Gothaer Waggonfabrik

Gothaer Waggonfabrik (Gotha, GWF) was a German manufacturer of established in the late nineteenth century at Gotha. During the two world wars, the company expanded into aircraft building.

In World War I, Gotha was the manufacturer of a highly successful series of bombers based on a 1914 design by Oskar Ursinus, but heavily reimagined by Hans Burkhard. From 1917, the Burkhard-designed twin pusher biplane bomber aircraft were capable of carrying out strategic bombing missions over England, the first heavier-than-air aircraft used in this role. Several dozen of these bombers were built in a number of subtypes - the Ursinus-based Gotha G.I, and the succeeding Burkhard-designed G.II, G.III, G.IV, and G.V. This last variant was the most prolific, with thirty-six in squadron service at one point.

Whilst Germany was prohibited from military aircraft manufacture by the Treaty of Versailles, Gotha returned to its railway endeavours, but returned to aviation with the rise of the Nazi government and the abandonment of the Treaty's restrictions.

In 1921 the company purchased Automobilwerk Eisenach, thereby entering automobile production and, with the Dixi 3/15 DA-1 playing an important part in expanding the German auto-market to buyers who hitherto would have been motorised, if at all, only as motorcyclists. However, the company encountered a cash crisis in 1928 and the Dixi branded auto-business was sold to BMW: the Dixi 3/15 DA-1 was rebadged in 1928 as the BMW 3/15 DA-2, the name by which today the little car is better remembered.

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