An exhibition on the life and work of the entrepreneur and founder of the French car company Citroen, Andre Citroen, is being held in Germany from June 24 to September 30.

The exhibition, in the Jewish Museum of the northern German town of Rensburg, features many documents, photographs and other items belonging to the charismatic personality who was born in 1878 and died in 1935.

Citroen was born into a family of Dutch-Jewish diamond dealers who emigrated from Warsaw to Paris. He studied engineering at the elite French Ecole Polytechnique.

Citroen began his career by acquiring the patent rights to a gearwheel. After studying the methods of Henry Ford, he set up an ammunitions factory during World War I which he converted into the first modern European car factory in 1919.

With factories in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Milan and Cologne, Citroen paved the way for mass motorisation in Europe in the 1920s. It was mainly Citroen's idea for the first crossing of the Sahara and the Himalayas by motor car.

The world economic crisis of the early 1930s, the high costs of a new factory and the development of the "Traction Avant", a technical predecessor of the front-wheel drive led to Citroen's bankruptcy in 1934. He was forced to sell the company to Michelin and died of cancer in 1935.