B
On August 1, 1921, Hugo Greffenius founded MIAG Mühlenbau und Industrie AG in Frankfurt am Main and acquired the majority of shares in several competing mill construction companies, including AGK and Luther-Werke. These initially still formally independent companies were merged into MIAG in 1925, which moved its headquarters to Braunschweig at the beginning of 1930.
After 1933, the number of employees in Braunschweig grew from around 3,500 employees in 1933 to more than 8,000 in 1936/1937 due to the rapidly increasing armament orders (73 percent of the total order volume in 1938).
The aircraft production of the MIAG - mainly license buildings of the types Messerschmitt Bf 110, Messerschmitt Me 210 and Messerschmitt Me 410 - then took place until the end of the war in the Luther works, which had been spun off again. For this purpose, a production area was acquired at Waggum Airport.
To this end, Stephan Luther founded Luther-Werke Luther & Co. GmbH in June 1941, which, with government support, took over MIAG's aircraft manufacturing operations. From 1941 until the end of the war, Luther-Werke remained the primary licensed manufacturer of the Bf 110, producing more than 1,350 aircraft (another 450 Bf 110s had been manufactured at MIAG's facility by 1941). In addition, Luther-Werke, with its plant on Frankfurter Straße, also manufactured parts and assemblies as a supplier to other manufacturers, as well as a repair shop for Bf 110s and Heinkel He111s. Following financial investment by technical director Walter Jordan, the company was renamed Luther-Werke Luther & Jordan GmbH in 1943.
After several bombing raids on the Luther-Werke on Frankfurter Straße, in Bienrode, and in Waggum, production was severely affected from mid-1944 onward. Owner and managing director Stephan Luther was killed in a bombing raid. His partner, Walter Jordan, continued to run the company alone until the end of the war. In 1945, the factory was confiscated by the British military government, and numerous machines and equipment were dismantled.[8]
