Leaders and Personalities

There are names and people who everyone associates with the success story of Daimler and the brand with the star. Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz as inventors of the automobile are merely the most colourful personalities.

Béla Barényi, Emil Jellinek or Fritz Nallinger are other important people who through their inventive genius or their business acumen have set the course for the successful development of the automobile and of a company that sets standards and is shaping the future of mobility the world over today.

Persönlichkeiten und Köpfe

There are names and people who everyone associates with the success story of Daimler and the brand with the star. Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz as inventors of the automobile are merely the most colourful personalities.

 Gottlieb Daimler

Gottlieb Daimler was born in Schorndorf on March 17, 1834. In addition to his studies at the Schorndorf "Lateinschule", he attended a drawing school which only gave lessons on Sundays. Daimler's attendance at the school was proof of his early interest in engineering. 

Karl Benz

Carl Benz was born the son of an engineer on November 25, 1844 in Karlsruhe. His father died when Carl was barely two years old. Despite being relatively poor, his mother ensured he had a good education. 

Bertha Benz

Bertha Benz, together with her sons Eugen (15) and Richard (14), was the first person to undertake a long-distance journey in a petrol-powered automobile. In August 1888, without the knowledge of her husband she travelled the 100 kilometres from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother. 

Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche was the third child of plumber Anton Porsche. His exceptional technical talent became apparent in early youth. After elementary school he took up an apprenticeship in his father's business.

Wilhelm Maybach

Wilhelm Maybach was born on February 9, 1846 in Heilbronn where he grew up as one of five children. The family later moved to Stuttgart but by the age of ten he had been made an orphan. In 1865 in Reutlingen he met Gottlieb Daimler. 

Karl Maybach

Karl Maybach was born on July 6, 1879 in Deutz near Cologne as son of the designing engineer August Wilhelm Maybach and his wife Bertha Wilhelmina, a daughter of the postmaster and innkeeper Karl Gottfried Habermaß. At the age of 17, Maybach graduated from the municipal intermediate secondary school.

Alfred Neubauer

Alfred Neubauer was born on March 29, 1891 in Neutitschein (near Moravska Ostrava in the present day Czech Republic).His career started in the rank of an Officer of Automobiles in the Austrian Army. Following he began his work at the Daimler plants in Vienna as a manager of the Automobile Test Department. 

Hans Nibel

Nibel was born in Olleschau, where his father was the director of a paper mill. Nibel's technical interest was aroused there. His very good school marks especially in the subjects mathematics, physics and drawing were a first indication of the talents which Nibel later would use professionally.

Emil Jellinek

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Emil Jellinek was the best, yet also the most difficult customer of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. Jellinek was an extremely successful businessman and insurance agent in Vienna, whose business activities were so profitable that he was able to set up an office in Nice. 

Mercédès Adrienne Manuela Ramona Jellinek

Mercédès Jellinek was the third child from businessman Emil Jellinek's (April 6, 1853 - January 21, 1918) first marriage to Rachel Goggman (April 29, 1854 - September 18, 1893). Initially, the family lived in Oran, then in Vienna and Baden near Vienna and they spent the winter in Nice. 

Prosper L´Orange

L'Orange developed the first compressorless diesel engine applying the precombustion chamber principle. Patent DRP 230 517 was issued for this "pre-chamber" in the diesel engine on 14 March 1909. It made it possible to design the stationary source of power for mobile use, the basis for diesel-powered vehicles.

Béla Barényi

Béla Barényi makes Mercedes-Benz the safest car in the world. In the history of the company, again and again the road to the world of tomorrow has been shaped by people who were among the most brilliant minds of their day. In 1938 one of them dropped in on Daimler-Benz looking for work. It was Béla Barényi, born in the Austrian town of Hirtenberg. 

Fritz Nallinger

Born in Esslingen as fourth child of DMG Board of Management member Friedrich Nallinger, Fritz Nallinger studied mechanical engineering at Karlsruhe Technical University after serving in the First World War. He began his professional career in the design office of Benz & Cie.