Nazi Era and The Second World War
At the Spandau factory, O&K built cable-operated excavators and bucket-wheel excavators for use in the lignite coal mines of eastern Germany. Under the Aryanisation scheme of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, the Orenstein family's shares in the company were forcibly sold in 1935; Orenstein and Koppel was placed under trust administration, and the Babelsberger works were taken over and renamed in 1941. O&K existed in name only, but more commonly used the abbreviation MBA (Maschienenbau und Bahnbedarf AG).
After heavy bomb attacks on Berlin caused a fire in the company's plant-administration buildings, factory production minister Albert Speer redistributed work and factories around the country to lessen the risk from a single attack. For the remainder of World War II, no more locomotives were built in Berlin. Four hundred and twenty-one locomotives already under construction were shifted to Prague to protect the existing factories. During the war, O&K provided 400 Class 52 locomotives.
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Time, old gal of mine, will soon dim out.”
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“Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.”
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