Max Brose

Max Brose (4 January 1884 – 11 April 1968) was a German businessman and industrialist. He founded automotive supplier Brose Fahrzeugteile in 1908 and managed it until his death. By that time, the company had grown to 1,000 employees and was the largest German manufacturer of window regulators.

A successful campaign to rename a street after Brose in Coburg in the 21st century was the subject of international media coverage.

Life and early career Brose completed his education in business administration at age 24 in 1908, after which he established his own trading business for automotive accessories and aircraft materials. Brose was drafted into the German army during World War I. At the end of the war, Lieutenant Brose, who had fought in Germany's motorized forces on the Western Front, was sent to East Prussia to help take down a truck depot. There he met chemist Ernst Jühling, who would become his business partner.

In late spring 1919 they acquired a former metal parts factory in Coburg, a small town in northern Bavaria, and founded Metallwerk Max Brose & Co. OHG, known informally as Max Brose Metal Works. In 1928, following a suggestion by Opel founder Wilhelm von Opel, Brose acquired a manufacturing license for spring-wound brakes, a major component of window regulators, from an American firm. Within a few years, the company evolved as a major supplier of window regulators to German automakers Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Borgward, and Lloyd.

In the early 1920s, Brose was a member of the liberal German People's Party as a city council member in Coburg. He later became a member of the national-conservative German National People's Party, which espoused antisemitic views.

During the Great Depression, Brose's company launched the standardized 20-liter gasoline canister.

Nazi affiliation, activity during World War II Brose joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933, and joined the National Socialist Motor Corps in the fall of 1933. By 1935, the Nazi Party controlled Coburg, and Brose was appointed president of the Coburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK). He was president until it was dissolved in 1943. Brose was named a Wehrwirtschaftsführer in 1938.

During World War II, Brose's automotive company manufactured gasoline canisters and armaments for the German military, partly using forced labor. German historian Andreas Dornheim alleged that Brose served as the company's defense officer, appointed by the German Army High Command and worked with the Gestapo to monitor his workforce for political compliance.

Street naming controversy Coburg In 2004, Brose's grandson Michael Stoschek, the CEO of Brose Fahrzeugteile, first tried to have his grandfather honoured with a street name in Coburg. After the city refused, Brose Fahrzeugteile allegedly ceased charitable donations to the city, but the city denied that it had been put under financial pressure. in London, Ontario, Canada, and in Prievidza, Slovakia.

Personal life In 1935, Brose purchased the villa of a Jewish resident of Coburg named Abraham Friedmann that had been auctioned off as part of Aryanization, the Nazi seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews.

Brose's grandson Michael Stoschek became CEO of Brose Fahrzeugteile in 1971. Stoschek's daughter Julia Stoschek, Brose's great-granddaughter, is a prominent German socialite and art collector.