Anschütz

What they do

Anschütz designs and builds navigation, bridge and mission systems for merchant ships, superyachts and navies, both surface vessels and submarines. Its range covers gyrocompasses, autopilots, steering control, radar, electronic chart display and information systems and electronic logbooks, increasingly integrated into a single bridge. The group runs offices in Panama City, Portsmouth, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai and Singapore alongside its Kiel base.

Why it matters

The company effectively invented its own market. Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, a polar enthusiast who dreamt of reaching the North Pole by submarine, needed a compass that would work where magnetic compasses fail. He filed a patent on a gyroscope apparatus in 1904, founded Anschütz and Co. in Kiel in 1905, and had a gyrocompass tested on the battleship SMS Deutschland in 1908. In 1913 the HAPAG liner Imperator became the first commercial ship fitted with an Anschütz gyrocompass, and in 1920 the firm introduced its first ship autopilot, nicknamed the iron helmsman.

Products to know

• Gyrocompasses: the descendants of the original Kiel design. See the Anschütz gyrocompass.
• Integrated bridge systems: radar, electronic charts, autopilot and steering control combined for commercial ships and yachts.
• Naval navigation and mission systems: bridge and navigation systems for surface warships and submarines.

The German angle

Anschütz carries one of the stranger footnotes in the history of physics. When the company sued the American Elmer Sperry for patent infringement, the expert the court relied on in 1915 was Albert Einstein, and the case went in Anschütz's favour. Einstein then contributed ideas to the company's two-gyrosphere compass, produced from the mid-1920s with the help of Max Schuler, received a royalty of one per cent on each compass, and spent summers sailing on the Kiel Fjord with Anschütz-Kaempfe. The founder sold his majority stake to Carl Zeiss in 1930. Raytheon bought the business in 1995, and in February 2023 the Kiel industrial holding DMB acquired it and restored the original name.

Sources

• Anschütz: Company history
• MarineForum: Raytheon Anschütz is Anschütz again
• Wikipedia: Anschütz GmbH