From tinned meat to munitions

The empire began with food. In 1882 the brothers Manfréd and Berthold Weiss opened a cannery in Budapest, supplying tinned meat to the army and, in quiet seasons, reloading rifle cartridges. Tins led to metal, and metal to ammunition. From 1892 a new works on Csepel island turned out millions of rounds, and by the First World War the company employed more than 30,000 people, the biggest industrial firm in the Hungarian half of the empire. In 1917 alone it made 330 million rounds.

Hungary’s own aircraft

Between the wars the Csepel works added aircraft to its tractors, bicycles and engines. Its WM-16 Budapest was based on the Fokker C.V, and the WM-21 Sólyom (Falcon) of 1937, powered by a Weiss-built radial engine, replaced it. A total of 128 Sólyoms were built across three factories, 25 of them by Weiss Manfréd, and they flew reconnaissance over Yugoslavia and Ukraine. During the war 48 served with Hungarian reconnaissance units, and about 80 ended up as trainers until 1945.

Seized, bombed, nationalised

The Second World War destroyed the family business. In 1944 the Weiss family were allowed to leave for Portugal while the works passed to German control. From March 1944 Allied raids wrecked the aircraft plant. The factory came under state control in 1946, was effectively nationalised in 1948 and in 1950 renamed after Mátyás Rákosi. Under state ownership the works recovered, and by the 1970s almost half its output was exported to the West.

Factories

• Csepel works · Csepel island, Budapest — Main complex; 250 hectares and 216 buildings at the start of WWI
• Original cannery · Lövölde Square, Budapest — Where the Weiss brothers started in 1882

People

• Manfréd Weiss · founder — Industrialist ennobled as Baron Weiss de Csepel
• Berthold Weiss · co-founder — Opened the 1882 cannery with his brother

Records and firsts

• Largest industrial enterprise in the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary
• First three-shift working in Hungary, introduced in WWI