Diamant Fahrradwerke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Diamant Fahrradwerke GmbH

logo
legal form Company with limited liability
founding 1885
Seat Hartmannsdorf (near Chemnitz ), Germany
management Brian Eugene Schumann
Number of employees
  • 1,000 (1916)
  • 529 (1935)
  • 1,588 (1951)
  • 1,850 (1958)
  • 500 (2018)
  • 588 (2019)
Branch Bicycle manufacturer
Website www.diamantrad.com

The Diamond of bicycle works exist under different names since 1885 (since the turn of : Diamond of bicycle works GmbH ) and produced in its history, mainly bicycles but also knitting machines accessories, pens , flat knitting machines and light motorcycles . In the GDR , Diamant was a major bicycle manufacturer alongside Mifa, with more than 8 million bicycles produced . After the decline in production in the 1980s and after major cuts as a result of the turnaround, the Diamant bicycle factory was able to be realigned and adapted to the changed market conditions with new donors and the takeover by the Villiger company. They are now producing almost 200,000 two-wheelers a year (as of 2018).

Company history

origin

The company was entered in the commercial register in Reichenbrand near Chemnitz as the Nevoigt Reichenbrand / Chemnitz brothers in 1885 by Friedrich Wilhelm Nevoigt (1859–1937) and his brother Wilhelm Friedrich Nevoigt (1857–1909) . Towards the end of the same year, in addition to manufacturing their other products, they already started testing individual bicycles .

The first series-produced Diamant bicycle was produced in 1895. At the beginning of bicycle production, this was only one of several branches of the company. In 1898 the Nevoigt brothers invented the double roller chain , which is still considered the world standard today. The company grew rapidly and on March 12, 1906 it became a stock corporation , which traded under the name Gebrüder Nevoigt AG Reichenbrand / Chemnitz . In 1912 bicycle production was such an important part of the company that it was renamed and was now called Diamant Werke Gebrüder Nevoigt AG . By 1916 the number of employees had grown to 1,000. In 1920 there was another change of company, now to Elite Diamant AG , after merging with the car manufacturer Elite-Werke . The brand was now so popular that the Chemnitz Radrennclub Diamant was founded in Chemnitz . Similar associations were later founded in other cities. At the time of the Weimar Republic, in 1923, the year of inflation, a diamond bicycle cost up to 2.5 million Reichsmarks. In 1927 bankruptcy threatened to end production, but by February 1928, due to its interest in the production of motor-driven two-wheelers , Opel acquired more than half of the share capital and was able to carry out the business due to this majority. The production and sales of motorized two-wheelers at Elite-Diamant AG were not promising for Opel, which led to a separation in 1930. After a settlement, the Fahrradwerke regained their independence and now traded under the name Elite Diamant AG Siegmar / Saxony .

Diamant set standards back in 1926 with the development of a bicycle made entirely of light metal . These developments were continued in 1938 after years of interruption. During the Second World War , Elite Diamant AG used many forced laborers, including " Eastern workers " from the Soviet Union. A total of around 1.3 million Diamant bicycles had been produced by 1945.

  • Advertisement from 1898

  • Advertisement from 1913

  • Family on Diamond Wheels, 1913

  • Brochure from Diamant from 1913

  • Emblem of the Elite Diamantwerke AG

  • Share over 1000 RM in Elite-Diamantwerke AG on March 14, 1942

  • Diamond wheel 67 from 1937, championship wheel from Edgar Schatz , GDR road champion 1950

  • Diamant model 36 with a Fichtel & Sachs engine (98 cm³) in the museum for Saxon vehicles

  • Diamond Elite Sport

  • Diamond emblem and engine on the Diamant Type F motorcycle

Development after the Second World War

VEB Elite Diamant Chemnitz building (1958)
VEB Elite diamond bike

After the Second World War, the company was nationalized and on May 2, 1952, the state-owned company VEB Fahrradwerke Elite Diamant was officially founded. In the GDR all racing cyclists initially rode diamond bicycles. The road world championships in 1959 (by "Täve" Schur ) and 1960 (by Bernhard Eckstein ) were won by GDR cyclists on Diamant. In the 1970s and 1980s, Diamant engineers developed and built racing bikes for the national team of the GDR, with which numerous international competitions were won, under the significant guidance of the Leipzig engineer Paul Rinkowski. This special production later went to Textima and FES .

In the 1950s, Diamant was technically and optically up to date with touring, sport and racing bikes. A remarkable development was the filigree round knife fork , with which Diamant was even ahead of western sports bikes. In 1957, modern sporty touring bikes with 26 "wheels were added to the range. Since the 1960s, technical progress has stalled, most components such as frames, brakes, gears and bottom brackets were no longer subject to relevant further developments. At the same time, this was initially reduced The outside of the bikes was adapted to the zeitgeist with minor retouching. The production of the 28 "sports bikes was relocated to the Mifa factory at the end of the 1960s , although there was talk of ending bicycle production at Diamant entirely. However, the plans were discarded due to an incorrect assessment of bicycle needs. For a long time, technically obsolete racing bikes and sporty 26 "touring bikes dominated the production profile. Bicycle production was even more neglected than at Mifa, because at that time the Diamant factory was primarily a producer of flat knitting machines , for which the GDR had opened up important export markets.

In the second half of the 1980s, a reorientation of the bicycle model range to sportier models was started, which only partially came into play in the course of the turnaround. The bicycle production was most recently part of the VEB Strickmaschinenbau Karl-Marx-Stadt in the Textima combine . Since, besides Diamant, there was only Mifa as a major bicycle manufacturer in the GDR, the production output at Diamant was correspondingly high: 8.4 million Diamant bicycles were built from 1949 to 1990.

Development from 1990

With the end of the GDR, the state-owned enterprise (VEB) was privatized , the scope of production and the workforce were greatly reduced . In accordance with the changed market situation, current construction principles could be adopted for new models. It was again possible to find a firm place in the bicycle segment , whereby the independence that had been achieved was gradually abandoned: On January 1, 1992, the DIAMANT Fahrradwerke GmbH was founded with the participation of the Swiss Villiger Group . This group took over the company completely in 1997. Since 2003, both Villiger and Diamant have been part of the American Trek Bicycle Corporation , which also includes the brands Bontrager , Klein , LeMond and Gary Fisher .

The former renowned brands Villiger and Gary Fisher are acquired by Trek Bicycle Corp. not listed since 2014/2015. According to the commercial register HRB 6093 Chemnitz, the domination and profit and loss transfer agreement of January 10, 2013 between Diamant Fahrradwerke and Trek Bicycle (Deutschland) GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, ended by a termination agreement on December 31, 2018.

In 2018, 196,000 bicycles were built in Hartmannsdorf, half of them with electric motors. The company aims to more than double production by 2021 (as of mid-2019).

According to the company, the diamond works in Hartmannsdorf near Chemnitz are the oldest producing bicycle factory in Germany .

literature

  • Werner Aidn: Diamond. Bicycles, motorcycles, cycling. Maxime-Verlag, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-931965-25-9 .
  • Ludwig Karsch: Diamond. Legendary bicycles from Chemnitz. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-95400-706-6 .

Web links

Commons : Diamond Bikes  - Collection of Images
Commons : Diamond Motorcycles  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.diamantrad.com
  2. ↑ a b Bettina Junge: Bicycle factory expands production in Hartmannsdorf . In: Free Press, local section "Burgstädt & Mittelachsen" . July 27, 2019, p. 14 .
  3. ↑ diamantrad.com
  4. ↑ memoirs Hanna H.20. February 1942: The "Ostarbeiter" -Erlasse zwangsarbeit-archiv.de , accessed on August 1, 2017.
  5. ↑ Dating diamond bicycles on ddr-fahrradwiki.de, accessed on August 1, 2017.
  6. ↑ ddr-fahrradwiki.de
  7. ↑ radmarkt.de