The Siemens family story begins in the late Middle Ages with Henning Symons, a farmer recorded in 1384 in the free imperial city of Goslar, Lower Saxony.[page:49] The formal family tree starts later with Ananias Siemens, born around 1538, a citizen, brewer and oil‑mill owner in Goslar who belonged to the shoemakers’ guild, reflecting his ancestors’ trade.[page:49]

His grandson Hans, born 1628, became speaker of the merchants’ guild and commander of the town’s vigilance committee.[page:49] In 1692 Hans built the Siemens House in Goslar, a merchant’s residence that still belongs to the family and today houses private archives and a small exhibition on Siemens family history — a physical monument to the jump from craft to commerce.[page:49]

The main industrial branch of the family descends from Christian Ferdinand Siemens (1787–1840), a tenant farmer whose sons abandoned agriculture for engineering.[page:49] Werner, William, Hans, Friedrich and Carl Siemens each moved into technical fields, with several becoming inventors and factory owners.[page:49]

Werner Siemens, after serving as an artillery and engineering officer in the Prussian army, invented a telegraph that used a pointer to indicate letters instead of Morse code.[page:49] Building on this, he founded Telegraphen‑Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske in October 1847 with mechanic Johann Georg Halske, whose workshop built insulated cables, pointer telegraphs and precision instruments.[page:49]

Siemens & Halske’s first major project came in 1848, when the company built a 500 km long‑distance telegraph line between Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, the first of its kind in Europe.[page:49] In the 1850s the firm laid extensive telegraph networks in Russia, staffed and overseen by Werner’s brother Carl in St Petersburg.[page:49]

By 1867 the company completed the Indo‑European telegraph line from Calcutta to London and, in 1870, a transatlantic communications cable.[page:49] Werner described the principle of counter‑current exchange in 1857 and in 1867 developed a dynamo without permanent magnets; Siemens became the first company to build such machines at scale, and by 1881 a Siemens AC alternator driven by a watermill powered the world’s first electric street lighting in Godalming in the United Kingdom.[page:49]

In 1888 Werner Siemens was ennobled as “von Siemens” by German Emperor Frederick III, formalising his place in the Prussian nobility.[page:49] His brother William, operating in Britain, had already been knighted by Queen Victoria in 1883, becoming Sir William Siemens shortly before his death.[page:49]

Another brother, Carl, who managed Russian operations, was ennobled by Tsar Nicholas II in 1895, while cousin and father‑in‑law Carl Georg Siemens, a technology professor at the University of Hohenheim, received personal ennoblement from the King of Württemberg.[page:49] Werner’s nephew Georg Siemens, a founding director of Deutsche Bank, was ennobled in 1899 by Wilhelm II, pushing the family firmly into the club of multi‑court industrial aristocracy.[page:49]

Siemens & Halske was incorporated as a stock company in 1897 and, in 1903, merged parts of its operations with Schuckert & Co. to form Siemens‑Schuckertwerke.[page:49] In 1919, together with two other firms, it created Osram, a dedicated lightbulb company, and in the 1920s and 1930s the group expanded into radios, televisions and electron microscopes.[page:49]

In 1932, several medical‑technology firms merged into Siemens‑Reiniger‑Werke, forming a third “parent company.”[page:49] In 1966 Ernst von Siemens unified Siemens & Halske, Siemens‑Schuckertwerke and Siemens‑Reiniger‑Werke into today’s Siemens AG, which grew into one of the world’s largest electrotechnological firms.[page:49]

From the 19th century through to 1981, Siemens’s top leadership remained in family hands. After Werner retired in 1890, his brother Carl and sons Arnold and Wilhelm took over management.[page:49] Later, his son Carl Friedrich and grandsons Hermann and Ernst von Siemens chaired the boards of Siemens & Halske, Siemens‑Schuckertwerke and, after 1966, Siemens AG.[page:49]

Peter von Siemens, Werner’s great‑grandson, served as chairman of Siemens AG from 1971 to 1981, closing a 130‑year run in which the supervisory or managing boards were effectively a family preserve.[page:49] Even after professional managers became more visible, the family retained supervisory‑board representation and informal influence over strategic direction.[page:49]

Today, the descendants of Werner and Carl von Siemens own around 6.9% of Siemens AG, making them the largest single shareholder in the company.[page:49] With a market capitalisation of about €112 billion, this stake translates into roughly €7.7 billion in common stock value and yielded €201 million in dividends in 2016.[page:49]

Much of the family’s holding has been endowed to charitable trusts controlled by relatives, but the clan retains a seat on the Siemens supervisory board and is widely reported to exercise influence behind the scenes.[page:49] Until 1981 the supervisory‑board chair was always a family member, and internal commentary suggests that the von Siemens are prepared to retake the chairmanship if circumstances or succession make it necessary.[page:49]

The family tree is split into multiple branches — Ananias, Georg Andreas, Heinrich Albrecht and Christian Ferdinand — with sub‑branches producing not just industrialists but also bankers, professors and generals.[page:49] Georg von Siemens, from the Johann Georg branch, became founding CEO of Deutsche Bank; other cousins like Alexander Siemens built Siemens Brothers Ltd in London.[page:49]

In recent generations, figures like Nathalie von Siemens have shifted the family’s public focus towards philanthropy, heading the Siemens Foundation and sitting on the Siemens AG supervisory board.[page:49] Considerable share parcels now sit in charitable trusts, blending wealth preservation with art patronage and educational grants — a softer, 21st‑century face for a dynasty built on telegraph poles and dynamos.[page:49]