After World War II Deutsche Babcock controlled the West German market for industrial steam boilers and nuclear power equipment.

[5] The British Babcock & Wilcox Limited entered the German market in 1887 through licensing of its technology and brand to a local manufacturer, Schwartzkopff.

[6] Robert Jurenka and Alois Seidle from Bohemia signed an agreement with Babcock & Wilcox to convert their Berlin sales office into a fully operational subsidiary.

[6] Jurenka and Seidle bought a boilermaking factory in Oberhausen in the Ruhr District and started manufacturing with mere thirty employees.

[7] The German management, riding high on the wave of continuously strong financials, openly contested their British parent's rights to these market and asserted de facto independence of DB&W.

[9] The agreement set the vector for DB&W expansion: unlike many companies, Deutsche Babcock expanded its operations to the east, not to the west.

[10] In 1932, when most of the original Babcock & Wilcox patents had expired and the economies were suffering from the Great Depression, Jurenka demanded complete abolition of license fees and royalties.

The Oberhausen plant was bombed, Silesia became part of Poland, and the Soviet Union imposed Communism throughout much of the area where Deutsche Babcock operated.

The company succeeded, though, by changing its focus to agricultural machinery and building a new plant in Friedrichsfeld [de], on a site purchased in 1921.

[12] The European subsidiaries of Babcock & Wilcox temporarily united with a common goal of post-war recovery and transfer of technologies.

This development showed Deutsche Babcock to be a major player in making West Germany a leading industrial nation.

The nuclear power industry appeared headed for major growth until the Three Mile Island incident in the United States.

In 1981 Deutsche Babcock ranked 38th largest West German company, with annual sales just below 5 billion marks and 31,187 employees.

[14] In 1975 the British company decided its profits from the German operation were too low and sold the government of Iran its holdings amounting to a fourth of the stock and 33.92%[15] of the voting rights for 150 million dollars.

In March 2002, Babcock Borsig sold its one-quarter share of the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard, which analysts said made the company's problems worse.

[21] Babcock Borsig Service Group, which maintains and upgrades fossil fuel power plants in Europe, Africa and parts of Asia, received an investment in Autumn 2003 from Deutsche Beteiligungs AG, which intended to find a partner.