AGO Flugzeugwerke

AGO Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturing company from 1911 until 1945. The initials AGO had a variety of meanings during the company's lifetime, but in its final version stood for Apparatebau GmbH Oschersleben. At its peak, the company employed around 4,500 people.

AGO was founded in 1911 in Munich as Flugmaschinenwerke Gustav Otto by Gustav Otto and a Dr Alberti. Gustav, the son of Dr Nikolaus Otto – inventor of the four-stroke engine, was a pioneer aviator (pilot's licence No. 34) and engine-builder. As was usual in those days, a flying school was attached to the business – one of its later students was Ernst Udet.

The company's first successful aircraft under head designer, Gabriel Letsch, was an observation biplane with a pusher propeller that soon became the standard equipment of the Bayerischen Fliegertruppe. The machine was powered by a 75 kW (100 hp) engine of the firm's own design, branded Aviatiker Gustav Otto.

In 1912, a separate division was set up in Johannisthal under the name Ago Flugzeugwerke, with Elisabeth Woerner and Hermann Fremery as directors. After the outbreak of World War I, AGO built a series of military reconnaissance aircraft, beginning with the AGO C.I – a pusher-powered biplane designed by August Haefeli. The most successful of AGO's wartime aircraft was the C.IV of 1916, of which 70 examples were built, but which proved unpopular with its pilots.

In 1916, Gustav Otto opened a new plant in Munich under the name Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, and another in Oschersleben (with Josef Schnittisser) again named AGO, this time for Aktiengesellschaft Gustav Otto. The Oschersleben plant was used to manufacture components for other manufacturers' aircraft until the end of the war.

After the Armistice, Otto tried automobile manufacturing, but in 1919 had to dismiss the employees of the Berlin company and divest himself of the Oschersleben factory. He himself withdrew to Lake Starnberg where he died in 1926. The company continued, and in the same year developed 20 new hectares of factory space near the Sudenburger Maschinenfabrik und Eisengießerei AG plant at Magdeburg. By 1928 this enterprise was also forced to close. On 30 July 1930, AGO's remaining assets were sold at auction by order of the court.

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