From 1927 onwards, unemployment figures in Germany steadily rose. The crisis, which had begun in the automobile industry, grew into a general world-wide economic crisis, finally culminating in 25th October 1929, the infamous “Black Friday”. At Bosch, too, orders increasingly began to dwindle. The introduction of short-time work succeeded in avoiding lay-offs in some but by no means all cases.

A way out of the economic crisis: diversification

As early as 1926, under the management of the triumvirate of directors Hans Walz, Karl Martell Wild and Hermann Fellmeth, serious attention had been given to all possibilities of diversification. The aim was to make the company more independent of the “crisis barometer” of those days: the auto industry. This was the background against which Bosch began to manufacture electric power tools, record players and radios (Blaupunkt), to develop refrigerators and to research into the field of television (Fernseh GmbH). The acquisition of Eugen Bauer GmbH in the Stuttgart suburb of Untertürkheim, an extremely successful manufacturer of sound-film and 8 or 16 mm cine film projectors in 1932 was yet another diversification measure. In the early 1980s, this field of business had to be given up as it was no longer profitable.

Junkers gas appliances – another Bosch winner

From 1929 onwards, experiments on a reliable gas ignition switch had also been carried out at Bosch, but it was soon realized that success in this venture was questionable in view of more extensive, superordinate patents held by Messrs. Junkers & Co in Dessau, a company which, alongside aircraft production, also manufactured gas geysers for bathrooms. Bosch was assisted here by one "fortunate" circumstance. Hugo Junkers was in great financial difficulties which threatened to escalate during the severe depression of the year 1931. Job losses in Dessau were the result. Junkers had to give up either the manufacture of gas appliances or aircraft production, finally deciding to carry on designing and building aeroplanes. Bosch was thus unexpectedly given the opportunity of purchasing the gas-appliance production division of Junkers. In November 1932 the contracts were signed. When the economy began to recover from 1933 onwards, helped by a powerful financial injection from Stuttgart, the situation in Dessau rapidly improved. After the war, the company headquarters was moved from the Soviet-occupied Zone to Wernau. In the year 2000, Bosch's Thermotechnology Division was among the world's leading manufacturers of gas central-heating boilers and one of Europe's most important makers of gas hot-water geysers. These appliances are today manufactured under the brand names of Bosch, Junkers, Vulcano, Worcester, Radson, e.l.m. Leblanc and Geminox.