He set up Ludwig Loewe Commanditgesellschaft auf Aktien für Fabrikation von Nähmaschinen A.G. in 1869 to produce sewing machines.
Ludwig Loewe and his younger brother Isidor founded the world's largest machine tool and weapons empire in the years previous to the outbreak of WWI.
In 1896 Loewes consolidated their weapons manufacturing interests in the newly founded holding company, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) in Berlin.
Realizing that he could not compete with more precisely made and cheaper machines imported from U.S.A., he travelled to the US with his brother Isidor in 1870, leaving his company in the hands of his chief engineer Eduard Barthelmes.
In 1896/98, due to further expansion, the company moved to new premises in the district of Moabit and the present day neo-gothic, model factory complex was built in 1907–1917 with the help of American engineers.
With the French introduction of smokeless nitro-cellulose gunpowder, Bismarck ordered the development of a rifle with a smaller calibre for the new nitro ammunition to be issued to the armed forces of all the German States.
In 1889, Loewe was commissioned to manufacture 300 000 of the new rifles and deliver complete sets of production machinery to the state arsenals in Danzig, Spandau, Erfurt and Amberg.
Both the new 88 rifle and German nitro-cellulose gunpowder turned out to be deficient and unreliable, leading to a large number of fatal accidents.
Hermann Ahlwardt, an extreme nationalist, published an anti-Semitic pamphlet accusing Loewe of a Jewish conspiracy against the German Armed Forces.
The German defeat in WWI and the implementation of Allied restrictions on the production of military weapons left DWM with few alternatives.
In 1922, DWM was re-named Berlin-Karlsruher Industrie Werke and all production in the Moabit factory was terminated and ownership of the company passed to the Quandt Group.
In 1938 members of the Loewe family were expelled from the boards as part of a plan to minimize Jewish influence on German businesses, the so-called aryanization.