120 years of GEBE

With an expanded training program, GEBE enters its anniversary year. In addition to its product portfolio, GEBE offers exclusive knowledge transfer for distributors and end users. The expert training team operates online and on-site with our partners worldwide.

As a sponsor of SL Trucksport 30, GEBE enters the world of truck racing. In the FIA European Truck Racing Championship as well as at the German Truck Grand Prix, the brand supports the team from Kurtscheid on racing circuits across Europe and provides components and spare parts for the race truck.

From GSH Navy and Defence, the company acquires the spare parts business for land vehicles. GEBE products are once again used in defence-related applications. In cooperation with public-sector clients and as a member of the DWT – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wehrtechnik and the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer (FKH), the company assumes responsibility for Germany and Europe.

GEBE becomes a partner of leading global purchasing cooperations. Through agreements with ad-International, CARAT Automotive, Global One Automotive, Groupauto CEE, IAMAGA, and TECHNO, wholesalers in Europe and Africa gain access to the company’s extensive automotive portfolio.

The company acquires the cable harness component segment from Wittrin Electronic, thereby integrating relays, plug-in sockets, and switching devices into the GEBE portfolio. With the addition of the control systems and sensor technology division from REMCO, GEBE further expands its expertise in vehicle electrical systems and engine management.

The company moves into its newly built site in Königswinter. Additional office and warehouse space enables the dynamic growth of the GEBE brand. The company now supplies customers in more than 70 countries.

As an active member, the company is engaged in the board of APRA Europe. As a component supplier for the remanufacturing of vehicle parts, GEBE has been an integral part of the circular economy since the 1980s.

As a complementary expansion of the product range for the export business, mechanical components—particularly rolling bearings, ball bearings, and needle bearings—are integrated into the existing supply program.

The two locations of Breining and IKA Industrie- und Kraft­fahrzeug­aus­rüstung GmbH in Bonn are consolidated and relocated to Sankt Augustin. In the new facilities, both the workforce and the product portfolio grow.

The IKA Industrie- und Kraftfahrzeugausrüstung GmbH, founded a year earlier in Bonn, acquires the business of Gotthilf Breining GmbH & Co. KG and continues the established GEBE brand. In addition to carbon brushes and sintered bushings, the new company also supplies semi-finished products for international carbon brush manufacturing plants.

As an internationally established supplier of carbon brushes, Breining supplies leading OEMs and the independent aftermarket. With a new operating site in Bonn, the company leaves its original founding location in order to build a modern factory not far away.

With patents for mechanical sintered products, Breining expands its range of industrial and automotive solutions through in-house inventions. Among others, patents are filed for a graphite release bearing for clutches with a ball bearing (1,820,097) and for an overvoltage and lightning protection element (1,935,429). The company’s brand logo also takes shape. From G. Breining, the name is first shortened to “gb” before ultimately evolving into the present-day word-and-image trademark “GEBE”.

In Bonn, devastated by bombing raids, Breining resumes the production of carbon products and expands its product range. In its specialized factory for carbon brushes, the company manufactures applications for starters, generators, and current collectors.

Classified as a company essential to the armaments industry, the business is subject to the economic directives of the Four-Year Plan. During the World War II, forced laborers are also employed at Breining. In response to Allied bombing raids, the factory buildings are reinforced and adapted. Toward the end of the war, displaced persons and people left homeless find shelter in requisitioned areas of the plant.

Allied troops occupy the Rhineland. As part of the reparations imposed after the World War I, Breining’s road construction machinery is confiscated. In the course of the growing electrification of all areas of life, the company shifts its business focus to carbon and graphite products. As a specialized manufacturer of carbon brushes for dynamos, Breining supplies products for industrial installations and vehicles.

A dedicated steam boiler system is installed, enabling the industrial production of tar sprayers. Following successful test sections, the city of Bonn commissions Breining to construct a tar-macadam road surface on Blumenstraße. In the following years, more than 50 cities throughout the German Empire and abroad use tar sprayers of the G. Breining brand for road construction.

Engineer Gotthilf Breining establishes a “repair workshop for steam boilers” in Bonn. The workshop buildings are constructed on the site of a former brickworks. Two years later — as was common practice at the time — an office building and the entrepreneur’s residence are erected on the company premises. Under the name G. Breining Maschinenfabrik und Kesselschmiede, the company becomes one of the pioneers of road construction.