BMW

snipped-for-privacy@coolgroups.com wrote in news:1190954551.902968.205170 @o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

You couldn't have been looking too hard. I just went straight to the BMW website.

You'll get a little box that says "What happened in..." Enter a year and get a factoid.

They spent WWII mostly making aircraft engines and motorcycles. The BMW "roundel" logo originates from the aircraft side of the business.

Mostly making aircraft engines, although they also made motorcycles. There was an article in Roundel magazine on the subject a few years ago.

What is much more interesting is what happened AFTER the war and the wall went up, and the BMW facilities on each side of the line started making passenger cars again.

--scott

During World War Two, a lot of factories in America and elsewhere around the World were manufacturing a lot of different things.Parker Pen Company (writing pens) was manufacturing brass shells (Helmets too, I think) for Ammunition.Sochiro Honda got his start at the tail end of World War Two by mounting little industrial gas engines on Bicycles and selling them.Russia removed some factories (down to the last nut and bolt) from Germany and set them up in Russia.A lot of things were going on.

I own a little mechanical wind up toy Horse (it still works) which was made in Japan right after World War Two..Looking through a gap at the bottom of the toy, I can see one side of the toy is made from an old American Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can.I can't see enough of the other side of the toy to know what it is made from.A lot of World War Two scrap metal was turned into things that was useful.Ferruccio Lamborghini got his start by turning left over World War Two vehicles into farm tractors.Piaggio and Vespa (Motor Scooters) are a development from World War Two.Harley Davidson and Indian built (they were shaft drive Motorcycles) Motorcycles for World War Two, so did Cushman, Motor Scooters that were air dropped for our Troops to use, Bicycles too.The Magnetron in Microwave ovens is a development from World War Two Radar.The list goes on and on, you can spend forever reading up on those thingys.Those kinds of thingys have always been (and still are) very interesting to me. cuhulin