Star products from Germany
Products designed and made in Germany that defined their category or are used around the world, with the engineering story behind each one.
8 products
Anschütz gyrocompass
The Kiel gyrocompass that finds true north without magnetism. Patented from 1904, tested on SMS Deutschland in 1908, later improved with ideas from Albert Einstein, who drew a royalty on each unit.
Bosch ABS anti-lock braking system
Developed with Mercedes-Benz, Bosch's digitally controlled ABS entered series production in the S-Class in 1978. It keeps wheels from locking under heavy braking and laid the groundwork for later safety systems.
Bosch ESP electronic stability programme
Electronic stability control developed by Bosch, which debuted in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class coupé in 1995 and helps stop cars from skidding out of control.
Heinkel He 178 and HeS 3 jet engine
The first aircraft to fly on jet power alone, on 27 August 1939 at Rostock. Its HeS 3 turbojet came from physicist Hans von Ohain and mechanic Max Hahn.
MMG large ship propellers
Bronze propellers of up to 10 metres and well over 100 tonnes, cast on Lake Müritz and shipped mostly to Asian yards for the world's largest container ships.
Mercedes-Benz safety body with crumple zones
Béla Barényi's 1952 patent for a rigid passenger cell with deformable front and rear, first built into a production car in the Mercedes-Benz W 111 of 1959.
Porsche 911
The rear-engined sports car shown in Frankfurt in 1963 as the 901, renamed 911 and still in production more than six decades later.
ZF 8HP eight-speed automatic
Eight-speed automatic built in Saarbrücken since 2009 and used by BMW, Audi, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo and others. ZF claimed an 11% fuel saving over six-speed automatics at launch.
Product stories
The German inside: what Germany builds into your car, your flight and the data centre
Your car may be Japanese or Italian, your airliner Airbus or Boeing. Inside both, and in the data centres behind them, sit German gearboxes, seals, bearings, chips, turbines, landing gear and racks.
Germany's strangest world champions: the small firms that quietly own odd niches
Ship propellers from a lake town, Christmas stars from a church village, the trolley sketched on a flight home. A tour of German niche champions and the stories behind them.
Inside your smartphone: the German parts nobody sees
No phone sold today carries a German brand of note, yet German sensors, liquid crystals, glass and silicon sit inside a great many of them. A walk up the supply chain, from Reutlingen to Burghausen.
Mittelstand icons: Thermomix, Playmobil, HARIBO and Steiff, and what keeps them German
Four beloved consumer brands, four family-shaped histories. Their products are global, and some are now largely made abroad. So what is German about them? Ownership, headquarters and a habit of patience.
Medtech made in Germany: scanners, ventilators, prosthetics and the lab bench
From imaging in Erlangen to anaesthesia in Lübeck, prosthetics in Duderstadt and lab equipment in Hamburg and Göttingen, German firms supply much of modern medicine's hardware.
The energy transition's hardware: turbines, inverters and electrolysers made in Germany
Wind turbines from Aurich and Rostock, solar inverters from northern Hesse, electrolysers from Dresden and grid equipment from Siemens Energy. Who builds the physical kit of decarbonisation.
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