BMW At War
by: Bob Mabey

In Atkinson’s outstanding An Army at Dawn (Pulitzer Prize for history) which tells the American Army’s story of the battle for North Africa, there’s a reference to a “motorcycle battalion” participating in Panzer attack. Being pretty well informed and knowing that the Germans did use motorcycles extensively for chasing Steve McQueen, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, et al in some of my favorite war movies; it was a surprise to hear that they had been grouped in up to battalion sized units. Extensive research revealed that German panzer divisions had motorcycle infantry battalions of two to three companies in addition to a headquarters company. Even your average infantry division had 452 motorcycles in the early years of the war with forty or more found in the reconnaissance, signal, artillery, engineer and anti-tank battalions/regiments. Eighty eight were used by division supply alone to deliver critical items to the rest of the division.

At the beginning of the war there were three classes of motorcycles: under 350cc, 350 to 500cc, and over 500cc. The move in to the Soviet Union proved that the only machine rugged enough to handle that type of combat was the BMW R/75. The number of divisional motorcycles dropped to 168 as they were replaced by the more versatile Kubelwagen (basically a Volkswagen) and the Schwimmwagen (swimming Kubelwagen). However, the R/75 remained very popular with both commanders and the troops and stayed in production until near the end of the war even though it was said to cost as much to build as two Kubelwagens. One source says that over 16,500 were ultimately built for the Wehrmacht. No figures are available for Soviet production of R/75 copies that continues to this day as the Ural.

Most of the BMW factories that built engines and other goodies for the Nazis were bombed to rubble by 1945 and BMW was found guilty of “employing” thousands of death camp inmates in the production of these items. The Soviets ended up with the relatively untouched facility at Eisenbach and were soon building the “EMW” R/35 (complete with red and white roundel). Some Ural owners probably feel that the Soviets copied R/75s that had been intentionally sabotaged by slave laborers resulting in the problems seen in these bikes to this day. Surviving production machinery was doled out as part of war reparations with the Russians getting most of it. In spite of this BMW was ready to reenter the market in 1948 with the 250cc R24.

You can learn much more on the web about BMW and the war in Europe. I also heartily recommend Atkinson’s book on the North African campaign if you like history that reads like a good novel. You will also come away convinced, whatever your politics, that we would have never kept on fighting the Axis powers after the North African fiascos had they been reported in the manner that the media handles these things today.