Berlin Origins
The earliest presence of the Ford Motor Company in Germany was a parts operation set up in Hamburg in 1912.
At the end of 1924 the US Ford Motor Company established a sales office in Berlin which at the start of 1925 received a permit to import 1,000 tractors. In 1920 the government had imposed a prohibition against importing foreign automobiles, but the prohibition was repealed in October 1925. The move had evidently been anticipated by Ford, since on 18 August 1925 the Ford Motor Company Aktiengesellschaft had been entered in the Berlin Companies Register.
During 1925 an assembly plant was constructed in a rented warehouse in the Westhafen (western port) district of Berlin, which was well located for receiving deliveries of kits and components via the country's canal network. On 1 April 1926 the first German assembled Model T was produced, using imported parts. The Berlin assembly operation produced 1,177 Model Ts in 1926 and a further 2,594 during 1927 which was the Model T's final year: in August 1927 Model T production in Berlin ended, and it was nearly a year before, on 20 August 1928, Ford auto-production in Berlin recommenced, now of the Ford Model A.
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