I did search, and decided I better sign with my town, too.
http://www.veeder.com/
Searching for Ludw. Loewe & co on Google leads to a bunch of things auf deutsch. I'd gather they did some weapons stuff (a ref to kalashnikov) and have been absorbed into Siemens, but my quick skim inferences with almost non-existent German skills may have been defective.
Point is that the star-type mechanical counters were made by bunches of folks for a long time, sort of like internal gears.
harvey sachs
mclean va