On May 11, 1887, Robert Stock founded the company R. Stock Telegraphenapparate in Berlin. In 1891, he manufactured spare parts for the Hughes printing telegraph. In 1895, the company built seven telephone exchanges in Germany. On October 17, 1899, the company changed its name to Deutsche Telephonwerke R. Stock & Co. GmbH. It also manufactured various telephone accessories such as handsets and telephone shell. In 1905, the company changed its name again to Deutsche Telephonwerke GmbH (DeTeWe). DeTeWe, together with C. Lorenz and Tel.-Fabr. Berliner, founded Autofabag (Automatische Fernspresh-Anlagen-Bau-Gesellschaft mbH) for the construction of local and long-distance telephone exchanges. At the end of World War II, the factories located in East Berlin were expropriated and the company VEB/RFT (Rundfund und Femmelde-Technik)  was created, which continued to manufacture telephone equipment for the Eastern Bloc countries. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, VEB/RFT is expropriated. Since 1948, it has been operating again and is engaged in the production of analog rotary centers, initially and later digital EWSD technology.