HN 2: The British and their Works

More documents

Recommendations

Info

1 1.1 The Luck of the Vanquished From armaments producer to "Regiebetrieb" On the evening of 10th April 1945, in the "Stadt des KdF-Wagens", tank alert sirens heralded the dawning of a democratic age. At the Volkswagen factory the lines ground to a halt; a harrowing period of waiting began. At daybreak, American troops passed through the colony of hutments and crossed the Mittellandkanal, leaving a small tank detachment in Fallersleben to secure supply lines. There had been no resistance. The SS were long since gone; the "Volkssturm" was on its way to Tangermünde. In the power vacuum that ensued, the forced labourers at Volkswagen plant gave vent to their bitterness, exploding in rage at their one-time oppressors. Some cases of looting, and threatening attacks on the population, caused some citizens having a grasp of English to approach the US troops nearby for help. On 11th April 1945 the Volkswagen factory, and the town which was later to take the name of Wolfsburg, were occupied. Order was restored. 3 Even before the capitulation of the German Reich on 8th /9th May 1945, the Americans began setting up a repair shop for their own vehicles in the Volkswagen plant. The occupying troops found that a committee had been appointed, consisting of ex-heads of department, and designated the former inspection manager, Rudolf Brörmann, as factory manager. His appointment had been given whole-hearted support by the city council selected by the Americans, in particular by trade unionist and city councillor Wilhelm Kiesel, himself one of the chosen few, who had joined the factory management in early May 1945, assuming responsibility for social welfare. However, Brörmann expressed his gratitude by campaigning for Kiesel’s removal from the management team, a plan that came to fruition in August 1945. 4 Thanks to the factory manager’s powers of persuasion, the US troops soon began assembling the jeep-like "Kübelwagen" for army requirements, making use of the components that were still in stock. The order to re-start motor vehicle production was perhaps the most significant decision the Americans took. Otherwise it seems likely that the Volkswagen factory would have been treated as ownerless property, and more or less cannibalised, by the Germans as well. As it was, however, at the end of April 1945 production started up again after its brief shut-down, and in the next two months the Volkswagenwerk built, under makeshift conditions, 133 "Kübelwagens" for the US Army. 5 The brief but vitally significant intermezzo under American occupation ended when Lower Saxony was assigned to the British zone of occupation. In mid-June 1945 responsibility for the Volkswagen plant passed to the Control Commission for Germany, British Element (CCG). In accordance with Allied Control Commission Act No. 52, the enterprise formerly run by the "Deutsche Arbeitsfront" (German Labour Front) was confiscated by the CCG and held in trust by the British until the Allies could finally come to a decision regarding ownership of previous Nazi organisations. In charge of the company’s financial and property matters was economist Leslie E. D. Barber of the Property Control Branch (Finance Division) in Berlin, which dispatched its representative Alisdair McInnes to the Volkswagen plant in December 1945. In January 1946, responsibility for technical matters was assigned to Colonel Charles
Radclyffe, head of the Mechanical Engineering Branch (Industry Division) at the Minden Headquarters for the British zone. The British provincial headquarters in Hanover appointed the 29-year-old British engineer and businessman Major Ivan Hirst as Senior Resident Officer at the Volkswagen plant. The deputy commanding officer for the "22nd Advanced Base Workshop" of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) had previously been in charge of the central tank repair workshop construction project in Brussels, which gave him extensive practical experience dealing with the local workforce and coping with labour and material shortages. The plant’s Senior Resident Officer started his job at the Volkswagenwerk at the beginning of August 1945, and in January 1946 he was put in charge of the Trade and Industry Division in Minden. 6 Hirst was assisted by control officer Richard Berryman, who had been in charge of production since February 1946 and whose previous employment with General Motors marked him out as an automotive expert, and by Karl Schmücker, a civilian Allied Control Commission employee. During the First World War, Schmücker had spent four years in an English prisoner-of-war camp and now acted as a bilingual intermediary between the German factory management and the British officers. Because the increasing complexity of the business called for a higherlevel inspection committee, Hirst and Barber agreed to form a kind of supervisory board. This "Board of Control", in which all the departments of the British military government involved with the Volkswagen plant were represented, held its first meeting on 21st January 1946. The Board generally convened each month to discuss fundamental company matters. This committee was of immense value to the Volkswagenwerk as it enabled 6 7 War damage at the factory building delayed the restart of the production. The photo shows the destroyed Hall 3 of the Volkswagenwerk. THE LUCK OF THE VANQUISHED
Page 1 and 2: The British and their Works The Vol
Page 3 and 4: 1 2 3 4 PREFACE 4 1. THE LUCK OF TH
Page 5: This applies as much to the service
Page 9 and 10: survived the attacks practically un
Page 11 and 12: British officers inspect a saloon c
Page 13 and 14: The Volkswagenwerk also had its own
Page 15 and 16: Workers remove the roof of a saloon
Page 17 and 18: The laxity of this procedure outrag
Page 19 and 20: Major Hirst (right) in discussion w
Page 21 and 22: However, accommodation in Wolfsburg
Page 23 and 24: individuals in positions of respons
Page 25 and 26: The absence of special tools led to
Page 27 and 28: visional compromise permitted sale
Page 29 and 30: British soldiers take delivery of t
Page 31 and 32: Wing Commander Richard H. Berryman,
Page 33 and 34: Final assembly line at the Wolfsbur
Page 35 and 36: On 17 June 1946, chief trustee Dr.
Page 37 and 38: General manager Münch approached t
Page 39 and 40: Under the pressure of the material
Page 41 and 42: Arrival in Wolfsburg of Displaced P
Page 43 and 44: The factory management deliberated
Page 45 and 46: Owing to the chronic lack of living
Page 47 and 48: A lack of supplies meant that the V
Page 49 and 50: 2.3 Works council in the deficit ec
Page 51 and 52: Due to the works council’s engage
Page 53 and 54: enlistment at a meeting of the prod
Page 55 and 56: After the production restarted in M
Page 57 and 58:
Volkswagenwerk. As required by thes
Page 59 and 60:
The service school began running co
Page 61 and 62:
The Jeep repair workshop celebrates
Page 63 and 64:
In spite of all these difficulties,
Page 65 and 66:
corrosion between filler and topcoa
Page 67 and 68:
defects. Josef Kales, the head of t
Page 69 and 70:
that he had rejected to production,
Page 71 and 72:
the adherence to manufacturing tole
Page 73 and 74:
The Ministries of Trade and Supply
Page 75 and 76:
therefore arose as to whether the t
Page 77 and 78:
compared to other manufacturers. Ma
Page 79 and 80:
Minutes for the 11th meeting of the
Page 81 and 82:
Supplies of raw materials still det
Page 83 and 84:
The first press conference of the g
Page 85 and 86:
In the upturn after the currency re
Page 87 and 88:
workforce at the Volkswagenwerk inc
Page 89 and 90:
For all its criticism of the bureau
Page 91 and 92:
Colonel Radclyffe signed the takeov
Page 93 and 94:
fident, since "nowadays when people
Page 95 and 96:
40 Notes by Brörmann dated 12 th A
Page 97 and 98:
162 Kales to Münch, 30 th December
Page 99:
Picture Sources REME Archives and M
show all

HN 2: The British and their Works

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?