Eisenach

Heinrich Ehrhardt founded the Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach (FFE) in Eisenach on 3 December 1896 as a stock company. Initially, he produced bicycles and guns. After two years, he started to produce a motor car which he called the Wartburg, a licensed model of the French Decauville. The company was the third to manufacture cars in Germany, the first being Benz & Cie and the second being Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft. His son Gustav subsequently took over the factory, which at the end of the 19th century employed 1,300 workers and was one of the largest in Thuringia.