Wanderer works

Wanderer-Werke AG
legal form	Aktiengesellschaft i. L.
founding	1885 in Schönau
resolution	July 2010
Reason for dissolution	insolvency
Seat	Augsburg , Germany
management	Oliver Bialowons (Speaker of the Board of Management) Gerhard Schmidt (Member of the Board of Management)
Number of employees	4,415 (annual average 2007)
sales	577.7 million euros (2007)
Branch	Bicycle manufacturers , automobile manufacturers , office equipment manufacturers
Website	Wanderer brand

Wanderer advert 1898

The Wanderer-Werke were a major German manufacturer of bicycles , motorcycles , cars , vans , machine tools and office equipment , which in 1885 in Chemnitz was founded. The two company founders, Winklhofer and Jaenicke, took the name “Wanderer” from the translation of the term “ Rover ”, which the Englishman John Kemp Starley had given his bicycles.

The motor vehicle division was incorporated into Auto Union in 1932 and thus became the forerunner of today's Audi AG. The remaining parts of the company were expropriated after the Second World War and continued under different names ( machine tool combine Fritz Heckert , Astra / Ascota booking machine works, Elrema ).

In the Federal Republic was the Wanderer-Werke AG recently as financial holding operates without its own business and went in July 2010 in the bankruptcy . The Wanderer brand was then acquired by the Cologne-based bicycle manufacturer Hercules .

History until 1945

1885: Start of bicycle production

Wanderer's roots go back to 1885. This year founded Johann Baptist Winklhofer and Richard Adolf Jaenicke in Chemnitz which the on February 26, 1885 Commercial Register registered society "Chemnitzer Velociped Depôt Winklhofer & Jaenicke" for sale and repair of bicycles. A little later they made some high bikes themselves and from the winter of 1885/1886 a factory production was prepared. From January 4, 1887, Winklhofer and Jaenicke traded as "Chemnitzer Veloziped-Fabrik Winklhofer & Jaenicke".

Wanderer-Werke AG shares in excess of RM 1000 in May 1942

Wanderer works in Schönau near Chemnitz (1920)

Backyard of the Wanderer-Werke (2011)

In 1894 Winklhofer and Jaenicke acquired an area of ​​19,000 m² in Schönau near Chemnitz and built an administration and warehouse there with a 52-meter front, a shed building with 2,500 square meters of usable space, a machine house, a boiler house, a stable and a wagon depot. The entrepreneurs had a double house built for themselves across the street. By 1900 Wanderer had become a major company in the bicycle market and held various patents , including for the first German two-speed gear hub .

Expansion of production to machine tools, motorcycles, typewriters and others

From 1899 Wanderer began the series production of milling machines . This step was largely motivated by the fact that the milling machines available on the market at the time did not meet Winklhofer's and Jaenicke's accuracy requirements.

The first motorcycle was built in 1902, in 1903/1904 the series production of typewriters began under the Continental brand and in 1909 that of addition or two-species calculating machines.

Wanderer "Continental" typewriter

Pin with the logo of the Wanderer company award for employees in the 1930s

The Wanderer-Werke themselves concentrated very successfully on the production of high-quality machine tools, typewriters, calculators and bicycles. The company's cycling team was able to achieve many sporting successes. The Wanderer Continental silenta typewriter, which worked almost silently, was unrivaled worldwide with its special lever mechanism.

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  Wanderer moped around 1906

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  Wanderer 3 HP (408 cm³) around 1910

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  Postage stamp 1983

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  Wanderer 4 pk (504 cm³) around 1915

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  Wanderer 2 pk (250 cm³) around 1917

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  Wanderer Model V (616 cm³) around 1920

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  Wanderer 4½ (1921)

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  Wanderer K 500 from 1928 in the Neckarsulm two-wheeler museum

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  Wanderer 12 AS

Car models

Wanderer W 23 at the “ADAC Mittelrhein Classic” 2014 rally

The first prototype Wanderermobil was created in 1905, the second followed in 1907 and in 1911 the Wanderer 5/12 PS Type W 1 was shown at the Berlin Motor Show . Automobile series production could begin in 1913. "We had a very cute, little car in mind, smaller than all cars built so far, low in purchase price, economical in gasoline, rubber and oil consumption, undemanding in terms of space, but big cars equally in terms of speed and taking gradients", wrote Winklhofer later.

Based on the operetta Puppchen by Jean Gilbert , which premiered in Berlin that same year , the petite car (1.5 m wide, 3 m long) was popularly called Puppchen after a performance in Chemnitz . The further development of the W 2 , which developed 15 hp, came as early as 1913 . The further development went up to the W 8 5/20 PS 1926/1927. To expand car production, Wanderer built another plant in the Chemnitz suburb of Siegmar , which started production in 1927. In 1930, Ferdinand Porsche in Stuttgart commissioned the construction of a six-cylinder and two eight-cylinder engines for the successor to the puppet . Only the six-cylinder made its debut in 1931 in the W 14 12/65 hp with a three-liter light-alloy engine , because the company's problems caused it to move away from vehicle production. Under pressure from Dresdner Bank , which had granted Wanderer loans of over five million Reichsmarks , Wanderer sold licenses for the heavy motorcycles to the Czech engineer František Janeček, who thus founded the Jawa motorcycle brand , and in mid-1932 he closed the one founded on the efforts of the Saxon Landesbank Auto Union AG signed a purchase and lease agreement for the modern Wanderer vehicle plant in Siegmar. The Auto Union Group produced alongside Audi , DKW and Horch further car of the middle class under the brand name Wanderer .

Under the direction of Auto Union, the W 21 , a direct competitor of the Mercedes-Benz 170 , came onto the market in 1933 . From this year on, the Wanderer brand offered a wide range of models of six bodies with three engines. Around 22,500 of the most successful Wanderer W 24 model were produced between 1937 and 1940. A special feature of several Wanderer models at that time was a split windshield.

New registrations of Wanderer cars in the German Reich from 1933 to 1938

year	Registration numbers
1933	4265
1934	5155
1935	7169
1936	8086
1937	9840
1938	8790

Source:

Sports car for the long-distance journey Liège – Rome – Liège

Wanderer Stromlinie Spezial 2013 in the museum mobile in Ingolstadt

In 1938 and 1939, Auto Union took part in the Liège – Rome – Liège long-distance journey with four sports cars, known as Wanderer Stromlinie Spezial , and was team winner in the second race. The drivers were Momberger / Weidauer and Müller / Menz, who finished fourth with the same number of points, and Träger / Fritzsching in twelfth place. Auto Union thus won the “Coupe des Constructeurs”, the brand classification. In 1938, Krämer / Münzert had to retire 30 kilometers from the finish with damage to the camshaft.

The vehicles built for this competition were two-seater roadsters with aluminum bodies on the chassis of the Wanderer W 25 . They had 6-cylinder engines with a displacement of two liters and an output of 70 hp at 4800 rpm, a non-synchronized four-speed gearbox with selectable overdrive and rear-wheel drive. The cars were about 4.35 meters long, 1.65 meters wide and 1.28 meters high, and the curb weight was around 900 kilograms. The top speed was 160 kilometers per hour.

Probably none of the four cars survived the war. The three streamlined walkers, which are shown in museums or at classic car events, are replicas using the engines and chassis of old walker limousines. The bodies were reconstructed from photos; There are no longer any construction drawings that could have been used. The fully synchronized five-speed gearbox of the replicas is a concession to the new era.

From June 20 to 26, 2004, the original Audi Tradition replicas also took part in the Liège – Rome – Liège long-distance journey.

Timeline of the Horch , Audi , Wanderer , Slaby-Beringer and DKW models from 1900 to 1942
class																																	Nov. 1931: Auto Union is founded
		1900s										10s										20s										30s										40s
		0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2
Microcar																					Slaby ringers
Small car																						Slaby ringers											F1	F2 / F4			F5		F7		F8
														W 1, W 2, W 3, W 4, W 8 dolls																P 15 hp		PS 600 Sport
		4-15 hp														Pony (5/14 hp)																	Type p
Lower middle class												Type A (10/22 HP)				Type G (8/22 hp)															P 25 PS (4 = 8), V 800 4 = 8, V 1000 4 = 8, Type 432, 1001 special class					Floating class, special class
																							W 6, W 9
Middle class				10-12 hp			14-20 hp					10/30 hp		6/18 hp
												K (12/30 hp)		8/24 hp
													Type B (10/28 hp)
												15/30 hp																W 10						W 15, W 17, W 20	W 21, W 235 / W 35				W 24
														Type C (14/35 hp)									Type K (14/50 hp)												W 22, W 240 / W 40
upper middle class														O (14/40 hp)										10 M 20/10 M 25						W 11
					22-30 hp	18/25 hp						H (17/45 hp)																									W 245 / W 45, W 250 / W 50, W 51			W 23, W 26, W 52
														Type D (18/45 hp)																			Type T (15/75 HP) Dresden		Type UW front		225				920
Upper class																18/50 hp
							23/50 hp																	8 (type 303–405)									8 (3 & 4 liters)			830
															Type E (22/55 HP)												Type M (18/70 hp)			Type R (19/100 hp) Imperator		Type SS (20/100 HP) Zwickau
											25/60 hp																						8 (4.5 & 5 liters)					850
									26/65 hp							S (33/80 hp)																	12
Sports car																																	W 14					W 25 K, W 25
Kübelwagen																																			W 11
listen Audi walker Slaby ringers DKW Developed by DKW and marketed under the brand name Audi .

Logo of the Wanderer company

Hikers stand at the 22nd  International Motor
Exhibition Berlin 1931

Type	Construction period	cylinder	Displacement	power	V max
W 1 (5/12 PS) "Puppchen"	1912-1913	4 row	1147 cc	12 HP (8.8 kW)	70 km / h
W 2 (5/15 HP) "Puppchen"	1913-1914	4 row	1222 cc	15 HP (11 kW)	70 km / h
W 3 (5/15 HP) "Puppchen"	1914-1919	4 row	1286 cc	15 HP (11 kW)	70 km / h
W 4 (5/15 HP) "Puppchen"	1919-1924	4 row	1306 cc	17 hp (12.5 kW)	78 km / h
W 6 (6/18 hp)	1921-1923	4 row	1551 cc	18 hp (13.2 kW)	80 km / h
W 9 (6/24 hp)	1923-1925	4 row	1551 cc	24 hp (17.6 kW)	85 km / h
W 8 (5/20 PS) "Puppchen"	1925-1926	4 row	1306 cc	20 hp (14.7 kW)	78 km / h
W 10 / I (6/30 hp)	1926-1928	4 row	1551 cc	30 HP (22 kW)	85 km / h
W 10 / II (8/40 hp)	1927-1929	4 row	1940 cc	40 hp (29 kW)	95 km / h
W 11 (10/50 hp)	1928-1930	6 row	2540 cc	50 HP (37 kW)	90 km / h
W 10 / IV (6/30 hp)	1930-1932	4 row	1563 cc	30 HP (22 kW)	85 km / h
W 11 (10/50 hp)	1930-1933	6 row	2540 cc	50 HP (37 kW)	97 km / h
W 14 (12/65 hp)	1931-1932	6 row	2970-2995 cc	65 hp (48 kW)	105 km / h
W 15 (6/30 hp)	1932	4 row	1563 cc	30 HP (22 kW)	85 km / h
W 17 (7/35 hp)	1932-1933	6 row	1690 cc	35 hp (25.7 kW)	90 km / h
W 20 (8/40 hp)	1932-1933	6 row	1950 cc	40 hp (29 kW)	95 km / h
W 21 / W 235 / W 35	1933-1936	6 row	1690 cc	35 hp (25.7 kW)	95 km / h
W 22 / W 240 / W 40	1933-1938	6 row	1950 cc	40 hp (29 kW)	100 km / h
W 245 / W 250	1935	6 row	2257 cc	50 HP (37 kW)	100-105 km / h
W 45 / W 50 / W 51 special	1936-1938	6 row	2257 cc	55 HP (40 kW)	100-105 km / h
W 25 K	1936-1938	6 row	1950 cc	85 PS (62.5 kW)	145 km / h
W 52	1937	6 row	2651 cc	62 hp (45.6 kW)	115 km / h
W 24	1937-1940	4 row	1767 cc	42 hp (30.9 kW)	105 km / h
W 26	1937-1940	6 row	2651 cc	62 hp (45.6 kW)	115 km / h
W 23	1937-1941	6 row	2651 cc	62 hp (45.6 kW)	105 km / h

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  Wanderer W 3 "Puppchen", 1915

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  Auto Union Wanderer W 25 K, 1936

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  Wanderer W 45 C2b Cabriolet (1936–1938)

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  Wanderer W 25 K (1936–1938)

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  Wanderer W 51 special

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  Wanderer W 23 Cabriolet 1938

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  Wanderer W 24 sedan 1939

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  Wanderer W 51 of the Wehrmacht , Russia 1943

Company history from 1945

Expropriation and destruction in the east

Fritz Heckert Factory (1953)

After the war, on June 30, 1946, a referendum on the expropriation of war criminals and Nazi criminals, which the Soviet occupying power was benevolent, took place . Due to this referendum, both the Wanderer works and the Auto Union were expropriated and partially dismantled by 1948 and brought to the Soviet Union as reparations . The factories were then broken up and reorganized as state- owned enterprises (VEB):

• The car factory in Siegmar was assigned to the Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau (IFA) and later merged into the VEB Barkas works (today VW engine works in Chemnitz ).
• The machine tool division was initially continued as VEB Wanderer-Fräsmaschinenbau , renamed VEB Fritz-Heckert -Werk in 1951 and later became the parent company of the VEB machine tool combine "Fritz-Heckert" (today the Starrag Group ).
• The office machine company in Schönau had the most eventful history: it initially became VEB Wanderer-Continental office machine works under the umbrella of VVB Mechanik. In 1953 it was merged with the former Astrawerke AG to form VEB Büromaschinen Chemnitz , but two years later it was spun off again as VEB Industriewerk Karl-Marx-Stadt and commissioned with the production of aircraft engines. The production of typewriters was transferred to the Optima Büromaschinenwerk Erfurt , calculating and booking machines were henceforth developed and manufactured in the VEB Booking Machine Works Karl-Marx-Stadt (formerly Astrawerke). After the sudden end of the GDR's own aircraft construction in 1961, the industrial plant produced hydraulic pumps and motors for the vehicle industry. A small part survived reunification as Sachsenhydraulik GmbH and later went to the US company Parker-Hannifin .

New beginning in West Germany

Wanderer men's bicycle, built in 2004

As a result of expropriation and nationalization in the GDR, the owners and managers of the Wanderer-Werke continued the company in West Germany. In 1948 an extraordinary general meeting of Wanderer-Werke AG met in Munich and decided to relocate the company's headquarters from Chemnitz to Munich. From 1949 bicycles and mopeds were traded again, manufactured by the Meister company in Bielefeld. Today's Wanderer-Werke AG developed from this; however, automobile production was not resumed.

Office machines

In the 1950s, Wanderer continued the tradition as an office machine manufacturer. In 1953 the company initially took a 50% stake in Exacta Büromaschinen GmbH and later Exacta Continental GmbH in Cologne. In 1960 the remaining 50% followed. This made Wanderer the largest West German office machine manufacturer at the time.

In order to be able to keep up with the rapid development of modern computer science , Wanderer had designed an electronic and printing desk calculator, the Wanderer Logatronic, called CONTI for medium-sized data technology , whose electronics Wanderer had developed by the computer pioneer Heinz Nixdorf . As a result of a corporate crisis, the company was finally sold to Nixdorf in 1967/8 and from then on formed the industrial core of Nixdorf Computer AG . Development and sale of the electronic desktop computer CONTI was discontinued after the takeover by Nixdorf.

Holding and bankruptcy

Touring bike built on a walker frame, 2006

Bicycles with the brand name "Wanderer" have been manufactured again since 1998. Since 2006 this has been done under the leadership of Zwei plus zwei GmbH in Cologne. There the bicycles are developed, manufactured in Germany and sold by selected specialist dealers. Wanderer-Werke AG only acts as a licensor for the brand name.

Otherwise, Wanderer-Werke AG presented itself in 2008 as a financial holding company without its own business operations with the post office management divisions (via a 50.1% stake in the listed Böwe-Systec group), motor vehicle parts ( Carl Kittel Autoteile GmbH, Kittel Supplier GmbH) and packaging materials (Karl Fislage GmbH & Co. KG, Merseburger Verpackung GmbH). Most recently, the group was led by Claus Gerckens for two decades.

It turned out to be very difficult that large parts of the company had been financed on credit. The loans were not only granted by banks, but also between the company's subsidiaries. When the automotive parts division incurred high losses in the wake of the sales crisis in the automotive industry and at the same time the takeover of the US competitor Bell & Howell by the Böwe-Systec group turned out to be a bad investment, the deficits could no longer be made up and the Wanderer group collapsed Piece by piece together. The bankruptcy proceedings were opened in July 2010. While the packaging division could still be sold through a management buy-out to a community of investors and Böwe Systec to the Possehl Group, the automotive parts division with its around 500 employees had to close completely. Only the bicycles were still produced under the Wanderer brand name until March 2013, most recently by Zwei plus Zwei GmbH. Since 2017 the domain www.wanderer.de belongs to Hercules GmbH from Cologne, which continues to sell bicycles under the brand name Wanderer.

literature

• Gerhard Mirsching: Wanderer. The history of the Wanderer company and its automobiles. Verlag Uhle & Kleimann, Lübbecke 1981, ISBN 3-922657-13-3 .
• Hans-Christian Schink, Tilo Richter: Industrial architecture in Chemnitz 1890–1930. Thom-Verlag, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930383-10-1 .
• Thomas Erdmann: Wanderer Automobile. Delius Klasing publishing house, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-7688-2522-1 .
• Jörg Feldkamp, ​​Achim Dresler (Eds.): 120 Years of Wanderer 1885–2005. A company from Chemnitz and its history in current research. Zweckverband Sächsisches Industriemuseum, Chemnitz 2005, ISBN 3-934512-13-5 .
• Heiner Matthes, Jörn Richter (ed.): Siegmar-Schönau. The city before the city. A Chemnitz district history of Siegmar, Schönau, Reichenbrand and Stelzendorf. 2nd Edition. Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, Chemnitz 2004, ISBN 3-910186-42-4 .

Web links

Commons : Wanderer-Werke AG  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Literature on Wanderer's works in the catalog of the German National Library
• Early documents and newspaper articles on Wanderer works in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Dieter Wildt: Entrepreneurs are by no means neglecting. Hundred Years of Wanderer-Werke AG ( Memento from May 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF 98kb)
• www.historisches-chemnitz.de About the Wanderer-Werke
• The Wanderer-Werke vorm. Winklhofer & Jaenicke AG
• Hitler's last machines

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Annual Report 2007 of Wanderer Werke AG
2. ↑ http://www.wanderer.eu/impressum/
3. ↑ StarragHeckert: History. Archived from the original on August 24, 2011 ; Retrieved July 15, 2011 . 
4. ^ Hans Christoph von Seherr-Thoss : The German automobile industry. Documentation from 1886 until today . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-421-02284-4 , p. 328 .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Classicdriver . Wanderer streamline special near Liège – Rome – Liège. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
6. ↑ auto motor and sport . Wanderer W 25 streamline in the driving report. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
7. ↑ Frank Harreck-Haase: Historical Chemnitz - The Wanderer-Werke / Fritz Heckert Combine. Retrieved August 31, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Frank Harreck-Haase: Historical Chemnitz - The Wanderer-Werke / VEB industrial plants Karl-Marx-Stadt. Retrieved August 31, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Wanderer Werke insolvent - uncertainty at Böwe Systec. May 19, 2010, accessed December 28, 2012 . 
10. ↑ Wanderer-Werke AG: Provisional insolvency administration ordered by Kittel Supplier GmbH , DGAP-Adhoc, December 20, 2008.
11. ^ Wanderer-Werke AG: Insolvency. May 14, 2010, accessed December 28, 2012 . 
12. ↑ BÖWE Systec AG files for insolvency. insolvenz-ratgeber.de, May 21, 2010, accessed June 26, 2011 . 
13. ^ Wanderer-Werke AG: Sale of Fislage. August 4, 2010, accessed December 28, 2012 . 
14. ↑ The rescue for BÖWE Systec: Possehl Group. November 16, 2010, accessed December 28, 2012 . 
15. ↑ Auto supplier Kittel has to cease operations. March 31, 2009, accessed December 28, 2012 . 

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 '14.1 "  N , 12 ° 52' 58.8"  E