Separating fact from fiction
Milan Olšanský, the Czech Republic’s premier commercial vehicle journalist, has investigated the MAN lion – and his findings are quite fascinating. They could be divided into fact and fiction; we’ll kick off with the former.
The first mention of the MAN name came about in 1908, when a company called Vereinigte Maschinenfabrik Augsburg und Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg A.-G., Augsburg was renamed Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg – or MAN, as it’s now known.
In 1915, MAN began producing trucks, but the lion was nowhere to be seen; it only made its appearance when MAN took over the Büssing company at the beginning of the 1970s.
Büssing was a German bus and truck manufacturer, which was founded in Braunschweig in 1903 by Heinrich Büssing, a German inventor who filed a total of around 250 patents. Büssing was an extremely innovative company; one of its many achievements was the underfloor engine (which it installed in a commercial vehicle for the first time in 1949).
The acquisition of the Büssing brand gave MAN an opportunity to grow its production capacity. “In addition, MAN gained the so-called Braunschweiger Löwe – or Brunswick Lion – which had originally decorated the radiator grilles of Büssing vehicles. That lion was also the original icon of the city of Brunswick (German: Brunesguik, later Braunschweig),” explains Olšanský.
According to the Czech, the original statue of the Brunswick Lion was cast in 1166 as a symbol of the power, authority and jurisdiction of Henry III. “He was also known as the Lion of Brunswick, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony (1129 - 1195). The statue was placed on the Burgplatz (or castle square) in front of Dankwarderode Castle and Brunswick Cathedral. Thanks to the monumental statue of the king of animals, the castle is also known as Burglöwe (or the Lion's Castle),” reveals Olšanský.
The Brunswick Lion is the oldest and largest preserved medieval statue north of the Alps. “We have not preserved information about who actually cast the statue, but it is really a masterpiece. We can only assume that it was a master tradesman directly from Brunswick. The lion statue weighs about 880 kg, is 1780 mm high and 2790 mm long. In order to preserve the original sculpture, the actual statue on the Burgplatz is a copy. Various replicas of the Brunswick Lion can be found both in Germany (for example Goslar, Lübeck, Schwerin) and abroad, namely the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Harvard University,” relates Olšanský.
Now, onto the fiction
That’s it for the facts. We know without a doubt how a lion came to decorate the cabs of MAN vehicles. But could that very same lion also play an important role in Czech heraldry? Olšanský believes that it could.
He says that folklores abound when it comes to lions and specifically the MAN lion. “According to one of them, Henry III, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, came across a lion fighting a dragon on his way to Jerusalem. Henry saved the lion, which then accompanied his saviour for the rest of his life. This legend was popular in Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden, and also in modified form in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia. Maybe that was the Brunswick Lion, and it ended up in Czech heraldry?”
The legend of Henry the Lion also inspired the Czech tale of the knight Bruncvík. “According to our Czech legend, the knight Bruncvík (also called Brunclík) decided to get a better coat of arms for our country. Therefore, with a large retinue, he set out into a world where he experienced various adventures and fought all sorts of exotic animals and monsters. Among other things, he saved the life of a lion by killing a terrible dragon, and for this bravery, he received a lion in the Czech coat of arms,” explains Olšanský.
According to Olšanský, it is widely believed that the aforementioned lion was obtained from Henry the Lion, and that it is the self-same lion as the lion on the MAN logo. “It’s all about legends. The core is that we believe that, like Büssing, Bruncvík came from Braunschweig and the lion in our heraldry is the same Brunswick Lion,” he explains.
Ultimately the lion – be it on MAN trucks and buses or in the Czech heraldry – is mired in mystery. “Is the Brunswick Lion the animal we acquired in Czech heraldry in the thirteenth century? The same lion that has remained in the small and large coat of arms of the Czech Republic to this day? We don’t know for sure. Personally, I believe that this will remain the case,” contends Olšanský.
So, that much remains uncertain. However, one thing is clear: MAN’s lion remains a much-talked-about logo!
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