Biography

After school, he completed training as a toolmaker, first in Stuttgart and then in Schwenningen. Sachs began his professional career as a precision mechanic in an industrial company in Frankfurt/Main. He later moved to Schweinfurt. At the end of the 19th century, in the Franconian city, Sachs developed a new model of bicycle hub that enabled freewheeling, i.e. H. rolling the bike without using the pedals. This technical invention also introduced the coaster brake.

Sachs patented his precision hub in 1894. Just one year later, he founded the precision ball bearing works Fichtel & Sachs in Schweinfurt with the entrepreneur's son Karl Fichtel, which was dedicated to the production and constant improvement of the new type of bicycle hub. From the turn of the century, the company produced the freewheel hub with coaster brake, which began its triumphant march through the world under the name "Torpedo". Branches were soon founded in Tschirnitz near Eger in Bohemia and in Lancaster (Pennsylvania, USA).

After the turmoil of the First World War 1914-1918 and the November Revolution of 1918, the Fichtel & Sachs factories in the Weimar Republic experienced another economic boom. In 1923 the two partners converted the company into a stock corporation. Sachs acted as general director of the AG. His son, Willy Sachs (1896-1958), joined the AG's board in the same year. In the wake of the global economic crisis of 1929, the company was taken over by the Vereinigte Kugellager-Fabriken AG in Schweinfurt. From 1930 onwards it produced the famous Sachs engines for bicycles and two-wheelers.

Ernst Sachs died on July 2, 1932 in Schweinfurt. His son Willy now took over the management of Fichtel & Sachs AG, which then passed on to his descendants Ernst Wilhelm and Gunter Sachs after his death in 1958.
- IMDb mini biography by: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth