Josef Werndl, born 1831, grew up during the industrial boom in Austria. Instead of following the normal development from small workshop to factory, he immediatly started in grand style.
Having in mind to satisfy the boundless military needs of his time, which could not any longer be handled by the many small gunsmith workshops resident in Austria, he made long investigative trips to Suhl, Sömmerda, St-Etienne, Lüttich, and in 1852/53 also to the USA, in order to study the latest manufacturing methods. After his return he purchased a polishing and grinding workshop and started buying machines.
After his father died in 1855, he and his brother Franz were nominated as manager of his fatherīs company.
The years up to about 1865 held considerable commercial troubles for Werndl and all the metal working companies in Steyr.
In spite of the bad commercial situation and the Civil War in the USA, he made an additional study- and business-trip to the USA together with his factory director. They once more visited the Remington and the Colt factories and besides new machines they learned about the early development of cartridges which would be a milestone for gun development. He returned in 1863 to Austria and his director Karl Holub, who still had to buy some machines, followed him later on.
Soon afterwards the first new machines were delivered and on April 16th, 1864 the "Waffenfabrik Josef & Franz Werndl & Comp." was founded.
But business, especially business with military departments, still was not sufficient. But Werndl kept the will to make his company and Steyr to the center of handgun-production of the Austrian monarchy. He had competition with the "Staatlichen k.k. Gewehrfabrik in Wien" and purchased in 1867 the well-known gunsmith-companies of Ferdinand Frühwirth and Witwe Bentz just to transfer the machines to Steyr and close them afterwards.
Some orders were placed by the "Reichs-Kriegsministerium" because of the war against Italy and Prussia, but the big dream of Werndl came true with the introduction of cartridge-guns in 1867.
Josef Werndl had to go into more and more debt to pay for the import of tool-machines. On the other hand the the banks expected big business in the new armament of the army. Therefore on Sept. 22nd, 1869 the company Werndl was changed to the "Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft Steyr". 5.2 million of the 6 million Gulden of original capital were from Josef Werndl who was nominated as general manager.
At this time the company consisted of several factories on both sides of the river Steyr in the town of Steyr as well as in Oberletten, about seven kilometers up river. Below the general manager 2 managers were working, 11 higher and 19 lower employees, 52 workmen-leaders and about 5000 workmen. The number of workmen in gun production continously decreased by increasing the number of unskilled labourers.
After 1869 the company's business was following the general commercial situation, and was floating up and down from full-shift fabrication to nearly standstill.
After World War I, gun fabrications were done for short time in a sub-company in Solothurn in Switzerland, which was taken over by the German company Rheinmetall in about 1920.
In 1927 the name was changed from "Österreichischen Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft Steyr" to "Automobil-Fabrik Steyr-Werke A.G." and the production of cars and other machines was added.
In 1934 the company was combined with "Austro-Daimler" and "Puch" into "Steyr-Daimler-Puch A.G.", the biggest private company of Austria at the time.
During the early 1930s a connection to "Rheinmetall-Solothurn" existed and Steyr acted as manufacturing company for weapons developed by Rheinmetall and Solothurn. A trading 0rganization named "Steyr-Solothurn AG" was founded in Zurich to sell these military weapons. At this time Rheinmetall owned a big part of Steyr, so that in 1938 , as Austria was occupied, Steyr became a part of the "Hermann Göring-Werke".
After the breakdown and complete dismanteling of the company in 1945, the company was recreated producing farm machines and motorcycles and started gun production again in 1950.
Since then sporting and military weapons have been manufactured.