How it started
Foundation
MAN traces its origins back to 1758, when the "St. Anthony" ironworks commenced operation in Oberhausen, as the first heavy-industry enterprise in the Ruhr region. In 1808, the three ironworks "St. Anthony", Gute Hoffnung (lit. 'Good Hope'), and Neue Essen (lit. 'New Forge') merged, to form the Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi (lit. 'Jacobi Iron and Steel Works Union and Trading Company'), Oberhausen, which was later renamed Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH).
In 1840, German engineer Ludwig Sander founded in Augsburg the first predecessor enterprise of MAN in Southern Germany, namely the Sander'sche Maschinenfabrik. It firstly became the C. A. Reichenbach'sche Maschinenfabrik, which was named after the pioneer of printing machines Carl August Reichenbach, and later on the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg.
The branch Süddeutsche Brückenbau A.G. (MAN-Werk Gustavsburg) was founded when the company in 1859 was awarded the contract for the construction of the railway bridge over the Rhine at Mainz.
In 1898, the companies Maschinenbau-AG Nürnberg (founded 1841) and Maschinenfabrik Augsburg AG (founded 1840) merged to form Vereinigte Maschinenfabrik Augsburg und Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg A.G., Augsburg ("United Machine Factory Augsburg and Machine Building Company Nuremberg Ltd, Augsburg"). In 1908, the company was renamed Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG, or in short, M·A·N.
While the focus initially remained on ore mining and iron production in the Ruhr region, mechanical engineering became the dominating branch of business in Augsburg and Nuremberg. Under the direction of Heinrich von Buz, Maschinenfabrik Augsburg grew from a medium-sized business of 400 employees into a major enterprise with a workforce of 12,000 by 1913.
From Wikipedia’s article on MAN SE, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2