September 17, 1917, just as the Great War was drawing to an end, Germany’s Zünder und Apparatebau GmbH concern - literally,‘Igniter and Apparatus Construction’, conflated to Züundapp was founded in Nuremberg (Nürnberg). Its purpose was to make fuses for the artillery guns then pounding the Allied lines on the Western Front - but little more than one year later on November 11, 1918 the Armistice was signed to bring the war to an end, and with it the reason for Zündapp’s existence.
The company’s three founding partners comprised metalwork entrepreneur Fritz Neumeyer, together with machine tool manufacturer Gerbrüder Thiel GmbH, and the largest company in Europe at the start of the 20th century, Friedrich Krupp AG (later in 1999 to merge with Thyssen to form today’s vast ThyssenKrupp AG conglomerate). In 1919 Neumeyer bought his partners out to become sole proprietor of what he swiftly built into a major industrial concern manufacturing a varied range of products, including tractors, railway rolling stock and, from 1921 onwards, Zündapp motorcycles. During the next six decades the company would produce more than three million bikes, making it larger than BMW Motorrad for much of its existence.
Five prototypes of Zündapp’s first motorcycle appeared in 1921, the 211cc Z22 powered by a British-made Levis two-stroke motor, of which more than 1000 examples were built the following year.to include three different models, and a modern-style assembly line established in the Nuremberg factory, leading to no less than 10,000 motorcycles being manufactured in that year alone by Zündapp’s 600-strong workforce.
