From the takeover by “Olympia Werke A.G.”, Wilhelmshaven, until the closure.
On September 5th 1956, an extra-ordinary general meeting consented to the increase of the capital of “Brunsviga” to 6 million DM within 5 years. The object of this was expanding the manufacturing program, and arming the company against increases in wages and raw material costs. Head shareholders of the new capital were in 1957 the “Olympia werke A.G.” from Wilhelmshaven and “Diehl GmbH” from Nürnberg.
The executive board in 1957 consisted of Ditwald Bremeier (since Nov. 18 1948), Dr. Waldemar Penkert (since Jan. 1st 1955) and Carl-Georg Pfeffer (since May 16th 1955). Proxies were at this time Willy van Endert, Kurt Neumann, Dr. Otto Rademacher and Wolfgang König. Karl Runte left the board of directors for age reasons in 1957, and the general director of “Olympia”, Joachim Wussow, became chairman of the board of directors retroactively on June 6th 1957. The chairman of the board of directors of Diehl GmbH, Georg Seebauer, became his substitute.
Then “Diehl” sold shares to Olympia, which made it come into possession of about 85% of the stock. On November 5th 1957, a merger was decided between “Olympia” and “Brunsviga”.
“Die Zeit” wrote on Nov. 21st 1957 (nr. 74) about the motivations at “Olympia”:
“It would surely be exaggerated to see in this participation of “Olympia” in “Brunsviga” a far-reaching concentration in the German office appliance industry. The main reason for the Olympia factory simply appears to be a completion of their manufacturing program with calculators. They have a new design ready for manufacturing, and were faced with the decision to either build a new factory, or participate in a company that already made calculators. In “Brunsviga” they saw the right partner."
In 1958, the “Olympia” sales organization took over the sales of the BRUNSVIGA machines. The sales organization was extended, and the machine program cleaned up. “Olympia” hired Karl-Heinrich Rohde on Dec. 1st 1958. He was intended to support the introduction of BRUNSVIGA-products in the “Olympia” sales organization.
Ditwald Bremeier left the executive board on Febr. 28th 1958 and went to Berlin, to the “State Engineering School Gauss.”
In 1959, the fusion of the two companies followed, and the transfer of the Brunsviga-capital to the “Olympia Werke A.G.”.
In 1962, after the models 11 S, 11 E and 16 E, also delivery of the 13 BR, 18 RK, D 18 R, D 13 R/1 and D 13 R2 ceased. The 13 RK, B 20 and 183 could be obtained until 1963, afterwards the only BRUNSVIGA-model was the 13 RM, which Olympia contracted out to build in Spain until 1969.
On March 10th 1967, the move from the Kastanienallee and the Hamburger Strasse to the new factory in the Gifhorner Strasse started, and the new factory was inaugurated on April 28th 1967. At the start of the 1970s, about 2000 employees worked there.
“AEG” as the parent company of “Olympia Werke A.G.” closed the factory in the Gifhorner Strasse on April 1st 1979, and this finally concluded the era of calculators from Brunswick.
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