How it started
Background
MAN originated from three German predecessor companies, the St. Antony ironworks in Oberhausen, Sander'sche Maschinenfabrik. St. Antony and Eisengießerei Klett & Comp. St. Antony was founded in 1758 and became Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) in 1873, after several changes in ownership and restructuring. Sander'sche Maschinenfabrik was established in Augsburg in 1840, also underwent multiple mergers and transformations, and was merged with Maschinenbau-Actien-Gesellschaft Nürnberg (formerly Eisengießerei Klett & Comp.) in 1908 to become Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (MAN).
Between 1893 and 1897, MAN, in collaboration with Rudolf Diesel, developed the first diesel engine, a single-cylinder four-stroke engine, which achieved a specific consumption of 324 g/kWh and produced 17.8 hp (13.1 kW) at 154 rpm. In 1899, following several experiments on the four-stroke engine by Hugo Güldner, the first two-stroke diesel engine was built. After the turn of the century, MAN developed the first diesel engine with an opposed-piston engine design.
MAN built the first diesel power plant in Kyiv in 1905. In 1910, MAN, in collaboration with the shipyard Blohm+Voss, began building upright two-stroke marine engines. Two years later, the ocean-going vessel MS Selandia became the first to be powered by diesel engines.
In 1921, Gutehoffnungshütte acquired a majority stake in MAN, creating a conglomerate that encompassed traditional ironworks, modern mechanical engineering, and the production of various commercial vehicles. The conglomerate operated under the abbreviation GHH. From 1926, MAN began designing high-performance two-stroke engines for marine use.
During World War II, several thousand prisoners of war were forced to work for MAN. Among them were Polish, Soviet, French and Dutch forced laborers. According to testimonies, East European workers were treated especially bad. While MAN itself didn't use concentration camp detainees as additionall forced labor, other companies that later after the war joined MAN actually did (Büssing and Steyr-Daimler-Puch).
From Wikipedia’s article on Everllence, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2