Hanns Grewenig

Hanns Grewenig (30 September 1891 - 6 April 1961) was a German engineer who pursued a successful career in the German automobile industry. He was the Commercial Director and a leading member of the executive board at BMW between 1948 and 1957.

Life Early years Hanns Grewenig was born in Strasbourg which at that time was in Germany. In 1911 he joined the Navy as a marine engineer. In 1917 he obtained his diploma as a Ship's Engineer after which he participated in the war, serving as chief engineer on a submarine. After the war ended Grewenig's career took a change of direction, as he undertook a commercial apprenticeship and then took charge of several vehicle service/repair shops. and Grewenig's career followed a similarly upward trajectory. With GM-Opel he worked successively as Customer Services Director, Director for Production and Distribution of Replacement Parts, and Sales Director for the southern part of Germany, covering Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden und Hessen. Grewenig was appointed plant director, retaining this responsibility till 1938. By 1941 it had switched to war production, becoming a major supplier of tanks to the military, especially the Jagdpanzer IV/70(V) Grewenig was mandated to improve efficiencies and expand production. The end of the war in May 1945, found what was left of Germany divided into four occupation zones. Plauen had been heavily bombed, leaving it, according to one source, one of the most completely destroyed towns in Germany. That year he crossed the (at this stage still completely porous) border separating the Soviet occupation zone from Bavaria, which had ended up in the US occupation zone (after May 1949 the German Federal Republic / West Germany). Desperate shortage of cash would be a defining feature of Grewenig's time at the top of BMW. Powered at this stage by a compact 6-cylinder engine not massively changed since it had first appeared in the BMW 326 in 1936, the BMW 501 for 1952 was seen as seriously underpowered, and high warranty charges for the early cars indicated that it was also seriously underdeveloped at launch, reflecting the manufacturer's continuing acute cash shortage.

† Hanns Grewenig died in a car accident in Munich on 6 April 1961.