Bosch was born in
Albeck, in the
Swabian Highlands near
Ulm. He was one of twelve children born to Servatius Bosch and Maria Margarita Dölle. Servatius ran a large progressive farm that included a brewery. Robert Bosch's nephew was future Nobel laureate
Carl Bosch. Robert Bosch attended the 'Realanstalt' in Ulm until 1879, that included an apprenticeship as a "precision-instrument maker." Amongst Bosch's various employments after graduating was that as a
journeyman at
C. & E. Fein. In 1881 he fulfilled his year of military service in Ulm, followed by employment with
Schuckert & Co. until 1883. In 1883-84, Bosch studied under Professor Wilhelm Dietrich at the
Stuttgart Technical University. On 24 May 1884, Bosch sailed for the United States, becoming an engineer under
Thomas Edison and Sigmund Bergmann in New York. On 13 May 1885, Bosch sailed for London, where he found employment with
Siemens Brothers. On 15 November 1886, he opened his own "Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering" in
Stuttgart. Robert Bosch did not wish to profit from the armaments contracts awarded to his company during WWI. Instead, he donated several million German marks to charitable causes, including to the establishment of Stuttgart's
Robert Bosch Hospital in 1940. In the 1920s and 1930s, Robert Bosch was politically active. As a liberal businessman, he sat on a number of economic committees. He devoted a great deal of energy and money to the cause of bringing about reconciliation between Germany and France. He hoped this reconciliation would bring about lasting peace in Europe and lead to the creation of a
European economic area.
Third Reich The
Nazi regime in Germany brought Bosch's peacemaking efforts to an abrupt end. The Bosch company accepted armaments contracts and employed an estimated 20,000 slaves (including some 1200 concentration camp inmates who were "brutally abused at the
Langenbielau plant") during the war. Meanwhile, Bosch supported
Adolf Hitler, and together with his closest associates benefited from Nazi policies. On his eightieth birthday, Bosch was awarded the title "Pionier der Arbeit" (Pioneer of Labor) by Hitler and when he died a year later, he was afforded a state funeral by the Third Reich. Bosch was keenly interested in agricultural issues and owned a farm south of
Munich. He was also a passionate hunter. When he died, he was survived by four children from two marriages. A son from his first marriage died in 1921 following a protracted illness. In 1937, Bosch had restructured his company as a
private limited company (close corporation). He had established his last will and testament in which he stipulated that the earnings of the company should be allocated to charitable causes. Also, his will sketched the outlines of the corporate constitution, which was formulated by his successors in 1964 and is still valid today. He was inducted into the
Automotive Hall of Fame in 1984. ==See also==