André Citroën (1878-1935)

A French industrialist, André-Gustave Citroën was born in Paris on 5 February 1878, but his diamond dealer father Levi Bernard was a Dutch-Jewish origins and his mother Masza Amalie Kleinmann was of Polish-Jewish extraction.

He was graduated from École Polytechnique, as a young engineer in 1901. By 1905, Citroen’s active brain had led to the idea to found his own engineering company, André Citroën & Cie, at the age 27, and until the end of the First World War produce armaments in a factory on the outskirts of Paris.

In 1908, his factories made three hundred cars and by 1913 they were making eight hundred cars per year.

The first car assembly lines were established and André produced his first car in 1919, the Type A. In the last six months of that year 2500 cars were shipped out of the factory. Soon the company became the largest in France much to the chagrin of the owner of the main French rival, Louis Renault.

Unfortunately, the Great Depression ruined Citroën, the firm eventually being rescued by the tire manufacturer Michelin. André Citroën died on July 3, 1935 in Paris from stomach cancer and was buried at the Montparnasse.
André Citroën (1878-1935)