Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles, part of the German concern Mercedes-Benz Group. Headquarters of Mercedes-Benz is located in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
We owe the appearance of the Mercedes-Benz brand to two German companies Benz & Cie and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, which were founded at the end of the 19th century in Germany.
In 1883, the legendary German design engineer Karl Benz, together with Max Caspar Rosé and Friedrich Wilhelm Esslinger, founded the company Benz & Cie. And 1883 can be considered the beginning of the history of Mercedes-Benz.
Benz & Cie is the first in history Germany manufacturer of cars, motorcycles, engines, and bicycles. And Karl Benz, one of the first inventors in the world of cars with an internal combustion engine - pioneer in the field of automotive not only in Germany, but throughout the world. Owner of many patents such as two-stroke gasoline engine, accelerator, ignition system, carburetor, clutch, gearbox and so on.
And already in 1890, Gottlieb Daimler, together with his partners Wilhelm Maybach and Max Duttenhofer, founded the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft company for the production of four-wheeled cars. Gottlieb Daimler, together with Wilhelm Maybach developed one of the first automobiles and several types of gasoline internal combustion engines.He also holds many patents for automobile engines and various systems for them.
Benz & Cie and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft were two competing companies and did not go badly before the First World War. But The First World War led to a collapse in financial Germany's markets and currencies. Cheaper cars from America, such as the Ford, were also available in Germany. All of these factors led to a serious structural crisis in the German auto industry.
And in 1926, a decision was made to merger the two companies and the new company Daimler-Benz AG was founded. And an agreement was also reached on the production of all cars under the brand Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes is a series of cars designed by Wilhelm Maybach, Benz is the surname of Karl Benz. The head and chief designer of Daimler-Benz AG was Ferdinand Porsche, who completely updated the production of cars, taking as a basis latest models of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft.
The name Mercedes came from a female name. Once the Austro-Hungarian ambassador Emil Jellinek decided to invest in the Daimler company, as he was counting on the company's success. And he had a daughter named Adriana Manuela Ramona Jellinek, but everyone in the family called her Mercedes, which means mercy in Spanish. And in honor of the Jellinek family, it was decided to name the models after the Mercedes, even before the merger two companies. The same name was subsequently transferred to the new company Daimler-Benz.
After the NSDAP led by Hitler seized power in Germany and began to rearm the Wehrmacht, Daimler-Benz began to cooperate with the Nazis to reap the benefits. Daimler-Benz developed and produced cars, trucks, tanks, ships and aircraft engines for the Wehrmacht. In addition, the company also produced parts for German weapons, such as Mauser rifle barrels. It is also known that Daimler-Benz used the labor of concentration camp prisoners, the number of which for example, in 1944 reached more than 30 thousand people. These were prisoners of war, abducted civilians and prisoners of concentration camps, who were located near the factories.
After the Second World War in 1945, the Daimler-Benz AG concern lost all foreign assets of the company, as well as all factories that ended up in the zone of occupation of the USSR were lost. Also, all the factories that remained in the zone of occupation of the American troops were destroyed or badly damaged by the bombing of the anti-Hitler coalition. In 1946, the company was able to obtain permission for the production of cars from the American occupation authorities and set up the production of cars of the old, pre-war design.