Schott & Gen Mainz

In 1884, Mr. Scott from the German city of Jena laid the foundation for modern glass technology. With like-minded people, he founded the glass technical laboratory Schott and Genossen, the later Jenaer glassware Schott & Genossen. They made microscopes and telescopes for research. With the production of heat-resistant glass, called boron silicate glass, the company quickly expanded its range, initially in tea glasses and baby milk bottles. Video tubes and solar cells followed later. The son Erich Schott succeeded the company in 1927. He originally did not want that, he wanted an academic career after studying chemistry and physics. But after his eldest brother died during the war, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. He started in Jena as a scientific specialist in 1917.

At the end of the Second World War, American soldiers took the management and a group of specialists to the west, to Mainz. During the German division there were two factories, VEB Carl Zeis in Jena in the GDR and Carl Zeiss in Mainz and Oberkochen, both in the Federal Republic. For years there was a fight over the company name and logo. The old technical glass department in Jena has created the independent Jenoptik, an important supplier of special glass in Eastern Europe. Schott grew to become one of the largest producers in the world in the west.

In 1952, after expropriation of the original company in Jena, Erich Schott established a new headquarters.