This included Waffenfabrik Mauser, Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN) in Belgium and Waffen- und Munitionsfabrik A.G. in Budapest.

The MG08 would be the main German machine gun of the First World War, alongside the somewhat different, air cooled Parabellum MG 14/17 for aviation use.

Because the Mauser rifle was one of Germany's main exports before the First World War, DWM proved to be an important part of the pre-war German economy.

DWM was no longer allowed to produce military equipment after World War I (although they continued on a smaller and somewhat secret scale) and the first name change was to BKIW (Berlin-Karlsruher Industriewerke or 'Berkawerke') in 1922.

From 1940 to 1945, the Quandt family factories – AFA and Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken – were staffed with more than 50,000 forced civilian laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp workers, according to Scholtyseck's 1,183-page study.

[2] In the 1950s, following the war, the Berlin branch of the company switched to the renovation and building of railroad and public transport equipment.