BMW
After the end of World War I in 1918, BMW was forced to cease aircraft engine production by the terms of the Versailles Armistice Treaty. To remain in business, BMW produced farm equipment, household items and railway brakes. In 1922, former major shareholder Camillo Castiglioni purchased the rights to the name BMW, which led to the company descended from Rapp Motorenwerke being renamed Süddeutsche Bremse AG (known today as Knorr-Bremse). Castiglioni was also an investor in another aircraft company, called "Bayerische Flugzeugwerke", which he renamed BMW.The disused factory of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was re-opened to produce engines for buses, trucks, farm equipment and pumps, under the brand name BMW. BMW's corporate history considers the founding date of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (7 March 1916) to be the birth of the company.
History of BMW motorcycles
The end of World War II found BMW in ruins. Its plant outside of Munich was destroyed by Allied bombing. The Eisenach facility, while badly damaged, was not totally destroyed, and tooling and machinery had been stored safely nearby. Contrary to popular accounts, the facility was not dismantled by the Soviets as reparations and sent to the Soviet Union to be reassembled in Irbit to make IMZ-Ural motorcycles; the IMZ plant was supplied to the Soviets by BMW under license before the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. After the war, most of BMW's engineers were taken to the US or the Soviet Union to continue the work they had done on jet engines with BMW during the war.