Owning this unusual device made sense. After all, any Mercedes-Benz editor should have a Mercedes typewriter! About $200 (not counting a shipping bill rivaling that amount) and a few weeks later, the latest object of our mechanical affection was on display in our office. But how on earth did Mercedes-Benz ever get involved with typewriters?

The answer lies in corporate diversification. After World War I, times were tough in Germany. Jobs, food, and money were equally scarce, and inflation was about to go out of control. For most people, buying a new car was the last thought on their mind. As Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft switched production from wartime aircraft engines back to peacetime automobiles, the company's directors were painfully aware of the barren marketplace they faced. Seeking to diversify into a lower-priced market of more essential goods yet still take advantage of its technical abilities and strong reputation, DMG first licensed a German typewriter maker to use the Mercedes name - then went into the typewriter business itself.

Mercedes Typewriters

Despite its maker evidently lacking the authority to use the proud name, the first Mercedes typewriter was made in 1906 by Franz Schuller, one of Germany's first typewriter designers. After lengthy negotiations with DMG regarding conditions and stipulations, the Buromaschinen (&Waffen) Werke A.G. of Zella-Mehlis Thuringia officially acquired the right to use the trade name Mercedes in 1913. Even then, it was all about marketing. The excellent reputation of Mercedes automobiles was unquestionably the reason for their request. It would sell typewriters.

This arrangement was one of only two instances in which the name Mercedes was licensed for use on an outside product. The other such deal, at about the same time, involved a shoe company!

The contract between Daimler and the Zella company granted permission for the "immediate application and registration of the said trademark for your typewriters, calculators, and other office equipment." Further, the typewriter company promised "not to engage in the manufacture of engines, automobiles or other products related to the automotive sector or auxiliary industries."

A DMG letter of March 9th, 1914, stipulated in several pages all of the conditions, including Zella's payment of a royalty of 20,000 Marks in five equal installments over five years. Zella henceforth became known as Mercedes Buromaschinen Werke A.G., Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia..

Like Mercedes-Benz cars, Mercedes typewriters were known for design innovations. The first "legal" Mercedes model was a purely mechanical four-row machine, Model 3, which came out in December 1911. Later models were improved by Carl Schluns of Berlin, who had already worked 15 years for the manufacturer of Adler typewriters. He followed the basic Underwood design with one major exception. The entire key field and typing lever mechanism could be removed. This not only made it easier to clean the machine but allowed faster repair and parts replacement, with the added bonus of being able to interchange typefaces for multi-language work.

In fact, Zella built the world's first practical electric typewriter, the Mercedes Elektra, which appeared in 1921. Electric motors mounted on the right side of the machine allowed keystrokes 40 times lighter than a manual machine and moved the carriage across the page. An adjustable mechanism allowed a lighter type bar stroke for stencils and heavier blows for making up to 20 carbon copies.

The Mercedes office typewriter was a bit like today's word-processing and graphics programs in that space between individual letters and words could be adjusted, not electronically but mechanically via two simple knobs. Thus a long word could be squeezed into the space of a shorter one. A plate on the machine automatically warned typists as they reached the letzte zeil, the last line on a page. A system for easily adjusting the leading (space between lines) was also incorporated. The basic machine was sold in three versions, one with columnar tab settings, one with the spacing feature, and a third with a removable cover.

A major advance in Mercedes typewriter design came in June 1930 with the Express model, which required less finger pressure and had an electrically rotated platen. The Mercedes Favorit, introduced in 1932 as an economy model, did without some of the features of the Express. By 1933, Mercedes portable typewriters (Kleinmaschinen, small machines) were available. Although these were first made at an Underwood plant in Europe and closely resembled that firm's own models, all manufacture was eventually shifted to Zella-Mehlis. Sold for RM 172, these 42-key machines were know as the Mercedes Prima, model 134. A slightly larger and heavier portable, the Selecta, could practically do the work of an office-style machine.

Even the marketing of Mercedes typewriters was similar to that of the cars. Zella was not shy about promotion, which led it to commission the Mercedes advertising poster seen here. (Of course, schreibmaschine means "writing machine".) Dating from 1911, the poster was created by Ernst Deutsch, a Viennese fashion designer who left Europe in 1933 to become a Hollywood set designer.

Still, business conditions were tough in Europe throughout the 1920s, and the Depression took its toll, so in 1930 Zella was acquired by Underwood-Elliott-Fisher. The final Mercedes typewriter, the Superba (the S-Class of the line?) appeared in 1936, priced at RM 200. So that typists didn't get nervous watching all that intricate machinery, its mechanism was covered. Production of Mercedes typewriters continued.

But now let's back up a bit. In fact, Daimler actually built its own typewriters!

Return with us now to 1914. The original agreement with Zella regarding its use of the Mercedes name forbade the firm to build cars, but no reciprocal restriction limited Daimler from making office equipment. After all, that probability was as remote as the moon. When DMG made its licensing deal with Zella, it had not considered making its own typewriters, but after World War I, someone at DMG came up with that very idea.

Following a thorough market analysis, DMG's directors founded the Lissa Maschinenfabrik GmbH, first listed on the Stuttgart Commercial Register on March 26th, 1923. Soon the company was re-named DMG Buromaschinenfabrik, GmbH. Although its initial office equipment line was limited to typewriters, future expansion into cash registers and office safes was seen as a possibility.

Although the Mercedes name had been contracted away to Zella, two other valuable trademarks, the three-pointed star and the initials DMG, would identify Daimler's own equipment. Naturally, the new machines were identified by the initials DMG just above the keyboard, and like the radiators of contemporary Mercedes-Benz cars, the face of the typewriter was flanked by two three-pointed stars.

In the end, DMG never did expand into the proposed cash registers and office safes, but between 1923 and 1925 numerous office equipment patents were applied for. These never went beyond ideas on paper. The actual DMG typewriters featured mechanical advantages over competing products and were, of course, of a high quality. Economic conditions in Europe eventually improved. On July 2nd, 1927 - after the 1926 merger of Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft with Benz &Compagnie to form Daimler-Benz AG - the DMG Bu romachinenfabrik GmbH was liquidated, and the flow of DMG typewriters ended.

Meanwhile, Mercedes Buromachinenfabrik in Zella-Mehlis was still going strong, and its Mercedes typewriters were know for their innovations and quality. The factory in the beautiful Thuringia vacation area was built like a resort and could easily be mistaken for an exclusive luxury hotel. Typewriter production in Stuttgart ceased after the 1926 creation of DBAG, and the Unterturkheim plant went back to manufacturing superior automobiles named Mercedes-Benz.

Though there's no record of Mercedes typewriter sales in the U.S., the machines were sold around the world. In England they were marketed under the Protos brand; in Argentina they were first dubbed Cosmopolita but later took the Mercedes name. The Underwood firm continued building Mercedes typewriters until 1951, and they remained in demand until the 1970's, but today they are more collector's items than mere utilitarian machines.