Connections to the Northern Lands goes right back to the start of the last century: in 1904 Fritz Egnell in Sweden had taken over the agency for Bosch ignition apparatus for the whole of Scandinavia. His company engaged sub-agents for Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. In Norway this was Messrs. Kolberg, Caspary & Co. In 1921, a separate foreign company was founded in Stockholm: Aktiebolaget ROBO. The name was composed of the initial letters of Robert Bosch. When supplies from Germany were cut off by the Second World War, a separate factory for Bosch products was set up in Sweden in 1942.
In Helsinki, W. Alftan, A. Röneholm, K. Taxell and W. von Bonsdorff founded the company Oy Alftan AB in 1911. It dealt in machines and machine parts, including motor-vehicle equipment from Bosch. From 1935 on, the Finnish company was the official representative for Bosch products.
The advance of the dynamo

The first independent Danish agency, A/S Magneto, was established in Copenhagen in 1918. The early years were characterized by the automobile’s conquest of Denmark’s roads. Until 1929, Bosch’s main sales in Denmark were ignition parts, generators and electric lighting equipment for cars.

In the country of fjords

In Norway Egnell and Kolberg founded A/S Automagnet in 1920. This company took over the distribution of Bosch products in the country of fjords. World War Two ended co-operation here – and also in the other Scandinavian countries. In the years of reconstruction following 1945, Bosch re-established its trade connections in the Scandinavian countries once more.
From 1962 onwards, the Danish company was called Robert Bosch A/S, Copenhagen. In order to ensure the rapid supply of goods and to guarantee effective after-sales service for its many products, Bosch built up a network of Bosch service points and special workshops throughout the country – even in Godthab on Greenland. In the summer of 1970, the company moved its headquarters to a new building in Ballerup.
1962 saw the establishment of the regional company Robert Bosch Norge A/S (RBNO), which moved, in 1984, into a new building with distribution and customer-service facilities in Mastemyr outside Oslo. Robert Bosch AB, Stockholm (RBSW) was also given a new headquarters in 1983 in Kista near Stockholm.

The new Northern Europe

In July 1991, Bosch took the business of its Finnish partner under its own wing. In the same year this company was given responsibility for the Estonian market; Latvia and Lithuania followed in 1994. It is from Helsinki that the Russian city of Kaliningrad, the former German city of Königsberg, is looked after. Finland has thus become the gateway to the new Northern Europe. The commercially independent distribution companies Robert Bosch A/S, Ballerup, Denmark (RBDK), Robert Bosch A/S, Trollaasen, Norway (RBNO) and Robert Bosch AB, Kista, Sweden (RBSW) merged into a regional company, RBSN, in January 1997. Today some 1,600 employees are responsible for distribution and customer service throughout Scandinavia.