Start with radio direction finders (RDF)
With the Wirtschaftswunder in full swing and the demand for radio navigation devices running high, the early 1950s were a promising time for C. Plath KG. It started producing radio direction finding (RDF) devices in 1949. By 1954 this arm of the business was strong enough to start working alone as C. Plath GmbH. Dr. Maximilian Wächtler had been researching in this area since 1929, having received his first patent (PS 687 375) in 1935. He had then been held by the Allies to help gather information about RDF technology in Germany. After his release in 1948 he began to publish articles on RDF in academic and trade publications. With this wide-ranging experience in the field his knowledge was extremely comprehensive.
PLATH’s man for radio navigation
From 1950 on, Dr. M. Wächter was PLATH’s man for radio navigation, and a department was founded in the compass building at Stubbenhuk 25 with him. Academics with doctoral degrees were a novelty for the company’s staff. The mechanics named Wächtler the “pope of RDF with his cardinals”, while managing director Johannes Boysen showed particular skill in successfully integrating the new area of the business into the company. Just like Wächtler, he, too, had recognised the importance of electronics and communication intelligence for the future of navigation to PLATH.
It is a strategy which PLATH has been pursuing for the last 50 years. Dr. Wächtler had taken over the leadership of the PLATH electronics department in 1950, working from a derelict lift on the company site. He oversaw the development of two highly successful products which suited the demands of the time perfectly: a goniometer add-on and a RDF (radio direction finding) receiver set with a visual display.
Innovative prodcuts brought early success
The importance of rotating frames and goniometers grew suddenly once the seafaring nations made RDF part of the legally required equipment on board ships for them to determine their own position. With most ships already fitted with a radio receiver, the goniometer direction finding attachment was developed to be bolted onto existing equipment. Customers wanted more, however, and so the next step was to develop an independent goniometer receiver, the GPE 52, which was on sale through to 1970.
On the basis of this commercial success, research and development efforts were put into taking the goniometer from a “aural minimum DF” to a “visual maximum DF”. Based on the suggestions published by the British academic R.A. Watson-Watt in 1926, the basics for the new generation of visual direction finders were created. The new technology that came with them allowed for short transmissions to be detected and located at a higher level of sensitivity. In contrast to minimal DF, it was now possible to detect and scan at the same time. Furthermore, the first checks showed a solution for problems with the receiving of transmissions: the separation for DF purposes of two or three transmitters interfering with one another in neighbouring frequency areas was solved. Maximilian Wächtler developed a patent for determining the side from which the transmission was coming on a visual RDF display.
PLATH presents innovations and fishermen use them differently than expected
Released in 1950, the GPV 50 (Goniometer Peilvorsatz, engl.: goniometer DF adapter) could be bolted on to the Hagenuk radios so common on fishing vessels, allowing ship owners to increase their navigational capability at little extra cost. Fishermen especially also used the GPV 50 to intercept radio transmissions from other boats and find out where they would be fishing. More than 450 units were sold.
Whilst developing the GPV 50, Dr. Wächtler had been testing a visual RDF device onboard ships that would prove to be a worldwide first. The prototype – produced with a vertical cathode ray tube – is today displayed at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. The series model was a runaway success being popular not just with the merchant navy but with the armed forces as well. The German border force, set up in 1951, was equipped with the PLATH visual device. The entire German navy, too, patrolling the coast from 1956, was equipped with PLATH models.
Germany rebuilds
The key to PLATH’s success was having the right product at the right time. From the end of the Second World War until 1949 Allied restrictions had kept the German economy burning on a low flame. Shipbuilding, PLATH’s core market, was subject to particularly severe regulations. The speed of the change after 1949 had taken many by surprise. Escalating tensions between East and West led the Atlantic Allies to start rehabilitating the areas of Germany under their control far more speedily than previously planned. They created a new country, the Federal Republic of Germany, and gave it a new currency, the German mark.
Restrictions on the shipyards were lifted in 1949, too, and PLATH had the GPV 50 ready just in time for the upswing in commercial shipping that followed. Then, as West Germany began to rearm as a member of NATO in the second half of the 1950s, C. Plath GmbH was on hand to supply the newly founded army and navy with RDF systems. In this sense, PLATH was similar to other German manufacturers of the Wirtschaftswunder years such as Volkswagen or Siemens. It profited from the surprising improvement in the general economic climate due to its innovative products – often developed on a shoestring budget under difficult conditions. The ability of Dr. Maximilian Wächtler to carry out this development was crucial to Plath’s success.
From then until today, PLATH has registered many patents over the past decades and stands for a long tradition of continuous progress in radio reconnaissance. In 2025, PLATH is one of the leading providers of integrated systems for reconnaissance and data-driven crisis prevention.
As an independent system integrator for EW with an innovative portfolio covering the entire intelligence cycle, PLATH offers its customers technology for information superiority - on land, at sea, in the air and in cyberspace. Real-time information as one of the decisive factors for the success of a mission helps to create a valid situational picture. The aim is always to gain the upper hand in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) so that people, platforms and sensors are protected.
PLATH also uses its more than 70 years of industry experience to continue to support customers in fulfilling their security mission.
PLATH - to protect and prevent
For 70 years.