GE Jenbacher

INNIO Jenbacher designs and manufactures gas engines and cogeneration modules in the Austrian town of Jenbach in Tyrol. It is part of the INNIO portfolio of products and is one of their gas engine technologies; the other being Waukesha Engines. Jenbacher emerged from the former Jenbacher Werke, which was founded in 1959 and manufactured gas and diesel engines, and locomotives. The company was bought out by General Electric in 2003. In November 2018 the company became part of INNIO as part of an acquisition of Advent International and was renamed INNIO Jenbacher GmbH & Co. OHG.

== History == thumb|Company building in Jenbach Although the company itself has a relatively short history, its origins go far back. In 1487, a mine and foundry was founded by the Fugger family. In 1657, all Fugger properties in Tyrol were taken over by the state. Due to exhaustion of the copper and silver deposits, the mine changed its focus to iron. The company was acquired by Julius and Theodor Reitlinger in 1881. In 1909, the mine ran out of iron as well, and after a boom during the First World War only the foundry was left. In 1914, Friedrich Reitlinger took over the factory after the death of Julius Reitlinger, making it a state-protected company at the start of the First World War. In 1938, shortly after Austria's annexation to the National Socialist German Reich, he committed suicide with his daughter after being held captive in his home by the National Socialists. The company was confiscated and Aryanized for the benefit of the state of Tyrol. At the beginning of World War II, all of Tyrol was seized and Aryanized, and the company was to 'work for the benefit of the country'. The plant made brake pads for the Deutsche Reichsbahn, and from 1939 they made airframe parts and rocket motors in Jenbach (some to liquid-fueled aircraft rocket engine designs from Hellmuth Walter KG) for Heinkel as the licensee. The plant thus became the largest armaments factory in Tyrol. There was massive use of Nazi forced labor: two thirds of the 3,000 employees were forced laborers. [2] A women's camp, which was a subcamp of the Reichenau labor education camp under the control of the Gestapo, was located at the Jenbacher Heinkel-Werke. The Ukrainian forced laborer Eugenia Kaser reports deplorable conditions in the camp. In 1945 it was occupied by the American army. After the collapse at the end of the Second World War the factory was placed under public administration. It had to be converted to civilian production, and started out with cookware, but also started with the repair of railway wagons.