Auto Union AG was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today.

Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect area after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the fifth largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Halle. The city is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region, and lies in the middle of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated northern foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast.