VILLAM0SSA6! RtelV^NYTARSASAG"EZEN SZELVENY-UTALVANY BEMUTATOJANAK KISZOL-GALTATJA A FENTI SZAMU RESZVENYHEZ TARTOZO19E1.EVBEN KIBOCSATANDO TOVABBI 25 SZELVENY-NYELELLATOTT SZELVENYIVET.E6YESULT IZZOLAMPA E5 VILLAMOSSAGi RESZVENVTARSA$A6.VIGAZGAT^"^JIGAZGATOr Reszv^ny-szam. SzelvenyI: AZ^GYESULT IZZOLAMPA ES VIUAMOaSAGi RESZVENYTARSASAG;I KIFIZETI E SZELVENY BEMUTATO^ANAK A KdZGYUL^SI HATA-ROZAT iRTCLMEBEN AZ 1Q20/fe;1. UZLETI CVRE ESO OSZTALBKOT.EGYESULT IZZOLAMPA E3 VILLAAAOSSAGI RESZVCMYTARSASAdThis certificate enabled the holderto pick up the due dividends in theform of a sheet of coupons.(OAZGAT6_^

TUNGSRAM 218The central executive and marketingoffices in 1930. Before movingto the new office building in 1962,the top management ran the affairsof the TUNGSRAM concernfrom these offices for roughly halfa-century.The main gate and the front viewof TUNGSRAM was left unchangedfor decades. Here we seethe female work-force-mostlyfrom the assembly lines-headingfor home at the end of the shift.Their clothes prove that the company'smoving to Ujpest was, indeed,an example of "rural industrialization".

219 TUNGSRAMC-,The hall, where this technical trainingwas held in the 1920s, was laterknown as the "Home of innovators."Once there had been tenniscourses in the factory yard. Withthe passing of the years this areagradually shrank, as a result of thecontinuing developnnent of thesurrounding grounds. Today thereis a park here.iiii^BBi

TUNGSRAM 220In cold winters the tennis courtswere turned into an ice-rink. Thisphotograph recorded an episodefrom the winter fancy-dress carnival.The great development projects ofthe 1930s largely determined theTUNGSRAM'S general appearance.Certain elements of thatimage are still around.

^ ' • . • • ' . . .221 TUNGSRAMThe dispatch department, or 'expedition'as it was called before1928. The lamps, which once hadbeen packed in barrels, were alreadyput in boxes here.There is still more packing here.This time the destination is SouthAmerica, according to the messagewritten on the boxes in thebottom left corner of the picture.- • -». . >.;•

TUNGSRAM 222Originally, this building was raisedin 1929 to house the MachineWorks. Its major reconstructiontook place when the modernMachine Development Department,the central unit of theMaintenance Department and theworkshop producing precision instrumentswere moved here afterthe Second World War. Later thelaboratories, where the developmentof semiconductor technologytook place, were also set uphere, on the upper floors.The building known as the 'Audion'was completed in 1930. Incandescentlamps and radio valveswere produced here. With its170 metres long front and its 21metres long internal span the constructionwas claimed to be one ofthe largest factory buildings inEurope at the time. Because thebuilding material-alumina cement-showedsigns of fatigue, thebuilding had to be thoroughly renovatedin the early 1960s.

223 TUNGSRAMThe final touches are being put tothe recently finished 'Audion'building at the beginning of the1930s: the workers are paintingthe utility system and install the socalled "sealex" machines.

TUNGSRAM 224A vullalatra voiialUo/.u adaUzolgAltati*.HL A *4lUUl nir^iirv1. Ollnkuroiirk ;• - .:..nr:.tor ^X Unfit i«kfjc U' I''Irniii •urailva):4 Ha * »alUI«l vaUitirU ^ U I ' 1 l.rk l«>u riol.KCi k.jirMJi vilUUlnak iBMrvon^«^ a kalfnidi vilUUi uir(urvrt6l

• JV , I, —225 TUNGSRAMIn the early days the rim of thefluorescent tubes was shaped,flared out on this machine.•N.•nBefore the Second World War,when the trial runs of fluorescentlamp production were held, thisvertical pump worked on fivefluorescent lamps at a time.

TUNGSRAM 226.mm--aV1) f^^^^^^^^^^^^^B''-wl, ^K. ^^^^^^^^HWe see Laszio Gacs in this picture,one of the pioneers of our fluorescentlamp development sitting bythe machine producing the stemsof fluorescent lamp's.This machine was designed by Dr.Oszkar Knapp in 1940, and wasused to coat both sides of a oneinchfluorescent lamp. During theSecond World War the machineworked in the experimentalfluorescent lamp production onthe second floor of the glass factory.^

227 TUNGSRAMThe 'crew' of the newly launchedfluorescent lamp production fromthe late 1930s. Gyorgy Szigeti andLaszio Gacs are shown sitting inthe middle of the front row.The first sealing machineforflaredfluorescent lamps.

TUNGSRAM 228•\"V\These were the people who producedthe chemical componentsnecessary for making fluorescentlamps (glass, cathode paste, mercury,etc.): Horvath, Dr. Knapp Dr.Kardos and their colleagues.TUNGSRAM HIGANYGOZUKWAKA tymmni hlB«»>Ygailtl«pM[ MnykltiauMMM MPVHH^IHnPi^^^"' '*9T Ktitmptkt A lungininttlgmrgMtmplk ranadvgM 9udM*9ou«s< • n—tantgm vMtghta Mlnta avAwHi ul t*rbl*t*k«i \ki MAl UlAMiaptkkal »ll«lll>fc»li a Mg*ny96ll*npMi ulnMpa faMp laM «• k4k wgankil lanahMt, mis • vorc.am ittffn hUnyilk. TamtnMM ulntwtAi •!*ort>akap>ll ha* l*lt«. A hisanygailtmpAk r*ulal*iUMml adaull kivAnatia kiUOn lilamgglt A* • lM«r«n oak a tungiwui MfwyaMAmpAk nAhAny lonloiabb alkalmaItil lahMAaAgAt* akarunk kMmLKenilAgiiAi A TunganM* hlgiaygaiWiiipMc a randklvtil gMJiitgoi tnailogymMa At a )«»> iMdai-kAkMny lAvAn uMk mcgvUAgiiAaAra kOMMAaM (IkaimAaAk. OlyM utakax, knnlyakal Mk awoAlyvinak. a kxnboui a higanySAllAinpAk WnyAbwi Igan halAaot.OyArytlAgltli Udvaiok. cwnwtek, MMwIyak vdAgliAOnAI a Tungwwii MganygAilAmptk mAi fAnyforriiokkaluawbaft kAt-hAmnaioraa kfilapat m*gyllAgllA»( araasAg*! adnak at AiamfogyasztAi mindannovaka

;:?^.v.229 TUNGSRAM««:The building of TUNGSRAM'S ResearchLaboratory. The institutewas the first of its kind in Europe.This group photograph showingthe heads and the staff of the ResearchLaboratory was takensometime in the early 1930s. Weonly try to list the names of thosewho are sitting in the front row.From left to right: Dr.Knapp,I. Brody, Dr. E. Blum, S. Lazar,...L. Aschner, Z. Pfeiffer, Z. Bay,P. Selenyi, Z. Szasz, T. Krassoi, Gy.Szigeti, Mrs. Mende, M. Strasszer,D. Orovan and G. Veszi (all esteemednames in the history of theTUNGSRAM).

TUNGSRAM 230The tools used in drawing thetungsten filaments had componentsmade of industrial diamond.The picture shows the workshopwhere these diamonds were cutand drilled sometime in the 1930s.v.\.•t •*">^,VThe industrial mass-production ofcoiled filaments began in the late1930s. ^ .•"-a-^T

231 TUNGSRAMThe FO-1 coiling machines werefirst enriioyed in production in theearly 1930s.^The quality control of coiledtungsten filaments, using projectorscalled 'ball-optics' during the1930s.

TUNGSRAMV232"••"•'•••' '"•! i...• 1«T1I ItlilTI#oiiiitun inftiiuSZAHADALMI LEIRASIOS4M. 1011 _ VII v mmiLi""'[fin*"'"*'""*'"*''^ tL'2 At I, i«*firhm tx^rll •••tmu»4 *b4 «jntxiuui cukti1 m II >«•>•* W III > » iMta.«i>|ff«ni>H-i«fiiii>rKi->lV,% -•0, .--y ,Mnctrlrlll nWl ^5L;!Ji!5l»!!r Ml)Uk..|t«Ttl (IlilTI ^ H | HUUMUn MMi*SZABADALMI LEIRASlOSMI. aia - Til,*. «mUtOtitlUfcil IF4nMB>t l»61AiB|Ml «• VIIUmoMAcl R^T. UJpeM.\ |4U«ll««« In4 taHta''nd*!—t I—«., I iMMt H* IluMnO*^ alkiHA aN)«« KAW- MaMkaUaalytjuk:; Ai 1 ictaypMl MN^iali litiMaiiwi u ^>m n IIto »j iiliull •^ 1Ua** tlflli^id atakM. 1 ^ ^Uaa««. kMT > HI1I»rC7«lit. va«r ••••> nlaMiAr i^aMivalrnuB.J. A» l-l|iMl«i«mi aliiUa. aaal jriIvuilBvM (Wr«HIKTll tllUTI#MtutiunSZABADALMI LEIRAS10411 - IT,1 MMTiLT•t '*"umaaon•Mjak aia larankua A 1-4 IfturPOWakWn Ttdall rliaraafr»aa-t—"-• aiMja. anal )»

233 TUNGSRAMOne of the first experimental kryptonlamps, primarily made to economizeon the amount of kryptonnecessary, are shown on the fourlamps in the background, feelingabout the final, elongated mushroomshape.The first patents of Brody's kryptonlamp were registered in theearly 1930s. The trial runs and thesetting up of the mass-production,however, required time. The completeseries of krypton lamps appearedin the catalogues in the late1930s. In the next few pages weare going to show pictures fromsome of these catalogues.

TUNGSRAM 234m-am«•i?iiiU-« l»t« M jaU M Ji!• » »M'.ia »>•-» ««KtTPTON «0(«M*K. ••tfuHlb* .awOr'»M«0«>*U'!H^^1 •;BE.Ml.11%1 -iIMiteH (M S aMatwi IIWKWWB > M KtvrtON sd-iMMwifi-••'•V.MOl^MIOUMM'(•NX1".'L'"•)"' ^ft i«*iit MB* «t^ im iiiiw ir II nfl •• m aitiKrMk »,^tit b.Xk>.'W !«•«•» U«-».i>.'v:*?•.•«•*-•• S

235 TUNGSRAM•%f'**

TUNGSRAM 236TUNGSRAM launched an intensiveadvertisement campaign topopularize its latest product,which performed better andlooked more attractive than its previousdesigns.

237 TUNGSRAMv^ •55, Mll%>^-.. tout let cfforH om (cndu i 'bUnchir' l«t Mfom 1d« prfm*T« lampn i incandncence. Arec l« nouvcRnlampn Tuncvam-KryiMon H ^icr it Vtnotme itmptHtundc MOO* dlleinic «u fiUmcnt, U kimiHc ^kdnque coolr ennjp(w>t mrrvrtltcwwMTi^nl bUnchct d repo»an(e« aax ycux. Hd Idlki 60 dm lie rccherches scirnlifiquef Dour obleiiir celte'bUHKhrur toUirc". Aioulei ^t ccU

TUNGSRAM 238V'x""^.^'V -^egy a sok-sok n6met vciltozat kozul.ez a gorog...BOMBILLAS tLECTRtCAS_ ^TUNGSRAM t>I^iYPTOINI;UZ CLA'':A COMO EL SOLez pedig a spanyol szoveg arr6l, hogy az „ujf6ny" olyan viligos, mint a napez pedig az arab...^".Ml...f va ea CX6n6 XoyopiaMot^ toO f^A-r oTpiKi u'AXXo^ovToc iou< AonnTripn.oo< va (x''** ''*< ^*^ tiac autoyOpK Otd vto "blflAOOTpi^iilvo ouppa • ol AopitTHptt IOYT--^K£PAM AEKAAOVMEM oot

239?"• \TUNGSRAMns-ixM ina JUIN aiui...DT» nina ^o*.JCm n^it imtn in ini I'N *3Haan -ni - ina ataian miaa[•viinn iniia lawnnI la's n«* n*» jH-itwin ntt iB-innaS; l-io ••Ma o^ain.n onni nninmiis-iDlOXItD ni-iiin-iiaaminiM All »o < ii> iiaan nmasJv^&in nntisa iimi niaa nnttD1UA11I3n-iiina uiyauin-iiNaz izraeli..imJfLpnt plfJifl)! uin^hg f,u-Ufttittntj/iii ftuiifutp ft ii { O^nimfiirfi \ilm(i' Up ipitijp ft)ijii>fmui^»pityift^nh'i.huriur>t/.«.,«! Jfi i^Upipp. mp-\n,finumhffp Ifp ufM^ih Ifpifitmlf Ufm-/•"//"•V hr^^s >''/A*' Vr*y *'ftp ttiju ufmmSmn Mif /"'((. "f 'upb'^unh Lnauc ui/

TUNGSRAM~^-.240k Krypton rvndkiviil riltian clAfordul^ liiil^l*9*tit*m**9aiA Krypten-gaiiol lellott ujticiu Ibmpo bomuloMt litilatAgyizzofeh^r fenyt tugaroz[i • lun^elili Kryplen-f«ny namctali K09V »*m IcsrSl tdkb*. 4mc««k^lyebb iramfogyasztissaljarOlcsbbban vilagitunk tehatIds sokkaljobban!)ha lampank az ujTUNGSRAMKRYPTONWe show further posters, advertisementsand catalogue entries ofthe cannpaign promoting the kryptonlamp. All of these materialshave come from TUNGSRAM'Srich collection documenting thehistory of the company.unserenlesc^aeFtsfreundenprig — 262 60/5t" 11/10 08JC » -i-". iserxit^e prvoigaidasMioi fuirtiigsraikrjfptiiiaipeiHiteiiR be^oiiei stu

241 TUNGSRAMKTVNGSRAM>^

TUNGSRAM 242n==r^ /Ay^d^^"*• v.-^.*-,c v-^-lainiiilliL((fl'iiilBkaaniiiaiaiBinaiaiiaiaimtiiiaaiajlTUNGSRAM\I.IM\\y\V\ (KJI.I. \AKKTUNGSRAMKRYPTON;'^ •*tVarious posters, adverts and titlepages of catalogues advertisingTUNGSRAM lannps from the1940s. ^

243 TUNGSRAM• ^ :.'•'"V.1/Posters advertising TUNGSRAMlight sources and radio valves inthe years before the Second WorldWar.flMcSBAMVALTOAQAMU BARIUMCSOVEK1? A D 1 Ol

TUNGSRAM 244I«JI:«M:7J::.l'lBd.'l: i:.u--/ / Ii i^rDNGSRAMTimesWFurther posters advertisingTUNGSRAMTUNGSRAM lamps in the yearsbefore the Second World War.

245 TUNGSRAM^.The catalogue of TUNGSRAMElectric Lamp Works (Great Britain)Ltd. from the 1930s.Illi \N( HIS: IIU.I \SI. HIRMINCIIXM, RRISIOI, C:\RI)IFr,(.1, \SCO\N. IJ.r.l>S. M WClih.SIKK. NIW CVSai, NOITINGHVM

TUNGSRAM 246*' " ^ • * \The technical staff of radio valveproduction in 1939: Winter, Horvath,Monostori, Glasner, Grosz,Ermer and many others... similarlyall esteemed names, in thetrade. ^.

247 TUNGSRAMTUNGSRAMRADIO-CSOVEK.::+•T Tf P U Sr«Mraa'"V'i"'lllllllh H< Mlb MR> Mlb MRU'T?"" urn, IM.IK.H. 1 toS^A«MlbJ-«M» 1 *-• 1 i»-7e2^S-lU j »4 ;E.A. i 2N0OIHUMO>sUJMbMIUMM,,'^1 k*.1 r*«M«I-3'S 1 M* < *-• 1 4«-''ABV)l

TUNGSRAM 248^^^GSR^>^^^''^^-Cs6vt^t mritrrrtu Ml).'MP I.MW4UU4IMRM«allT.Uto

249 TU\GSRAM^rAssembling radio valves in therecently completed 'Audion' buildingin the early 1930s.A section of the Radio Valve Departmentsometime in the 1930s.

TUNGSRAM 250The combined valve produced byTungsram, the diode-tetrode calledDS-4100 was first used in 1933.This design combined two differentvalves in this case the demodulator-diodeand the screen-gridamplifier.t ••«'\TUNGSRAM radio valves fittedwith oxide cathode.

251 TUNGSRAM^' \.Title page of the TUNGSRAMcatalogue selling the 'Philips base'radio valve in the late 1930s.

TUNGSRAM 252brtfi¥ 6 t (, ».likba3«tMl13^2.MI3 41IS1 A1o:100 :>&»70 311lOBA100 »• ftf««f«>« rMl O.D0.fi*i O.TMW 2?00•JO 1 II.^j 2,1Trimti^^M^femi^^B;ii 1•nonT ,'.(1IINItour1312i:>IIIXJ.3 2^3.& . 311V>0.1 UMOALU 3tM0.U 4 JMUSOH0 173 1 OH.':> M 07Sa.i .v^ o:i ftIflOOton«IMM30003000}M0turnlUJO

253 TUNGSRAMI'V5vA poster advertising a valve fromthe 'Philips base' series.

TUNGSRAM 254mt6'3 Vollos univerzalis E sorozal••I»>It Anlli /WDMMikitprtatt M>wrt •I••1ItttJ1V«aI Vnot ••• >VM-I Iii«u»Wl

255 TUNGSRAMT I P U S^^^^^^^TTsF u t 6- Arnf iliel6i ac t-K*tt«« 4tM«i«o•anMO«l55toillao55inUCNItWitt kvii«ficr100wo1 53515VI ffOvtt~h# ^r#flOIllO>«)2^•>2vr IIIIX)R.Jtoojuo•iJJ0*5R092i0 *442504JICH 11ICH 111 IMIlHTiiM*.twp)M«63 .0 33250353tmma01"' 3 545000 U 1 •"ir 11-M •••IMiMI Mtihat. CKIF 11rwHM*6) .011501187K,.'•iunoo ••••' 't d1J. 5*0 702 300 120kftt¥«*»

TUNGSRAM 256This picture shows the combinedamplifier VCL-11 and the rectifierVY-2. These were the valves builtinto the very popular, cheap (48Pengos) and energy-saving radiosets which ran both from alternatingand direct current.„; ^•'-'^The 'magic eyes' ME-4 and ME-6were used to improve the selectivityof the radio sets and also, tohelp in tuning the stations.

257 TUNGSRAMThese were the images successfullytransmitted in 1937, duringTUNGSRAM'S experimental televisiontransmission: a TUNGSRAMtrademark and Mickey Mouse.vA VHF transmitter triode designatedC-200/2500 (1946).

TUNGSRAM 258:«l.XQb. 194o. dAoanber 13.3 bor>qrArt4ar«Jl«*x«-Jctti |

259 TUNGSR^IMThese microwave amplifier transmittersand diodes operated over abroad range of frequencies weredesigned in 1941-1942 underpressure from the Ministry of Defenseof the Horthy-regime, whichwanted to equip its fighter planeswith them. The valves were completedtoo late to be used in theirintended function. On the otherhand, the results accumulated inthe course of developing thesevalves proved to be great asset toDr. Bay in his radar experimentwith signals sent to the Moon.The glass-being one of the basiccomponents of light sourcesplayedan important role inTUNGSRAM'S history from theoutset. Even as late as the 1920s,the glass bulbs of the incandescentlamps were still made manually.In the 1930s this method gaveway to the mechanized production-tomachines such the oneshown in this picture.

TUNGSRAM 260-VA disciplined work-force sortingtine glass bulbs in the Glass Factoryof Utekac (Slovakia). The directoris shown in the middle of thebackground.-t'-^VsThe workers are packaging glassbulbs in the spacious factory yardof TUNGSRAM'S glass factory inTokod.

261 TUNGSRAMThis picture, as well as other contemporarydocuments, prove thatin the 1920s the incandescentlamps were still being transportedin barrels.\ :**»The symbol of a new area. Themechanized glass factory ofTUNGSRAM was built in 1931 andhas been running continuouslysince 1932. The volume of glasscomponents has multiplied in themeantime, which necessitated theconstruction of further glass factories.

TUNGSRAM 262The furnaces and the glass blowingmachines meant a giant leapforward, when compared to theera of manual glass blowing.This melting block was designedby foreign experts for the mechanizedglass factory in 1930-1931.The following pictures were takenof the interior of the melting blockwhen it had been drained afterthree months of operation.

263 TUNGSRAMThe strong erosion of theblockstones, especially of those inthe bottom, is evident in the picture.On the other hand, the stoneof the neck is less worn-out, indicatingthat the necessary thermalconvection between the furnacechamber and the work block couldnot be formed.• *This picture was taken of the blockafter ten months of operation, followingmajor alterations in its designby the company's own experts.The block was fitted with anew neck above the bottom level.It is apparent that the intensiveconvection between the furnacechamber and the work tubstrongly wore out the stone of theneck.

TUNGSRAM 264• \When the block was taken apart,the stone components provided alot of clues to the experts studyingthe convection of melted glass.Beside the production of glass andthe other components of modernlight sources, the production ofkrypton was also given considerableattention when Brody's newinvention appeared. The next fourpictures were taken of the occasionof opening TUNGS­RAM'S own krypton factory in Ajka.Their special interest is due to thefact that, beside the top managementof TUNGSRAM, representativesof the Ministry and prominentfigures from ail the associatedareas of the industry putin an appearance on the occasion.

• >

TUNGSRAM 266And finally, another typical groupphotography taken in Ajka:(From left): Bela Janosi, Arpad Telegdy,Erno Haldegger, Dr., Istvan Petery,(in the background, turning sideways)Gabor Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, Laszio Heller,Jozsef Mados and Tibor MihalovitsThis picture shows a group of thetechnical staff of TUNGSRAMwhen-on an unknown occasionsometime around 1942-they posedfor the photographer. Some ofthem became prominent executivesand scientists, others areonly recognized by the survivingmembers of their generation bytheirface. A number of them fell tothe fascist devastation-their memoryis still with us. The names ofthose we can recognize are as follows(always from left to right):First row: Schiller, F. Krasso,Dr., F. Lendvai, J. Gabor, J. Levai,A. Telegdy, P. Tury, T, Millner,J. Gyurikovits.Second row: S. Szalai, J. Szentkir^lyi,Gy. Vaszily, Istvan Kerenyl, J. Kaczor,J. Gazsi.Third row: F. Messo, M. Stolzner, B.Mersva, O. Knapp Dr., F. Neuberger, B.Reiss, A. Holzer, I. Jambor.Fourth row: J. Adam, J. Bucsovszky,Z. Kover, Singer, Klein. Rogocz, E.Theisz, P. Steiner, Appel (the glassblower).Fifth row: J. Mikuss, M. Hrabcsak, N.Jelinek.-X.

267 TUNGSRAMAlready between the two worldwar the factory hygiene, the publicmeal service and the recreationand cultural facilities all reached ahigher standard in TUNGSRAMthan in any of the surroundingfactories. TUNGSRAM had a culturecentre, a public literary lendinglibrary, a holiday camp and aboat house. The company was•A,^The picture shows the assemblyhall of the factory which was usedas a canteen on weekdays andwhich could quickly and easily beconverted into a proper theatrewith a well equipped stage.

./ .TUNGSRAM 268••\.The development boom of the1930s provided a good opportunityfor TUNGSRAM to carry outa general modernization programmein its existing buildings,beside starting new constructions.By looking at the shower roomsshown on the next two pictures itis evident that the standard ofhygiene was set high in TUNGS­RAM.

';jr.-'. "269 TUNGSRAM^•r.The kitchen fitted with electricalcooking facilities was adequatelyequipped to provide a civilized cateringservice in the 1930s.Elsewhere in Ujpest one couldquite often see workers sitting onthe pavement outside the factoryin lunchtime, eating the foodbrought to him by his wife.The TUNGSRAM Culture Housewas completed in 1932 and verysoon became the recreational andcultural centre of not only theTUNGSRAM but also that of theentire neighbourhood. This buildinghoused the public library, thechoir, the workers' amateur theatricals,public functions, ceremoniesand dances. The hall onthe ground-floor, used as canteenin weekdays, could quickly be convertedinto a theatre hall. The onlyindoor tennis court in entireBudapest was here, in the imposinghall on the first floor.

TUNGSRAM-

271 TUNGSRAMFelhivasB Standard Will. R. T. «s axEgyesait Ixzb R. T.minden albalmazottjAhozIAz ^let IcgnagyobbRincseKnnrk J 'iitnjriikifr n*t\v *rl\ rrruiktiul tonics fttlkurulnwnvntkt.t:aup*n M ktl utoUo kilurim Konl^ koaul «/ ril>ikictiniilauA/ .tdufhvlMM-i^kkciUMSI, tornaut i> .kvllrmritc ;> ijvai ^i*"A/ 'idulotrWp f>niunkaklAikiink »t • >.'k6M«>xx«rm-k. d)H-) «-|f\ -a tji«(>r«h./rv«-tk«l i^ '\t uditk>ul(|> II • ^This is an announcement made bythe TUNGSRAM trade union representatives,calling on theTUNGSRAM workers to make useof the company's newly built holydaycamp. The facilities were availableto employees and their familyfree of charge.k«d%rtm«'n%«s alkrwvlH.) '/ .K1>II'>I< irp Uloit«t«Ml i>U«n SU-rrttl .>lt, ht.|t> kukfA tUtUAtadittiAtti' 'ft I* t'tr%/k/(>l|ukA ^ ^^wl - l^JhiviM*! iiKtltil ugv d SUndaid miiM ./Ktf>vMJI' ;>-«Mii^tM*Unmtt*Uhvt. ho^\ jyudulo4«t«fMi * ^t^i «:|H«r«*|tttk crckkvUn n^\ hfnrfU-n k«rr» I.ht'7jalart/fHkk«l xt^»tlNapl^ny? • Erd» • E:g^ftz«»en!ll#almlf*-«IUIr ICooking facilities in the centralarea of the TUNGSRAM holidaycamp, available to everyone freeof charge. All this is still theretoday, except the saplings havegrown into huge chestnut trees.

TUNGSRAM 272M E G H I V 6A Tungirom Dot- *i Onliipifikor ei 4v novemb«r23-6n,>zon-,bofon e»f9 8 6'oi l(e:delftl o Tuf>qi'0'n KullurfiiiiSEinhAirerm^ben. (Ujp«it, Voci ui 79. ti) (iinlel6od6sttmnd«t. omBlyre Or\t. b. csanidjdt *s ismeffiieif i:ereteftelm»ghiv(a oR9ndei6i*g.El olkolommol tiinie kerul:Fekete gyemantokcimu it. W. H'-F*'. P»til4rn*l *4'l«« Ml filler•• 1- r »• K XH •' n jk T A MEl6addi olait oi ail6k i6rva la«tn*k.Today, when there are regular TVand radio programmes, superbquality record players and taperecorders, it is hard to imaginewhat kind of a cultural attractionthe TUNGSRAM theatrical performancesor the amateur concertshad, not only for the company'sworks-force, but also, for the entireneighbourhood. We would like topresent a few of the posters announcingthe various culturalevenings. This first one, for example,invited the audience to comealong and see the stage adaptationof Jokai's novel, "BlackDiamonds", as performed by theTUNGSRAM Choir and LiterarySociety.M eg h i v6A ,TungifQ-n* Do! *i {%li4pi6tt>i1939 6viI f.r: / .M 0 SOR:Hitlbpiii >zul ou -4UfrrluiJi' — Sniabandii — Gntotle — Air — RiKSudon.tloutfj.i Az U|p«ili Zc-nrmOvrtd EOFIUICI (Con»«rVBt6(ium}vumii/cnrkora Vpienyel, Ffnyvpt Jen6 a ConMrvaloriumliinnrn2 al A y.i.T >lalu (SvA^t munti4«Jal)/.) ltr>.„ s.: Marvr nipdalok.£ni-kh R .Tunniam' Dalkfif. Veztnyel: Endre Qi\m kamary|ebalkor lanaiOne poster of the many announcingconcerts. The programme featuredthe orchestra of the UjpestConservatory playing a suit byGrieg and a cello player performingthe Swan by Saint Saens. Theworks of Puccini, Bizet, Massenetand Kodaly were also included.Not a bad selection, by any standard.4'

273 TUNGSRAMMEGHIY6A , Tungsram Dal- es OnI< ipto'tbr" 1943.marcius 15-«n h»tf6n d. u. 3 oral kezdetrel aTungsram Kulturhoiban (Ujpest, Voci-uf 77.)haxafiaseloadastrencex, me'.yre Ont es b. c T.'Qr(3) Sia>alal •ldo:ja: Ponctd Pol4.) Mudolohol •r>*htl: Ntmath TiborS.) Moffyar dckkol *ni li«l; Icn.r Si'i.> A RONGYOS KATOMAM«[*j»^) Si^tal: *r«VI. a •l..nrf*r« )i-*h Rvrf.llSZEREPLdK:rg...,. Do Vo> VO•.'*»4Ji'.-k> M*lil4'^nypl > „R »d*i4Pr 9-*n. hutv^l vatAfnap rtt^ly^n S Aialk«idrMrlnMV*l» Unr. Siill M.^.l I W.W««i3 Hactah *• S«r4. EI4«dt«k Ditiid U M U , r ^ M Eiidr* ^liirmnnRrsjA.sFttT1 FfGTVnSZONfT. B(>h6Mt 1 frlvonAaban Iria: UriiM^ MtkUt.S Z E R E P L O K :K(H«di V*M Ftmw I Si«atn4 Di^ Ttr**;«». WM U M MB«« »•«• b*i»« V.» Frr-»t I R4c)»« W««t M«rt>K«.vH«) B.r-.n R«.a I r,.*. Du-wii AN.M7 Miwd^. UaadjAk: W«ry Swy*

TUNGSRAM 274Ai UjpestI Toms Egylet amal6r labdarugb tzakosztAlyaez iv okl6ber h6 26-An. szombalon etie 86rai kexd«t1el a Tungsram-kullurhdz azinhAztermiben,(Ujpett. VAci-ut 77. BZ.)rttff*lt9 t«rt6, t4ncvigalommal •gybskdlitl,vid6m si^kely magyar est*-»trendes, amelyre On(. b. caalAdjAI. j6barAlail ^ isme-HSadt RMffywpa tzerelcttel meghivja , a RendezAs^.HAtsiffl sfitPOKCSASZAR IOIIOLVW*Nt*r FOUp'^^Jl^fI. EnWyl VMwk. DOMH* Ufmly Emmy2. M «Mt »Mto*lTrtfe. J*ta«k;LMM«* M I W U . . . ViMil BMiADra» • Umtm . . . . P«UaJ> UadBtktmUtkMi Fa*Mc'" U &^ln!L^I3t^ ""*** ! •**'^ HorvWh S4ndof.4. T..EMf«afT4 A-*t*«Pincmti P4lMM. a •••b*l«tl Ru4« £«• ^BMM ta« U M VIMIT Stmioi R^CTAiMnlk an dunAMuli UlubM.• z IT ?r E TCrfMJr Klroty BMCM S«iJU M«ttUKlMMk emi Ba-h* . . . Li«Mwlr EmmyHorv4lhS4ndor HAiton cH*R)r . V4r*di BanrfiK E O O E X ^ O R A . X O.R U H A 1 X «.k M*4I affy hkhWvak >M>-M**lMr ualfMat^- K.UM IIU*JThis invitation to a cultural programmefollowed by dance bearswitness to the close connectionsbetween TUNGSRAM and UTE,the Gymnastic Club of Ujpest. Thecompany management was thesponsor and the social backgroundof UTE.•MEGHIVO-I TiiitK^nuH l>al Oni>-i>ioki>r tniiknl,,•!,', *ziikii*xliily,i I'f.Vlfununi t ti'il. xtom/xifon rtir H iiriU kfutrllrl u I tiniiinim Kul'tiirhiizl-iH il JIH-M/, liic$-ut 77) nt-hai Krlnn-iiM hrrriu »-,ikit^t-DISZELQADASTr*-mUz. It rliUidiit IIMZUI tm^Mm^ emlrkrnrk mraiinrv tc/fdhot,nilumiitl uttui W Hfm muUi urrrt^liink rx tttxltlftunk i^leul,itrkJ frhiltilt'ura fttrdn/uk.f* BlhBlBwwl k*fU:aiMf*HAZA3AR6 LELEKuinmS 3 fmlfonAihamIrut: /Mahy l^jotHrndn : Hirmunn HelaS Z f HC L r E K:mm-TA mtrnfthNtmttk L*M1«Woll Ir4«AM ep>iM>KukMr SAndo.A H.OlW*lkc. FolAollai •cMnAK. HtVMi Roia.fl(i«« KtrolrBflbihaDeliF>««r Bab.[>«>*kl*f0i>mann RruAiFodaaiolg*KoVAc* SdntforOfvoaW*i I EIMI»Su,c6: JumUx f^yuiamimiHThis is another invitation to thespecial performance of'ReturningGhost', a play in three parts. All theprofits of the evening were givento erect a gravestone for FerencKelecsenyi, one of the voluntaryassistant of the Choir and LiterarySociety of TUNGSRAM.

275 TUNGSRAMThe TUNGSRAM theatre groupscored one of its greatest successeswith the staging of the 'ReturningGhost', a play by the internationallyacclaimed playwrightLajos Zilahy. This was not an easypiece for amateur actors.Nevertheless, they were given avery generous appraisal by theauthor himself, who came to seethe premiere. This picture showsLajos Zilahy among the amateuractors, standing in the middle.XlUhr Lajei aartbjta.-ik usrapKi kOiSlt. y Vvtka, Balsgh Btaa, MrkMyKAroly, BiraaBD B«la, inoevlu latTta, BftrtnpUT I

TUNGSRAM 276•V.•>5This was the stage which meant somuch to the amateur actors ofTUNGSRAM. The stage design,this time a very modest one, wasmost probably set for a concert.

277 TUNGSRAMThis picture shows the literaryTUNGSRAM lending library duringthe 1930s. The workers volunteeredto come in and put protectivejackets on the new acquisitions.There was a sizeable groupof regulars. In those days therewas still no television to divertpeople's attention from reading.This crowd came to the theatre(which was used as canteen duringthe day) to see a play performedby the workers' amateurtheatre group sometime duringthe 1930s. The little girl standing inthe middle must be more thansixty years older today.

TUNGSRAM 278'•v--''?»^^:>:s,.»>••»-< ••"• '•t: '-.••^v-l'- ^ \MThe amateur theatre group of theTUNGSRAM workers. They justwon a cup on the drama competitionorganized jointly with anotherlocal theatre group.

'-••••*#;•279 TUNGSRAM*sA-KialjM a KOdQunltUk i»gyarorsi4gl P&rtjaia a EouauaiaUIfjuaunk^ok U(i0aroraaMi $atfvata4^a Isa6 «• Staadara flrArl aejtjal.•iT*-V •• ! . " . .; ' • - ^A - i" l ' -.'V.'Stencilled illegal message of theone time underground HungarianCommunists Party in the thirtieswith the heading "Red TUN-GRSAM" and with a rather queswiththe heading "Red TUNG­SRAM" and with a rather questionableinfluence.>s utolS(5 b&roia ir alatt a lauakAaoaatAly Haljraata o»gs u^rt^kbaoroeaziibboaott. .. auAt»aJlkUll«k tibora aaaporoAlk. Dlj»a wtaluas u^auekUlltujc le, cint a eiaa Utatx^i, Sohlloht, iaudloTC. orn«r atb.stb. latfi\»XiB\aleraeloa vtlaAfp oladan uaaoban 4r«statl f^tia&X. CedktX!. >^z u-BOL.ii£, luazdllltj&k a bdrekat, xaaloaUAlnak, W Joad'roakoontik. e t: .nuiizsdUapa ^a Standard Vlliauoea^i R.i;. ^a kurUltk ki » v&lac^^ot. V.-ftin;p I*) & auak£83u«[ sor-•dcek javit^Aurt tiaroot folytst.a tvfilfldgra. .• vdiailg naonben eKyAlt"Ui>aa MB JalaoU "-Waaoo, ' t5.-coe»fav;2

TUNGSRAM^r^280?!The working class movement—both the legal and the illegal kindwasorganized regionally, ratherthan inside the factory. Neverthelessone of the important centresof the political activities was theWorkers' Home of Ujpest. Thebuilding had now to be pulleddown when a vast, modern housingestate was raised in the courseof rebuilding Ujpest.>»/ •••-.-••:. • : ^-••*»^>^^4• • * '

281 TUNGSRAM'""^/jL :.GOZOTT1924% .^^-.-IG BRODY IM^EKIVA(/d VfAGYAR FIZIKUS.EBBEN A LABORATOniblfBAN lALALTA FELVALOSITOTTA MDEGAIWIPTON-LAMPAIINEN HURCOLTAK £L 1(i^4. JULlUS 3-ANGYILKOS FASISZTA BANDfTAK.Even the joy of the peace-timeexperienced after the bloody warand the fascist terror could notrelieve the shock that people feltseeing the human losses in thework-force of TUNGSRAM. Only afew names are mentioned in theplaques. Beside the known victimswe ought to commemorate themasses of nameless martyrs.^^7'MI:(il3li.l:Ki;/l:SUI/l(.Vi:siiri l/M.A.MPAi VII.IAMOVM(,mMARTIIMAIROI. . ^^_KII.IAN (.YORl.Y MiK/FHHs/ ^^^Ulh(||l(RIN( M.^/iiviv K(»TM TintIR \IIn'\.^11.1 III(.linAS I'.l.l \ •iMf.MiNk\s I Kliri;l.l) MIKI.OS I;\IMM.«SNl Ml II IKNd \^/iMnv \'UNM\M UUm vnu^>/ikiiU\m\M ADllll Mis/iwszs/\M\ksAINKimr VAI AMIM MINHA/JIkkdl\klh Ml \kA*»M

TUNGSRAM 282IN MKMORIAM.A hiibon'i alall rn ablMil kifolyolag mrfihall, illrlvr ellial•Ikal raasotuk ^it nvugdfjaaok nfvaora.?^^1. An^l Ulvin2. Adirr SAndor3. Aratlfr JenA4. AaMrr MiklAa5. AabI I>«XI6. Apprl j6aM-f7. A«^UIJ1^47. CauntiK JAawf 12. Hmn Uiw48. CM Utrpt 91. nailn Gjralal^l^ir. Ciukar Kiroli j^r-ji - Crabf ^ ^ ^ i ^ ^ ^ u ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ V W k v Ana•."!>:^**• ^ " flu ^ " ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^>•»•,.'V/--^-.'t:"^»;'•Ya.. - - :J^ ., . ,^In 1945 we had to rebuild the factory'slost machinery and tools bythe thousands-mostly relying onnothing more than our memory.But this was nothing compared tothe human losses, the intellectuallosses. The 538 names listed in theIN MEMORIAM is definitely incomplete.We had to make a startfrom such a 'zero' level. And wehave made a start... • -_ •"•

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