The four companies that merged to form Auto Union each had distinct origins. DKW was founded in 1916 by Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen in Zschopau; it progressed from steam-driven cars into motorcycles and then front-wheel-drive two-stroke cars built at Audi's Zwickau works. Horch was founded in 1904 by August Horch in Zwickau, building cars from straight-twin engines up to luxury V8 and V12 models. Audi was also founded by August Horch in 1909 after he left his first enterprise following a dispute with its CFO; it built inline-four, six, and eight-cylinder-engined cars. Wanderer contributed only its car division, producing small four-cylinder and straight-six cars built in Siegmar.
In August 1928, Rasmussen acquired a majority ownership of Audiwerke AG and also purchased manufacturing equipment from the US firm Rickenbacker, including tooling for eight- and six-cylinder engines. In 1930, the Saxony Regional Bank installed Richard Bruhn on the Audiwerke board, leading to a rationalisation of the various businesses Rasmussen had accumulated. The outcome was the founding of Auto Union AG in summer 1932 under a single shareholder company. All four brands continued to sell cars under their own names, but technological development became more centralised.
Auto Union chairman Klaus, Baron von Oertzen, wanted a showpiece project to announce the new brand. At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced a state-sponsored motor racing programme, providing an annual sum of 500,000 Reichsmarks to develop a high-speed German automotive industry. At the insistence of director Adolf Rosenberger, von Oertzen met with Ferdinand Porsche, who had developed his own P-Wagen project racing car based on the new 750 kg formula. Racing driver Hans Stuck Sr. joined Rosenberger, von Oertzen, and Porsche in approaching Hitler. A meeting in the Reich Chancellory resulted in an agreement to fund both Mercedes and Auto Union with annual stipends of 250,000 Reichsmarks each. Auto Union subsequently purchased Porsche's Hochleistungsfahrzeugbau GmbH and the P-Wagen project for 75,000 Reichsmarks, relocating to the Horch plant at Zwickau.
The Auto Union racing cars, Types A through D, were built as Grand Prix racing cars from 1934 to 1939. Unlike their rivals, they featured a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. The fuel tank was positioned in the centre of the car directly behind the driver so that the front-rear weight balance remained unchanged as fuel was consumed — precisely the same location used in modern open-wheel racing cars. The supercharged piston engines eventually produced almost 550 hp. The cars were noted for tremendous power and acceleration; a driver could induce wheelspin at over 100 mph. Bernd Rosemeyer drove one around the Nürburgring in a single gear to demonstrate the engine's flexibility.
In 1934, Hans Stuck Sr. led the team's first season, winning the German, Swiss, and Czechoslovakian Grands Prix along with multiple hill climbs to become European Mountain Champion.
The engine was enlarged to 5 litres producing 370 bhp. Achille Varzi joined the team and won the Tunis Grand Prix and the Coppa Acerbo. Stuck won the Italian Grand Prix and again took the European Mountain Championship. Rosemeyer won the Czech Grand Prix. Stuck also reached 199 mph on an Italian autostrada in a closed-cockpit streamliner.
With a full 6-litre engine producing 520 bhp, Rosemeyer and his teammates made the Auto Union Type C dominant. Rosemeyer won the Eifelrennen and the German, Swiss, and Italian Grands Prix, as well as the Coppa Acerbo, and was crowned European Champion — Auto Union's only win of the driver's championship. Varzi won the Tripoli Grand Prix. Stuck placed second in the Tripoli and German Grands Prix, and Ernst von Delius took second in the Coppa Acerbo. Auto Union also took the European Mountain Championship.
The car was largely unchanged but won five races against the seven of the new Mercedes-Benz W125. Rosemeyer took the Eifel and Donington Grands Prix, the Coppa Acerbo, and the Vanderbilt Cup. Rudolf Hasse won the Belgian Grand Prix.
A new 3-litre formula was introduced. Rosemeyer was killed early in the year while attempting the land speed record on a German autobahn. Tazio Nuvolari joined the team and won the Italian and Donington Grands Prix. Stuck again took the European Mountain Championship.
Nuvolari won the Yugoslav Grand Prix in Belgrade, while Hermann P. Müller won the French Grand Prix.
Auto Union became a significant supplier of vehicles to Germany's armed forces. Civilian production was interrupted in May 1940. The company had founded the subsidiary Mitteldeutsche Motorenwerke in 1935 at Taucha, near Leipzig, to produce Junkers aircraft engines under licence. Auto Union/Horch supplied the chassis for the Sd.Kfz. 222 armoured car, powered by a 90 PS Horch V8 engine. From early 1944, Auto Union plants were heavily bombed. US forces occupied Zwickau on 17 April 1945; following US withdrawal on 30 June, Soviet forces occupied all Saxon Auto Union plants. The company exploited slave labour at Leitmeritz concentration camp; a 2014 report commissioned by the company acknowledged that Auto Union bore moral responsibility for 4,500 deaths at Leitmeritz.
In the Soviet-occupied zone, the factories were dismantled as war reparations and the racing cars found in storage were returned to Moscow for reverse engineering. Auto Union AG of Chemnitz was deleted from the commercial register on 17 August 1948. The remaining Horch and Audi plants became VEB Automobilwerk Zwickau. The former Audi factory restarted assembly of pre-war models under the IFA brand; the site later became home to VEB Sachsenring, which manufactured the Trabant. Following German reunification in 1990, Volkswagen took a controlling interest in VEB Sachsenring. A new factory was constructed near Zwickau in 1993, which by 2021 became the centre of production for Volkswagen Group MEB platform vehicles. Audi established the August Horch Museum in 2004 in surviving historic factory buildings in Zwickau.
Auto Union's executives re-established the company in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, with loans from the Bavarian state government and Marshall Plan aid. The reformed Auto Union GmbH was launched on 3 September 1949. With demand for affordable transport in a rebuilding West Germany, only the DKW brand was revived; the Audi and Horch brands were placed into dormancy. The company continued DKW's tradition of affordable front-wheel-drive two-stroke vehicles, including the DKW RT 125 W motorcycle and the DKW Schnellaster delivery van.
In 1950, a second assembly facility was established at a former Rheinmetall-Borsig factory in Düsseldorf-Derendorf, and the company's first postwar car, the DKW Meisterklasse F 89 P, went into production. In March 1953, the DKW 3=6 Sonderklasse was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show and proved exceptionally successful in motorsport.
In April 1958, Daimler-Benz acquired 87% of Auto Union, taking complete control the following year, and invested heavily in the Ingolstadt plant. In 1964, Volkswagen acquired the Ingolstadt factory and Auto Union's trademark rights. The DKW brand was abandoned and a new model designated F103, based on the DKW F102 with a four-stroke engine, was launched in September 1965 as simply the "Audi." In 1969, Auto Union merged with NSU Motorenwerke AG of Neckarsulm; the combined entity was named Audi NSU Auto Union AG, shortened to Audi AG in 1985. At the same time, Auto Union GmbH and NSU GmbH were formed as wholly owned subsidiaries to hold and protect the historical trademarks of both companies.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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