HN 2: The British and their Works

The factory management deliberated on possible solutions at
the beginning of July 1946. At the Laagberg camp, 12 hutments
could be converted, providing accommodation for 1,200 men,
albeit this was pure mass-housing. The head of the construction
department held out the prospect of accommodation for 1,800
with the construction 18 further hutments. Both of these projects,
which would cost 547,000 Reichsmark, had to be approved
by Major McInnes. In addition to these medium-term plans,
there was the short-term possibility of providing accommodation
for 300 workers within one month. However, recent experience
militated against the further construction of mass
accommodation. The factory management had attempted to
house the single workers from the district of Helmstedt in
Wolfsburg, because the shuttle service which had been set up
for them had come to a standstill for lack of new tyres. However,
these employees showed little inclination to give up their
accommodation in order to live in hutments. The resettlement
of workers from Soltau had also turned out to be impracticable,
because there was no vacant accommodation for their
families. 102
It was thus that the suggestion of the personnel manager Karl
Huhold, to make the "very nice" Reislingen camp available for
families, met with general approval. It was in line with the
necessity of settling the families of new recruits, who were
currently very badly housed, in Wolfsburg. A plan was to be
worked out for exchanging the people currently resident in the
Reislingen camp – in part construction workers belonging to
external companies – for the families housed in the hutments.
The plans to convert the accommodation units provoked the
objection that the construction materials required for the project
had been carefully put aside for winterproofing. Hermann
Münch countered this by insisting that housing construction
had absolute priority. In addition to the "accommodation
exchange measures" the factory management declared the conversion
of the Laagberg camp and the "youth camp" a priority
task. What had been considered to be the ideal solution to the
housing problem was not available. This was the former "SS
camp", where 400 people could have been housed immediately
at minimal cost. Münch said that he would concern himself with
getting these hutments released.
A further housing possibility was blocked by the declared intention
of the town council to accommodate the hospital, which it
had taken over in the previous year, in the single persons’ hostel.
To date however it had done nothing to implement this project.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get a decision on this,
Münch now gave the municipal administration a period of
grace to 8th August 1946. Under this pressure the council finally
agreed that the single persons’ hostel should be used to accommodate
factory employees. It was reserved for a later decision
whether the hostel should subsequently be used for setting up
a hospital for the town of Wolfsburg. This modest success in the
procurement of housing was almost simultaneously overshadowed
by a confiscation order of the British town quartermaster.
This applied to the Hohenstein camp, the municipal construction
office hutments, the camp to the east of Rothehofstraße,
the camp to the south of the fire brigade as far as the Ernst-
Toller-Straße, five hutments to the west of the municipal
utilities building and the camp between the Fallerslebener
Straße and the railway. 103
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WORKFORCE TURNOVER