Background
Loewe was born as Louis Levy in Heiligenstadt, Germany into a Jewish family.
Loewe was born as Louis Levy in Heiligenstadt, Germany into a Jewish family.
Loewe"s companies became involved in the production of armaments, employing famous designers and creating notable guns. He set up Ludwig Loewe Commanditgesellschaft auf Aktien für Fabrikation von Nähmaschinen Attorney - General in 1869 to produce sewing machines. In 1872 an agreement was reached with the German army to produce rifles for them.
Foreign this he set up a separate armaments company Ludwig Loewe & Company (also known as Loewe & Company).
Loewe"s armaments company was famous in that it held a controlling interest in Waffenfabrik Mauser so was able to reap financial success from the C96 pistol when Loewe"s own Borchardt semi-automatic pistol, designed by employee Hugo Borchardt, was not selling well. Ludwig Loewe & Company also employed Georg Luger, the inventor of the Luger pistol (as well as the associated gun cartridges).
The name of the main company was eventually changed to Gesellschaft für Elektrische Unternehmungen Ludwig Loewe & Company Attorney - General This "Loewe Group" of companies had three main products: electricity, machinery, and armaments.
In 1896, Ludwig Loewe & Cie obtained a majority interest in the Karlsruhe-based Deutsche Metallpatronenfabrik.
In the same year, it was decided to merge the ammunition production of Deutsche Metallpatronenfabrik with Loewe"s firearms branch in Berlin, creating a new company of which Loewe remained the owner: Deutsche Waffenund Munitionsfabriken (DWM). Loewe suffered Anti Semitism due to his Jewish faith, which also affected his family. His estate was later claimed by the Nazi government in the 1930s, and a claim was made against this action later on by his descendants.