Oerlikon-Bührle

Oerlikon-Bührle, whose full name was Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon, Bührle and Co., was a Swiss armaments company based in Oerlikon, Zurich, from 1906 to 1999. It began as the Schweizerische Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon, a spin-off of the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, and was taken over in 1923 by the Magdeburg machine tool factory, which saved it from bankruptcy. Emil Georg Bührle arrived from Magdeburg in 1924, made the 20 mm Oerlikon gun the core of the business and became main shareholder in 1929. The gun became an export success, above all as an aircraft cannon and light anti-aircraft gun, and by the 1930s the firm was the largest private arms maker in Switzerland, with more than 2,000 employees in 1939. In 1939 Bührle and partners founded the Pilatus aircraft works in Stans. During the war it supplied the Allies and then, after June 1940, the Axis powers. After restructuring and the sale of its air defence arm to Rheinmetall, the holding company merged into the present OC Oerlikon in January 2000.