HN 2: The British and their Works

However, because there had been "bad experiences" with these
people, the requirement made necessary by the production
increase was to be met with Yugoslav and Lithuanian labour
from the ranks of the DPs. 109
On account of the high levels of turnover and absenteeism, the
productivity of the Volkswagenwerk stuck at an unusually low
level, especially since the already marked disproportion
between productive and unproductive employees was still in
evidence. With the production process hampered by badly worn
machinery and a shortage of materials, the employees had their
hands full merely keeping it going, so were kept busy mending
machines, manufacturing tools or making repairs to the plant.
These jobs occupied more workers than production of the
saloon. This meant that production costs were high, and this
depressed the profitability of the company. The British factory
management had repeatedly drawn attention to this point and
pressed for cost reductions. As Fritz Wenk told general manager
Münch off the record in mid-June 1947, the British were only
interested in keeping the factory going "if it paid off". 110 It was
therefore in Münch’s view absolutely essential for the survival of
the company to put the factory on a sound economic basis as a
private enterprise through increased production.
To increase productivity, the factory officers at the end of July
1946 proposed a competition via the factory PA system. In the
lunch-hour it was to be reported "in a humorous fashion" how
many cars had been produced, which departments had worked
particularly well and which were in arrears. The extent to
which this measure spurred the workforce to increase their
performance is unknown, although in mid-1947 the factory
management did record a growth in productivity compared to
the previous year. Whereas in the autumn of 1946 some 1,800
employees were needed to produce 1,000 vehicles, now 1,470
employees achieved the same result. 111
Concerning the frequently criticised disproportion between
productive and unproductive work, the general management’s
technical adviser Striebig produced a counter-proposition in
mid-June 1947. To start with he corrected the comparative
figures by subtracting from the workforce of 8,100 employees
850 external staff – British administrative departments, power
station, gardeners – together with 1,050 office workers and 310
apprentices. The office worker proportion had in the meantime
reduced to 14 per cent as against 17 per cent in the previous year,
the "ideal figure" being 12 per cent. Striebig then entered a
portion of the workers at the Vorwerk and in army repair work
as productive, because they produced parts that other companies
had to procure via purchasing. The bottom line was a
relationship of 3,020 productive workers to 2,860 unproductive.
The latter were to a large extent occupied with repair of war
damage. 112 Nevertheless, even the revised picture presented by
Striebig revealed a high proportion of unproductive employees,
which ultimately caused production costs to rise and allowed
little leeway in the calculation of Volkswagen prices.
This left the management in a fix, because since April 1947 the
Economic Administrative Office had also been calling for a price
reduction. In this connection Fritz Wenk formulated the critical
question of "why the German people should pay" for what
the factory "produced too dearly". 113 Even production manager
Wilhelm Steinmeier admitted that at 5,000 Reichsmark the