by Tom Graham

BMW has a long and colorful history that spans the 20th century and largely mirrors the fortunes of Germany and central Europe. The company itself came into being during the First World War, forged from the merger of several older and smaller firms struggling to supply Germany's war effort with aircraft and aircraft engines. BMW was labeled a major arms producer, and suffered severe consequences when Germany lost that war. BMW would rise from this setback, and the crash of 1929, to produce some of the world's finest and most enduring automobiles. During the Second World War this pattern would repeat itself when Adolph Hitler tried, once more, to lead the German people to world domination. On the ash heap of his failure lay, once again, the wreckage of BMW. 

Against all odds, BMW rose, battered and bloody, to again reinvent itself and go on to become one of the premier automobile manufacturers on the planet.

The history you are about to read was compiled and distilled from many sources, published and unpublished. Some of the colorful personal glimpses came from of a series of interviews I had in 1986, over mugs of good German beer, with two of the people who helped shape BMWs automobile fortunes: Rudolph Schleicher and Alexander von Falkenhausen. Rudy didn't speak English, and I didn't speak German, but Alex spoke both fluently, and served equally as interpreter and teacher!

This is primarily the history of BMW the automobile maker. Only in passing have I mentioned BMW motorcycles or aircraft engines. These latter activities are woven into the fabric of the company and deserve much credit for BMW's technical stature and ability survive. Credit also must go to Franz Josef Popp, the steady hand on the helm of the company from its formation during the First World War to his replacement by the Nazi War Ministry during the Second World War. 

Herr Popp was an interesting man. He was thirty years old when he became a director of the new firm in 1917. Within months he was the CEO. Popp was a capable engineer with a Naval background and a technical education, but his real talent was the management of men and resources. He does not seem to have had any interest in politics, and curiously it is reported that he never owned a BMW automobile or motorcycle himself, and likely never even had a driver's license! Like most of the wealthy class in Europe, he had a chauffeur. The chauffeur would drop him at a side door and he would slip into his office every morning, almost unnoticed. There he would pore over his production and financial figures and issue hand written notes and instructions to his staff. At the end of the day his driver would pick him up after everyone else had left.