Rumpler works

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Rumpler works
legal form Limited liability company 1914 to 1917
Public limited company 1917 to 1926
founding 1914
resolution 1926
Seat Berlin , Germany
management Edmund Rumpler
Number of employees 3300 (1918)
Branch Aircraft
manufacturer automobile manufacturer

The Berlin Rumpler-Werke emerged from Rumpler-Luftfahrzeugbau GmbH in 1914 and, under the leadership of Edmund Rumpler, produced various types of aircraft for combat use until the end of the First World War in 1918. In 1916 a branch was also founded in Augsburg . After the war, the company concentrated on manufacturing automobiles . Due to insufficient sales, the Rumpler works were closed in 1926 and the production facilities in Berlin and Augsburg were then sold.

history

The Rumpler-Werke at the Johannisthal airfield in early 1914. Four Rumpler pigeons to the right of the building.
Site plan of the Johannisthal airfield with the Rumpler-Werke halls to the north (1916)
Site plan of the Bavarian Rumpler Works in Augsburg (1920)

Predecessor company

In August 1906 Edmund Rumpler founded a technical design office in Berlin ( approximate location at Gitschiner Straße 5 ), to which he added an aircraft construction department called Edmund Rumpler Luftfahrzeugbau on November 10, 1908 . In contrast to August Euler , who had founded the first German aircraft factory in Griesheim only a few weeks earlier , Rumpler initially did not strive for a factory-made production of aircraft. Due to the good order situation, however, he changed his plans and converted his company into Rumpler-Luftfahrzeugbau GmbH in 1909 .

From 1910, the company moved into a building on the northern edge of the Johannisthal airfield ( approximate location ) and tested the aircraft it had built on the adjacent airfield. In addition, the company secured additional space there for future expansion, which was also gradually used. On October 10, 1910, the Etrich-Rumpler-Taube had its maiden flight in Johannisthal as a license to build the Etrich-Taube by Ignaz Etrich . The aircraft was mass-produced and sold as a Rumpler pigeon .

First World War

During the First World War , the need for aircraft increased sharply. The associated increase in production, however, placed higher demands on the working capital of the Rumpler-Werke, so that the shareholders decided to dissolve the Rumpler-Werke GmbH , which had existed since 1914, and on September 21, 1917, the Rumpler-Werke AG with a capital of 3 To re-establish 5 million marks.

On October 24, 1916, the continued high demand caused by the war led to the establishment of a subsidiary in Augsburg. The investor of Bayerische Rumpler-Werke AG was among others the entrepreneur August Riedinger . Only a little more than eight months passed between the groundbreaking for the construction of the production halls with the adjacent airfield on November 25, 1916 ( approximate location ) and the completion of the first aircraft on July 1, 1917. By the end of the war, around 350 aircraft had been manufactured in Augsburg under the leadership of factory manager Otto Meyer . In the Berlin works, the number of aircraft built between 1908 and 1918 was 3,060. At the height of production in 1918, a total of around 3,300 workers were employed in Berlin and Augsburg.

Post-war years

Due to the aircraft construction ban imposed by the victorious powers, the company devoted itself to the construction of automobiles in the post-war years. In Augsburg, a vehicle with a particularly streamlined body shape, the Rumpler teardrop car, was developed and presented to the public in 1921 at the International Motor Show in Berlin. A short time later, production of the vehicle began in Berlin.

The Bayerische Rumpler-Werke AG in Augsburg had to file for bankruptcy in 1923 and sold on 30 July 1926, the entire production facilities to the Bavarian aircraft plants . The Rumpler-Werke AG in Berlin also ran into economic difficulties in the following years due to the low sales figures for the teardrop car. In 1925 the company had to stop production after about 100 vehicles were manufactured and also file for bankruptcy. The production facilities were then sold in 1926 and the company dissolved.

Both the Rumpler-Werke buildings in Augsburg and Berlin no longer exist today. In Augsburg, the Rumplerstraße (street name 1972) located immediately south of the factory is still a reminder of the former production site.

Products

The Rumpler-Werke manufactured various types of aircraft for military purposes until the end of the First World War. These included both reconnaissance planes and fighter planes as well as fighter planes and long-range bombers. In the post-war period, the company concentrated on the manufacture of automobiles due to the ban on aircraft construction.

See also

literature

  • Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Publishing house, Berlin 1919.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 27.
  2. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  3. ^ George Nick Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 3: P – Z. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . (English)
  4. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 22.
  5. ^ Structural development of the Rumpler works in Johannisthal
  6. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 26 ff.
  7. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 25 ff.
  8. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 31.
  9. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 66.
  10. ^ Rumpler: 10 years of German flight technology . Eckstein's biograph. Verlag, Berlin 1919, p. 63.
  11. ^ Since 1917 aircraft construction in Augsburg. In: Augsburger Allgemeine , July 5, 2018.
  12. ↑ Günther Grünsteudel , Günter Hägele, Rudolf Frankenberger (ed.): Augsburger Stadtlexikon. 2nd Edition. Perlach, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-922769-28-4 .