70 Years Ago Today- Dr. Hermann Münch Becomes First Chief Trustee and General Director of Volkswagen

Dr. Münch paves the way for the Wirtschaftswunder era
Employees are the focus of his commitment

Production of the Volkswagen Saloon was begun in December 1945 under British control. On February 26th, 1946 the British Board of Control installed commercial lawyer Dr. Hermann Münch as the Chief Trustee. On June 17th, 1946 Münch was additionally appointed to the newly created post of General Director.

Hermann Münch was born on March 20th, 1885 in the town of Iserlohn in Westphalia. After leaving school and studying law, he worked in lawyers’ offices and as an industrial lawyer. The doctor of laws and self-proclaimed opponent of National Socialism was engaged by Volkswagenwerk GmbH to establish sound structures and provide clearly defined assignment of roles. In his dual role, Münch worked closely with Major Ivan Hirst, the Senior Resident Officer appointed by the British Military Government, as well as with the company’s Works Council, which had been elected for the first time in November 1945.

Committed to the principles of consensus, and an expert in finance, Münch concerned himself with the interests of the approximately 7,000 people employed at the plant. He worked especially hard to procure housing for them. Teamwork between the British Military Government and the German management, paired with a spirit of pragmatism, optimism and an untiring commitment to reconstruction, helped to gradually increase production. On October 14th, 1946 the ten thousandth post-war Volkswagen rolled off the production line.

The agreement negotiated by Dr. Hermann Münch with the Works Council which came into force on May 10th, 1947 safeguarded enhanced rights of co-determination for the employee representatives. Münch effectively prepared the business for the era of Germany’s post-war economic miracle, known as the ‘Wirtschaftswunder’.

Münch was succeeded with effect from January 1st, 1948 by automotive industry manager Heinrich Nordhoff. His successors in turn have been Kurt Lotz, Rudolf Leiding, Toni Schmücker, Carl Horst Hahn, Ferdinand K. Piëch, Bernd Pischetsrieder, Martin Winterkorn and Matthias Müller.

The post 70 Years Ago Today- Dr. Hermann Münch Becomes First Chief Trustee and General Director of Volkswagen appeared first on VWVortex.

from VWVortex http://ift.tt/1WNOweq
via IFTTT

Comments

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier. The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow. While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something . To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it. Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait. So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers. The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience. So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf. In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog