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The first Semmering race, 27 August 1899. The category winner Emil Jellinek is seen here at the wheel of his 16 hp Phoenix racing car, next to him is Hermann Braun. From left to right, on the back seat: Ferdinand Spiegel, Otto Zels and Ferdinand Jellinek. (The first Phoenix models were extremely tall vehicles with a rounded bonnet and round-shaped radiators. They had an output of up to 24 hp).
Dynamic demand for a very fast car As the engine power and speed increased, so too did production and sales. In 1903, 232 units of the improved model series of the Mercedes-Simplex already were manufactured; the number was 698 the next year, and even 863 in 1905. Owing to the successes on the racetrack production was sold out until 1904. In 1904 Emil Jellinek set a new sales record for Mercedes with 24 orders from Belgium, 12 from the Netherlands, and 150 from Britain. Around a hundred years later. In the wake of the success of the Mercedes cars, Jellinek constantly tormented the company management with suggestions for improvements and complaints, to the effect that the company should not rest on its laurels but make the magnificent cars even better. "From now on I am not accepting any car whose gearing is not completely noiseless," he wrote for example on 25 August 1904. "It has been effectively found that DMG gearboxes currently are the noisiest of all makes and that even cars of much lower quality run more quietly than ours." The relationship between Jellinek and the management in Cannstatt accordingly was tense: "My father can get along with Vischer if necessary, he tolerates Duttenhofer as well as he can, but he does not like Lorenz at all," Guy Jellinek-Mercedes writes in his father's biography. This automotive visionary was apt to jot down his countless ideas on the white cuffs of his shirts: "So he changed shirts three times a day, and his secretary then transferred his notes to paper and sent them to Mercedes engineer Wilhelm Maybach," as his daughter Andrée Jellinek-Mercedes remembers. "He then put father's ideas into practice." Letter post apparently also was too slow for him, he preferred telegraph – and kept his entire family and his domestic servants on the go all the time. The tone of his suggestions for improvements and his complaints became increasingly rude over the years. The DMG management board members quickly were offended and wanted to reintroduce "Daimler" as brand name for the further improved cars starting in 1902, because: "We thought this would also be in your interest considering the many complaints you have raised about the Mercedes models," as noted in a letter from the board. But in the end it was agreed to retain the now widely known brand name and use it from then on everywhere in the world. In 1902 all passenger cars from the Daimler company were called Mercedes; the trademark was officially protected on 23 June 1902. When a large part of the Daimler factory in Cannstatt went up in flames on 10 June 1903, Jellinek again became active: as the three 90 hp Mercedes for the Gordon Bennett Race also had been lost to the fire, he started thinking about who could make a car available to him for the event, and the type of car it should be: a 60 hp model would be best since they had made a good showing in all previous races. He found one owned by the American Gray Dinsmore. The Belgian racing driver Camille Jenatzy piloted the car to victory in the race, which was held in Ireland. With that a German car entered its name in the list of winners for the first time – and Germany gained the honour of staging the race, which enjoyed an international reputation comparable with today's Formula One events, in 1904.
Prestige and self-confidence "His partly very eccentric views and habits permitted him to recognise at an early point in time the economic opportunities afforded by this relatively new invention – initially he found the automobile exciting from a user's standpoint," writes Klaus Kempter describing the clever businessman Emil Jellinek in a comprehensive family biography entitled, Die Jellineks 1820-1955. Indeed, as time went on the new line of business made the wealthy merchant a multimillionaire. In the course of the years he turned his "Villa Mercedes" in Baden, near Vienna, where he usually spent much of the summer, into a palace with almost 50 rooms and halls. His winter residence, "Villa Mercédès" in Nice, is also an impressive structure situated on famed Promenade des Anglais, house number 54, with a view of the Mediterranean. The self-made millionaire obviously was very self-confident and prestige-minded, proud to have access to Europe's higher nobility and financial aristocracy and thus to the more exclusive circles in Nice. He thought titles and medals were very stylish. When he was granted the right in Austria in 1903 to append the now famous trademark Mercedes to his family name, he considered this a kind of patent of nobility. From then on his name was Emil Jellinek-Mercedes, and he is said to have commented on this with the words: "Perhaps for the first time a father is known by the name of his daughter." In 1904 the United States of Mexico appointed him their consul in Nice; in 1908 he was made honorary consul general of Austria-Hungary in Monaco. In early twentieth century photographs he liked to pose in medal-covered uniforms. But in the meantime unrest was growing in Cannstatt: "The far-reaching decision to extensively commit themselves to a single middleman for the predominantly foreign sales certainly was right in this phase of export development," write Max Kruk and Gerold Lingnau in their book, Daimler-Benz: Das Unternehmen. And they continue: "But it was not conceived to last for any long period." And so the minutes of the supervisory board meetings in 1902 and 1903 indicate that the directors felt increasingly queasy about the overly tight ties with Jellinek. Mainly because he appears to have handled pricing at his own discretion and really only could profit. In principle, he bore no risk at all if something went wrong. So the board discussed how it might integrate Jellinek's sales talents when the contract ended in 1905 without Jellinek gaining too much control. The supervisory board meeting of 7 September 1904 decided to reorganise sales and set up a sales company in France, because that was where the bulk of production was sold. DMG's share in Mercedes Société Française d'Automobiles Paris, founded in 1905 with capital of five million francs, was ten percent; together with the cooperating banks the company held 60 percent of the shares – the majority. Minority shareholder Jellinek was unanimously appointed "administrative delegate". For Jellinek this arrangement did have advantages, even thought he was de facto stripped of power: "The fact is that my father's efficiency broke through the sphere of his monopoly," Guy Jellinek-Mercedes writes. "He did not want to give up any of his privileges, but the scope of his business transactions threatened to exceed his means." Jellinek now increasingly devoted himself to his real estate projects. In Nice, for example, he bought Hotel Scribe; in Paris he soon was owner of two hotels in prime locations, the Astoria and the Mercédès. In addition he expanded his villa in Baden outside Vienna.
From smouldering dispute to open rupture The relationship between the dealer in Nice and the management in Cannstatt, which was never exceptionally good, increasingly deteriorated. The practical man continued to make suggestions for improvements which the people in Germany rapidly became tired of. Moreover, again and again he reproached DMG for designing wrong cars that were hard to sell and also were delivered too late. Result: a relationship that used to be tense now broke down irretrievably. The tone became sharper: "We certainly do not wish to be without your cooperation in future based on your practical experience and your knowledge of the wishes of prospective customers. However, misunderstandings repeatedly have occurred in written communication and have given rise to a harshness in correspondence which is incompatible with our reciprocal and common interests," the board of management wrote to him on 15 September 1906. "On the other hand, your personal visits to our factory are rare and then too short to allow the always hastily formulated minutes to fulfil their actual purpose." Instead, Jellinek's nephew Otto Zels, who worked for Jellinek since 1905, was to come to Untertürkheim twice a month to discuss vehicles because he was best able to do so "on account of his technical background", as was said in another sideswipe at Jellinek, who possessed no technical training whatsoever. "In 1903 they celebrated the prophet," writes Guy Jellinek-Mercedes, alluding to the text of the medal which DMG awarded to him in 1903. "In 1906 they were sick and tired of his prophecies and his reproaches. Peace would only return when the tyrant had gone." Emil Jellinek was also deeply hurt by the fact that his longstanding confidant Maybach left DMG on 1 April 1907 after constant internal squabbling: "The blow did not come unexpectedly, but it hit him hard," his son Guy writes. In 1907/1908 an economic crisis in Europe followed on the heels of the American financial crisis, and the sales figures declined. The propensity to consume was weak, and an automobile, an expensive Mercedes at that, was a luxury good whose purchase one could forego or postpone. DMG tried to counteract the crisis by reorganising sales once more. And this time the independence from third parties was raised to an overriding principle. The supervisory board felt that Jellinek was partially to blame for the overproduction and decided in 1907 to dissolve the contract with the Mercedes Société. On the one hand, DMG wanted to be able to better control sales in future; on the other, it wanted more influence on pricing: "DMG strives to reduce the price for the consumer by eliminating the middlemen," we can read in the minutes of the supervisory board meeting of 30 September 1907. One year later, an agreement was reached with Jellinek, who consented to a settlement and turned his back on DMG. Meanwhile the automobile was inciting a new record fever: in Brooklands in England, in a Benz 200 hp called the "Blitzen-Benz" (Lightning Benz), on 8 November 1909 Victor Hémery posted the highest speed to date for a road vehicle: sensational 205.666 km/h, with Jellinek looking on as a man of private means. Despite all the troubles with the top management in Cannstatt he remained faithful to Mercedes automobiles his whole lifetime – with two exceptions: he also owned an Itala with valveless engine and a cherry red Rolls-Royce with black wings.
Life after the Mercedes success In Vienna in June 1903 at the age of 50, changed his name to Jellinek-Mercedes, commenting: "This is probably the first time that a father has taken
his daughter's name". From then on, he signed himself E.J. Mercédès.
First World War, his last years Just before war broke out in 1914 the Austrian government charged Jellinek for taxes on his French properties. The family then moved to Semmering. When Austro-Hungary entered in war on July 28, 1914, Jellinek and his family stopped speaking French outside their property. Later that year, they moved to Meran (France) but there, he was accused of espionage for Germany, supposedly hiding saboteurs in his Mediterranean yachts. At the same time, the Austrians suspected his wife Anaise. Fleeing in 1917, they finished up in Geneva, Switzerland, where Emil Jellinek was temporarily arrested again. He stayed there until his death on January 21, 1918, at the age of 64. All his French properties were later forfeited.
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