Compressor Production Relocated to Mannheim

In 1946, Knorr-Bremse, a brake manufacturer and holding company of Motoren-Werke Mannheim, was disowned and disassembled. The efforts to resume the compressor production started in Munich in the same year. Unfortunately, most of the technical documents for the production of compressors for rail vehicles were lost. However, with the help of former customers and their existing compressors, which were disassembled and measured by the engineers, the company was able to relaunch the compressor production.

In Munich, no suitable location was found for the production. Moreover, the manufacturing capacities were insufficient. Therefore, the compressor production was relocated to Motoren-Werke Mannheim. It turned out that it would make sense to relocate both the compressor production and the technical and administrative activities of Knorr-Bremse’s “Compressors” department to Mannheim.

From April 1949 to 1986, MWM designed, manufactured, tested, and sold various types of Knorr-Bremse compressors. The compressor department in the Mannheim plant always had more than 20 employees.

A special milestone was celebrated in 1953: Since the production of the VV 224 began in Berlin, the 5,000th air compressor of this type had been manufactured in Mannheim. On October 15, 1962, the next milestone could already be honored with the remarkable figure “1000th air compressor built in Mannheim since 1950”. After MWM was sold to Deutz AG, the “Compressors” department was dissolved and relocated to Munich in 1985.