page_title: Volkswagen
section_title: 1945–1948: British Army intervention, unclear future
hierarchical_section_title: Volkswagen / History / 1945–1948: British Army intervention, unclear future
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Das Volkswagen-Werk in Wolfsburg. English: Volkswagen Wolfsburg industrial plant (Wolfsburg, Germany). Français&#160;: Usine du constructeur automobile Volkswagen AG dans la ville allemande de Wolfsbourg, siège social du groupe.
context_page_description: Volkswagen, shortened to VW, is a German automaker founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front, known for the iconic Beetle and headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the flagship marque of the Volkswagen Group, the largest automaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's biggest market is in China, which delivers 40% of its sales and profits.
  Volkswagen translates to "people's car" in German. The company's current international advertising slogan is just "Volkswagen", referencing the name's meaning.
context_section_description: The company owes its post-war existence largely to one man, wartime British Army officer Major Ivan Hirst, REME. In April 1945, KdF-Stadt and its heavily bombed factory were captured by the Americans and subsequently handed over to the British, within whose occupation zone the town and factory fell. The factories were placed under the control of Saddleworth-born Hirst, by then a civilian Military Governor with the occupying forces. At first, one plan was to use it for military vehicle maintenance, and possibly dismantle and ship it to Britain. Since it had been used for military production, (though not of KdF-Wagens) and had been in Hirst's words, a "political animal" rather than a commercial enterprise – technically making it liable for destruction under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement – the equipment could have been salvaged as war reparations. Allied dismantling policy changed in late 1946 to mid-1947, though heavy industry continued to be dismantled until 1951.
  One of the factory's wartime 'KdF-Wagen' cars had been taken to the factory for repairs and abandoned there. Hirst had it repainted green and demonstrated it to British Army headquarters. Short of light transport, in September 1945 the British Army was persuaded to place a vital order for 20,000 cars. However, production facilities had been massively disrupted, there was a refugee crisis at and around the factory, and some parts (such as carburettors) were unavailable. With striking humanity and great engineering and management ingenuity, Hirst and his German assistant Heinrich Nordhoff (who went on to run the Wolfsburg facility after the military government ended in 1949) helped to stabilize the acute social situation while simultaneously re-establishing production. Hirst, for example, used his fine engineering experience to arrange the manufacture of carburettors, the original producers being effectively 'lost' in the Russian zone. The first few hundred cars went to personnel from the occupying forces, and to the German Post Office. Some British Service personnel were allowed to take their Beetles back to the United Kingdom when they were demobilised.
  In 1986, Hirst explained how it was commonly misunderstood that he had run Wolfsburg as a British Army major. The defeated German staff, he said, were initially sullen and unresponsive, having been conditioned by many years of Nazism and they were sometimes unresponsive to orders. At Nordhoff's suggestion, he sent back to England for his officer's uniform and from then on, had no difficulty in having his instructions followed. Hirst can be seen photographed at Wolfsburg in his uniform, although he was not actually a soldier at the time but a civilian member of the military government. The title of 'Major' was sometimes used by someone who had left the Army as a courtesy, but Hirst chose not to use the title.
  The post-war industrial plans for Germany set out rules that governed which industries Germany was allowed to retain. These rules set German car production at a maximum of 10% of 1936 car production. By 1946, the factory produced 1,000 cars a month—a remarkable feat considering it was still in disrepair. Owing to roof and window damage, production had to stop when it rained, and the company had to barter new vehicles for steel for production.
  The car and its town changed their Second World War-era names to "Volkswagen" and "Wolfsburg" respectively, and production increased. It was still unclear what was to become of the factory. It was offered to representatives from the American, Australian, British, and French motor industries. Famously, all rejected it. After an inspection of the plant, Sir William Rootes, head of the British Rootes Group, told Hirst the project would fail within two years, and that the car "...is quite unattractive to the average motorcar buyer, is too ugly and too noisy ... If you think you're going to build cars in this place, you're a bloody fool, young man." The official report said: "To build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise." In an ironic twist o
caption: Volkswagen industrial plant in Wolfsburg, pictured in 2006
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