Karl Benz: The Man Behind Mercedes
The story behind one of the world's most luxurious car brands.
Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s most prestigious brands of luxury cars. Despite its modern associations with upper-class affluence, the Mercedes company was the brainchild of a piss-poor German inventor. Under the infamous Nazi Reich, the German car company flourished internationally in the competitive world of motorsports, and was heavily complicit in fueling Hitler’s industrial murder machinery.
Here is the exhilarating story behind Karl Benz and the multibillionaire dollar company that bears his name.
Humble origins
Karl Benz was born in November of 1844 in the German town of Mühlberg. He came from a poor household. His father was a locomotive driver, who barely managed to provide for the family. When Karl turned age 2, his father had an untimely death. This left him and his mother in a desperate financial crisis.
Benz’ childhood was anything but easy. It was worlds removed from the luxury and elegance associated with the car brand bearing his name. He lived in poverty, and often went to bed hungry. Still, his mother went to great lengths to ensure that Karl received a solid education. Thanks to her, Benz was able to attend formal schooling. There, he demonstrated an early precociousness in chemistry and mechanics. By the age of 15, Karl followed his father’s footsteps, and he passed the entrance exam to become a mechanical engineer at the University of Karlsruhe.
Horseless carriage
One of Benz’s professors was a man named Ferdinand Redtenbacher, who transformed Germany’s mechanical sciences into a professional discipline. Ferdinand believed that the steam engines, which powered the world’s leading railways and boats of the day, were quickly reaching obsolescence. Under his influence, Karl began to take interest in the idea of horseless carriages. Being a regular bicycler himself, Benz began to tinker with ways of creating a motorized vehicle. By this time, around 1832, many of the world’s leading investors and engineers had already attempted to invent the first automobile. A few self-propelled vehicles were made, but these early inventions were not practical yet.
Karl noticed that most of these prototypes were based on the steam engine. Under the guidance of professor Redtenbacher, Benz began to realize the need for a totally new way of thinking. Many scoffed at his vision, but Benz insisted that he only needed more time. After graduating from university at the age of 19, Benz spent the next several years in various engineering and construction jobs. None of these were particularly noteworthy, but he used those lessons to launch his own start-up venture in 1871.
Gasoline power
At the age of 27, Benz partnered with a mechanic named August Ritter. Together, they began to operate the Iron Foundry and Mechanical Workshop in Mannheim. On the side, Benz continued to experiment with how to make a motorized vehicle. Unfortunately, Benz’ business partner was a dishonest man, and their company was impounded by the German government.
But Benz would be saved by a woman, Bertha Ringer. The two got married a few years later. Born into a rich family, Bertha was a compassionate and principled woman. She hated to see her fiancé’s efforts being wasted by a bad business partner. Using her own dowry, Bertha bought up Ritter’s share of the company. This placed her and Karl in full control of the business. Together, the couple was able to turn around their fortunes, keeping the enterprise afloat for another ten years.
Despite his financial struggles, Benz began to demonstrate the true depths of his genius. He made breakthroughs in his experiments. He developed a gasoline two-stroke engine in 1879. To ensure some money for his efforts, Benz began to patent his inventions. This included an engine speed regulation system, an ignition via battery system, a spark plug, a carburetor, a clutch, a gear shift, and a water radiator. All of these new inventions enabled Benz to sell more products from his business.
Nevertheless, Benz’ business struggled mightily to survive. Production costs had risen to unsustainable levels, forcing him to get it incorporated. This meant that he was forced to associate with other inventors. His business was turned into a joint stock company in 1882. By the end, Karl was left with just 5% of his company’s shares. Even worse, Benz was shut out of the corporate decision making of his own company. He had no say in its products. Distraught by this turn of events, Benz packed up and left the company after a year.
First automobile
Karl was determined more than ever to break through into success. A lifelong lover of bikes, he entered a repair shop in Mannheim, which was owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm. Together, the three men founded Benz & Cie. The new company focused on manufacturing industrial machines and stationary gas engines. Within a short period, it was already gaining some profit. With steady income pouring in, and a staff of 25 people, Benz was finally able to focus on his lifelong dream: building an automobile using his gas engine.
Instead of simply adding a motor to a carriage, Benz reworked the entire design. He built the carriage around the motor. This became what was arguably the world’s first car in 1885. Patented as the motor wagon, this two-seat vehicle ran on three wired wheels. It was a tricycle powered by a gasoline four-stroke motor. The one cylinder engine produced two-thirds of a horsepower unit, and could go around 7 miles per hour.
Benz knew this was the beginning of a revolution. After testing and refining his vehicle, Karl demonstrated his ground-breaking invention to the public in the summer of 1886. It received mixed reviews. Many people were skeptical about the machine, and feared that it would explode while in use. The more superstitious onlookers compared Karl to the Devil himself. Karl’s business partners weren’t too thrilled either. His obsession with the automobile distracted him from the rest of his work. They lacked Benz’ forward-thinking vision, and didn’t understood how this invention could be practically used. Their concerns were not totally wrong, however. Benz’s early machine was not much quicker than a horse, and was prone to breakdown or running out of fuel. Nevertheless, Benz was thoroughly convinced that his horseless carriage would be the wave of the future.
For the first time in human history, Benz began manufacturing cars for sale in 1888. Close by his side was his faithful wife, who regularly offered ideas at the workshop. Even after Benz improved and refined his machine, it still did not take off right away. The few people who purchased the car could only use them for short distances. Mechanics had to be with them at all times. Mechanics were hard to afford; only the richest people could buy Karl’s cars. The elites who could afford them hated the noisiness of the cars.
New improvements
One morning, in the summer of 1888, Bertha Benz took her carriage and visited her mother in Pforzheim, about 66 miles away from Mannheim. She didn’t tell Karl or the police. No motorized vehicle had ever gone that far before, but she was determined to prove the worth of her husband’s invention. It was a tough trip. The roads were dusty and full of stones. She had to stop by the pharmacy to fill up gas. She even had to perform some mechanical repairs herself. For over 12 hours, Bertha and her sons successfully made this 66-mile odyssey. It was a marketing godsend for Karl’s company. The business expanded so much that, by 1890, it had emerged as Germany’s second-largest engine manufacturer. However, this was because of their stationary gas engines, not because of the cars.
With the addition of two new business partners, Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Gauss, Karl was freed up from the marketing side of things. Benz was now able to devote himself more fully to his engineering goals. He patented several more innovations, such as the planetary gear transmission, the double-pivot steering, and the flat engine.
At the behest of his new partners, Benz designed a new model of his automobile invention, which hit the market in 1893. He called it Benz Victoria. It was a more luxurious, two-passenger vehicle. It came equipped with a three horsepower engine, capable of reaching 11 miles per hour. The new car provided to be a smash hit, and it was generally reliable.
Karl followed up this success with an even better design, called the Benz Velo. Producing 1,200 units, the Velo became the world’s first mass produced car. Benz’s company now emerged as the world’s largest automobile enterprise by the 1890s and early 1900s.
The Mercedes
Benz faced some competition from another company, led by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Both were brilliant engineers, but Daimler also had business acumen. This stood in contrast to Benz, who often found himself unfamiliar with the inner workings of the commercial world.
The first Daimler car was sold to the public in 1892. Two years later, the company followed it up with a new two-cylinder car. In 1897, they introduced the first front engine model, the Daimler Phoenix. It was clear that the Daimler Company was quickly catching up to Benz. Daimler’s vehicles had the added benefit of looking more luxurious and comfortable than those sold by Benz. Daimler died in 1900, leaving behind Maybach in charge of the company.
Under Maybach’s leadership, the company crafted its masterpiece, the Mercedes 35 HP, in 1901. It was the first example of what we would now consider a modern car. It ran on a powerful gas engine. The body was wider and larger, with a tailored steel chassis. Its center of mass was near the ground. Initially built for racing, the car was designed at the request of a rich businessman named Emil Jellinek. He asked that the car be named after his daughter, Mercedes. This car won multiple street races and hill climb events, and was capable of reaching 56 miles per hour. This was unprecedented at the time. With the success of the new Mercedes, the Daimler company decided on a total rebrand. New models were furiously pushed out to the public.
Benz’s partners were horrified, and they decided that an immediate response was needed. The company brought in French engineers to modernize their products. Karl was outraged. He hated the idea of auto racing, and always preferred driving slowly and carefully. He despised the very thought of a noisy, reckless driver endangering everyone else on the road. It didn’t help that Benz’s team could not produce a financially viable competitor to the Mercedes. They coughed up the Benz Parsifal 12 HP, but it underperformed. Benz’s company fell into disaster from 1903 to 1904. Angry at his company, Karl left, although he still retained his spot on the board of directors. He begrudgingly allowed his company to produce race cars—a decision that would breathe new life into his dying enterprise.
By 1908, the Benz Company was producing cars with 120 horsepower. This industrial behemoth of a car raced from Leningrad to Moscow in eight and a half hours, with an average speed of 50 miles per hour. The company produced the 200 horsepower Blitzen Benz, which brought Benz’s company back into the spotlight. Built in 1909, this race car broke the speed record of any plane, train, or automobile of the entire era. It reached speeds as high as 140 miles per hour in 1911. The Benz Company rivaled Daimler as one of the world’s most sought-after, powerful cars. Both companies enjoyed great sales in the following years.
The Great War
Everything changed with WWI. Ordinary life was totally disrupted, while the global economy fell into ruins. After the defeat of the German Empire in WWI, the country’s economy fell into recession. Both Daimler and Benz struggled to survive.
Putting aside their differences, the two former rivals joined forces. They signed an agreement in 1924, under which they merged their production and marketing efforts. As post-war Germany plunged into an irreversible collapse, the two companies fully merged in 1926. The new enterprise was called Daimler-Benz. They rebranded their car lines as Mercedes-Benz, in honor of the original Mercedes model that had catapulted Daimler’s company into success.
Several impressive models were released throughout the late 1920s. This included the Type 630, Model S, Model SS, and Model SSK. One of their leading engineers was Ferdinand Porsche, who would go on to be a titan of the car industry in his own right.
Karl remained on the board of directors, and lived long enough to witness the automobile revolution that he himself produced. He died a few years later, in April of 1929, at the age of 84. After his death, Mercedes-Benz continued to blossom.
Nazi Germany
As uncomfortable as it is to admit, the company enjoyed some of its most significant growth under the Nazi dictatorship of Hitler. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, he wanted to showcase Germany’s engineering prowess to the world. This was an attempt to gain international legitimacy and prestige, especially after Germany’s humiliation in WWI. He exhibited German cars in international motorsports. Almost immediately, the Nazi Fürher handed out a massive subsidy to Daimler. He wanted the company to compete on Germany’s behalf in Grand Prix races. From 1934 to 1939, Mercedes dominated the Grand Prix. Speeds as high as 200 miles per hour were reached. The W25 and W125 models were particularly noteworthy. Mercedes faced competition from a new rival company, called Auto Union. Auto Union had its own string of successes in the Grand Prix from 1935 to 1937.
Hitler’s Germany emerged as the world’s leader of motorsports. Mercedes was the Fürher’s favorite brand of car. He was often seen in a Mercedes-Benz 770, a large luxury car used by many high-level Axis officials. With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the Daimler-Benz company found itself in a crisis. As the civilian demand for cars became scarce, the company turned its focus on producing military vehicles, submarines, tanks, and aircraft engines. Their trucks were capable of transporting as much as six tons of supplies. By 1942, Mercedes stopped producing civilian cars altogether, focusing exclusively on fueling the Nazi war machine. Staff grew as the war raged on. Women were recruited out of necessity to meet unit demands. But it was still not enough. So the Nazis resorted to the use of forced labor by prisoners of war, kidnapped civilians, and detainees from concentration camps. They were housed nearby production plants, and forced to work long hours under intense pressure. Most of these victims came from Eastern Europe, and kept in poor prison-like conditions. Concentration camp detainees were closely surveilled by the Nazi SS. Many died from malnutrition, mistreatment, or even torture. By 1944, almost half of the Mercedes company—or about 63,000 people—were forced laborers.
At the end of WWII, under the Potsdam Agreement, Germany’s industrial infrastructure was seized by the Allies. Daimler-Benz lost all of its overseas branches. The company was restructured, and its leadership was de-Nazified. After these changes, Mercedes was able to receive a production permit from the US in 1946. Mercedes maintained an advantage over other German brands, such as BMW and Adler, because it held onto its production sites within Germany itself. Mercedes refocused its attention to making police patrols, ambulances, and delivery vans using their 170 V Models. By 1947, passenger vehicles were again in production. By the 1950s, Mercedes had managed to restore its former influence. Making a comeback in motorsports, the company benefited greatly from overseas sales. By 1954, the company had generated over $1 billion.