The history of Olympia

In 1903 at 15 th of august the company Union-Schreibmaschinen GmbH was founded in Berlin as doughter of AEG. The first product was the famous Mignon Pointer typewriter. In 1921 production of the typewriter with keyboard was started.
Production was moved to Erfurt (AEG Deusche Werke) in 1923 and in 1936 the company name changed in Olympia Büromaschinenwerke AG. During WW II the Erfurt plant was heavy damaged by bombing. A great number of employees escaped to western Germany with the design drawings.

In 1946 after WW II, a new plant was created in Willemshaven-Roffhausen on an previous marine plant. The company started with 29 employees (refugees from the Erfurt plant). In 1949 it was designed, by the international court in the Hague, that the Willemshaven plant was allowed to use the Olympia name and not the original Erfurt plant. On the remaining's of the Erfurter plant in the DDR times the production of type writers was starting up and in 1950 the VEB Optima Büromaschinen was established.
In 1952 the first Adding and listing machine was build in mass production at Olympia, the number of employees was growing toward 4300. In 954 the companies had 7300 employees and changed her name to Olympia Werke AG. In 1956 traveling typewriters were produced and the number of employees was 10 400.
In 1957 a new plant was build in Leer (Ostfriesland) and the company worked on license treaty with Brunsviga of Braunsweig.
In 1959 the fusion took place Olympia / Brunsviga. In 1960 dictating machine were made and in 1961 automatic calculators in Braunsweig. In 1965 number of typewriters sold to the US was exeding the one million. 14000 employees.
In 1967 a new plant in Braunsweig was opened.
In the mid sixties company like Eichner of Neuenhain (Taunus) and SEL Feinmechanic were bought, a corporation was signed with the Japanese Matsushita, and a production plant in Belfast Northern Ireland was established. In 1970 production of calculators was started in Leer and Belfast. In 1971 a cooperation with UNIS (Sarajevo Yugoslavia) was started for production flat type writers. Production was started in Mexico Santiago de Chile and Toronto Canada.
In this period Olympia was the biggest manufacturer of office machines in Germany and belongs to the top three of the world.

More information