EMW, the Eastern BMW
The first time I saw an Eisenach was in a beautiful coastal village north of the island of Zealand (Sjælland) near Helsingør. It was a blue pick-up parked in the front yard of one of those houses with a thick thatched roof as in fairy tales. It looked strange to me, and being a pick-up made me think of a homemade conversion.
Now, after having seen some pictures of similar models, I am inclined to think that it was a production car. I have to admit that when I saw this car I had no idea what brand it was. It had the air of being an Eastern car, but being in Denmark it did not seem very likely. Fortunately, when I zoomed in the photos I was able to read the initials in the badge: EMW. The logo was similar to BMW’s one and the car’s shape reminded the pre-war BMWs. Indeed, when I searched for information I discovered that EMW and BMW brands were related.
The EMW (Eisenacher Motorenwerk), as its name suggests, were manufactured in Eisenach, then East Germany. In fact, the first BMW cars were also produced there. Until 1919 BMW was dedicated solely to the manufacture of airplane engines.
The treaty of Versailles after World War I condemned Germany to a five years prohibition of manufacturing airplane engines; this is how BMW entered the two wheels world by producing its first motorcycles. Years later, in 1928, BMW acquired Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE), a pioneer automobile manufacturer using the Dixi brand since 1903.
By the time it was acquired, Eisenach company was manufacturing the Austin Seven under license, so the first four-wheel BMW, the BMW Dixi, was a replica of the small British model. The Bavarian manufacturer soon developed its own models. Before World War II was recognized by its sports cars with the double-kidney grille we all know. Already before the War the manufacture of automobiles was shared between Munich and Eisenach. During the War, as the owning family recently admitted, BMW actively collaborated with the Nazi regime and participated in the shame of using thousands of prisoners as slave workforce.
Once the War was over the division of Germany determined that Eisenach’s factory remained in the territory administered by the USSR, the later DDR. Soviet authorities re-started the production of pre-war models, using even the BMW brand and logo. It was not until 1952 that the Munich firm was able to be recognized the rights over its brand, logo and the typical split grille. Then, the Eisenach’s factory, already under control of DDR’s government was renamed as EMW. The pick-up I saw in Denmark was an EMW 340, based on the BMW 326. As can be seen in the pictures, it keeps the split windscreen and the main modifications are on the front. The headlamps are more separated and integrated in the wings, the characteristic BMW grille is replaced by a flared shaped one with horizontal slats and bigger bumpers.
The most curious change is that of the brand logo, it retained the BMW rotating propeller, inspired by the era in which they made aircraft engines, they changed the blue quarters for others of red colour – it could not be otherwise those times in DDR – and a star is insinuated in the centre of the circle.
This summer, in my trip back from Russia, I had to cross Germany to return home. I had planned to visit the Audi museum in Ingolstadt I’ve never visited. However, few days before, almost by chance, I discovered that there was an Eisenach museum not far from my route. I remembered that car from Denmark and decided to leave the visit to Ingolstadt for another time.
The museum is small, but it tells enough in detail the not only EMW’s story, but also its predecessor Dixi, the BMW period and the later Wartburg. Once the production of the BMW-based models was over, Wartburg brand was launched to manufacture cars based on the two-stroke pre-war DKW. Wartburg’s history is certainly better known; they were the typical Easter Germany cars that we all have seen in spy films. They were produced until 1991, but that's another story.
The factory was abandoned, only one building has been recovered to make the museum in which you can also find some Opel that have been made in Eisenach after the reunification of the country, in a new factory, different from the one where EMW and Wartburg were produced.
