Details of the history of Wanderer:



The company Wanderer was founded in Chemnitz, Germany in 1885 as a bicycle trade and service center. Due to successful business the company had by 1886 already started a factory-made production of ‘penny-farthing’ bicycles.

The parts needed to make the bicycles were made on specially designed milling machines. The previously used milling machines did not meet the quality requirements of the company Wanderer and thus began the production of milling machines in-house.



From 1899, the serial production of milling machines was started.

In the following years and decades, many very reliable machines, motorcycles, typewriters, early calculating machines, cars and much more, came from the Wanderer corporate network.



Also important here were the rising brands of Continental, Nixdorf, Jawa and, of course, Audi, today's premium manufacturer in the VW Group.

1885 Founding of the Wanderer Company.

Services: Bicycle Trade & Service
1886 Production of ‘Penny-Farthing’ and other types of bicycles


1899 Series production of milling machines


1902 The first motorcycles are built


1903 The series production of typewriters begins (the Continental brand)


1905 First automobile prototypes


1913 Series production of automobiles


1931 Sale of heavy motorcycle product line to Frantisek Janecek (brand Jawa)


1932 Foundation of the ‘Autounion’ (Audi / DKW / Horch)


1946 Dismantling of the factory in Chemnitz-Schönau in eastern Germany as reparation to      Russia after the war


1952 Milling machines are manufactured under the name VEB Fritz-Heckert
(today the Starrag Group)


1953 typewriters by VEB Büromaschinen (office machines) Chemnitz, afterwards Optima, Erfurt in western Germany


1948 Restart of production at Wanderer Werke AG, Haar near Munich, following end of war


1949 Start of machine tool production in Munich


1953 Office Machine Division sold to Exacta office machines, later Exacta Continental,   Cologne


1960 Wanderer Logatronic pioneering work in the direction of data technology. Later Nixdorf
1984 Sale of the machine division of Wanderer to the HWH Group
          HWH = Heyligenstaedt-Wanderer-Honsberg
          Wanderer AG remains with Böwe-Systec


1986 Addition to mechanical engineering by Brose Sondermaschinen,
          Rotary transfer machines, transfer systems for the automotive industry


1993 Dissolution of the HWH group and sale of Wanderer Maschinen to Eder Holding (a   later merger with DMG failed)


1995 Division of Wanderer Maschinen into model areas
          Companies MGF and macrotec now front the products of Wanderer Maschinen


2008 Redesign of a horizontal machining center under the name Vector


2010 Support and service by ZERTEC UG