Telefunken

Telefunken was a German radio and television manufacturer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) . Prior to World War I, the company set up the first world-wide network of communications and was the first in the world to sell electronic televisions with cathode-ray tubes, in Germany in 1934 and were influential in building studio microphones. In 1941, Siemens sold its 50% stake to AEG making Telefunken a wholly-owned subsidiary. The two formally merged into a single AEG-Telefunken in 1967, and collapsed in 1982 after which its consumer radio and television arm was sold to Thomson and its military and aviation arm acquired by Daimler-Benz with some of its subsidiaries continuing on with the name.