Torpedo works

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Weil-Werke GmbH's newspaper advertisement for bicycles and office machines, 1908
Blankette of a preferred share for 1000 marks from December 1921 of Weilwerke AG

The torpedo-Werke AG (Weil-Werke) was a manufacturer of bicycles and office equipment in Frankfurt .

history

The company was founded in 1896 by the brothers Peter and Heinrich Weil as "Peter Weil & Co". Production began with nine employees in a 500 square meter hall in Rödelheim . The wheels, which were assembled there from individual parts, were sold under the brand names "Weil-Wheels" and "Torpedo Wheels".

The manufacture of typewriters began in 1906 , initially with a model taken over from the Johann Völker & Co. from Neu-Isenburg , which was, however, continuously developed. The typewriters were sold under the name Torpedo . On November 30, 1921, the Weil-Werke were converted into a stock corporation. In 1927 the first German typewriter with segment switching appeared with the Torpedo Standard model . The model could be delivered with writing carts of various lengths. Since 1931, the majority of the shares in Torpedo-Werke AG were owned by Remington Rand Inc., New York.

In addition to typewriters, Torpedo also built accounting machines , from 1932 with a mechanical arithmetic unit and automatic drawing machines for account cards.

From 1938 onwards, the bicycles were produced in a new factory on Hanauer Landstrasse , while office machine production remained in Rödelheim. During the Second World War , the bicycle factory in 1943 and the main factory in Rödelheim were destroyed in the air raids on Frankfurt am Main in 1944. After the war, production began to be rebuilt at the Frankfurt, Alzenau and Groß-Karben locations . The product range included motorcycles and mopeds up to 200 cm³, typewriters and bicycles. The engines for the motorcycles came from Fichtel & Sachs and Ilo .

After the number of employees had risen to 2,200 in 1956, the market for bicycles and mopeds gradually entered the market . The mechanical typewriters made large profits, only a fraction of which were invested very late in the development of electric typewriters. After Torpedo's first electric typewriters proved immature and expensive, production ceased in 1967.

The torpedo freewheel hub was not manufactured by the Torpedo Works, but by Fichtel & Sachs.

literature

  • Franz Lerner: Frankfurt am Main and its economy. Reconstruction since 1945. Gerd Ammelburg, Frankfurt am Main 1958.
  • Leonhard Dingwerth: The history of the German typewriter factories , Volume 1, Books on Demand, 2008, ISBN 978-3-92191-338-3 , pp. 95ff. online on google.books
  • Der Große Brockhaus , Volume 11, FA Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1963, p. 571.

Web links