Johann "Hans" Nibel
Hans Nibel (31 August 1880 – 25 November 1934) was a German mechanical engineer. He was employed for more than a quarter of a century in positions of increasing influence at Benz and Cie and, after the 1926 merger, its successor entity, Daimler-Benz AG. He is best remembered for his time as Technical Director, a position he took over from Ferdinand Porsche following an acrimonious falling out between the company and Dr. Porsche. Between 1929 and 1934 Nibel was responsible for a succession of new Mercedes-Benz models of which, in commercial terms, the Mercedes-Benz W15, introduced in October 1931, was probably the most important. During the savage backwash from the Great Depression the W15 was relatively affordable, enabling the manufacturer to retain a major presence in the German auto market in a way that the large expensive cars with which Mercedes-Benz had increasingly been associated during the 1920s never could have done. Life Provenance and early years Johann "Hans" Nibel was born into a Catholic family at Olleschau, Austria-Hungary (today Olšany in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic). He had one brother and two sisters. At that time, and until 1918, the entire region was part of the Austro-Hungarian