The Schweinfurt firm of Georg Schäfer und Compagnie was founded in 1904 to undertake the manufacture of ball bearings, needed in massive numbers for the growing German industrial economy. In 1909 it acquired the competing firm Erste Automatische Gussstahlkugel-Fabrik, vormals Friedrich Fischer AG, one of the nation’s oldest manufacturers of ball and roller bearings. Responding to the demand of the growing automotive industry across Europe the firm greatly expanded its production in the years before the Great War, and again, during the hostilities, the firm concentrated much of its efforts on the production of war material.
The years following the Great War were a time of economic dislocation, and many of the nation’s ball-bearing factories fell under the control of the firm Svenska Kullagerfabriken, which organised its acquisitions as Vereinigte Kugellagerfabriken AG. The Georg Schäfer enterprise was able to remain outside the grasp of the Nordish firm and restore its position as a large-scale manufacturer of all manner of ball and roller bearings. In 1933 the firm was able to acquire the Deutsche Kugellagerfabrik of Leipzig, and in 1934, with financing obtained from the government, was able to open a new factory in Wuppertal for the manufacture of heavy bearings for railway and military use.
In 1936 the firm organised a British subsidiary, George Schaffer and Company Ltd., which opened a factory in the city of Wolverhampton, primarily to supply bearing to the rapidly-growing British automobile industry. The following year it acquired the Swiss bearing manufacturer J. Schmid-Roost.
Subsidiary companies of the firm include:
In Germany
Deutsche Kugellagerfabrik AG, Leipzig-Ehrenberg (ball bearings)
Kugellagerfabriken Fischer AG, Schweinfurt (ball and roller bearings)
Kugellagerfabriken Schäfer AG, Rheinwerke, Wuppertal (heavy bearings)
Kugellagerfabriken Schäfer AG, Stammwerke, Schweinfurt (ball and roller bearings)
Abroad
George Schaffer and Company Ltd, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom (ball and roller bearings)
Kugellagerwerke J. Schmid-Roost AG, Basel, Switzerland (ball bearings)