In 1943/44, Volkswagenwerk GmbH expanded its production capacity by outsourcing to France and by repurposing iron ore and asphalt drift mines to create underground manufacturing facilities. The company’s involvement in the German armaments industry led to the acquisition of subsidiaries, including in Luckenwalde and Ustron, from 1941 onwards. Between 19 sales turnover rose from 31 to 297 million Reichsmarks. By the end of the war the plant had built a total of 66,285 vehicles.
Mass production of military utility vehicles (Kübelwagen), and then from 1942 amphibious personnel carriers, established a second arm of the business. As the Army became more motorised in 1940, the company started making cars. In late 1939, Volkswagenwerk GmbH began carrying out repairs for the German Air Force on the Junkers Ju 88 combat aircraft, as well as supplying wings and wooden drop tanks. Instead, the retooling of the plant for armaments production meant that the company’s entire operations were re-aligned. Not a single car had been produced by the time the war began on September 1, 1939. While the Vorwerk did in fact begin training apprentices and making tools and dies in 1938, fitting-out of the main plant was continually postponed as priority was given to armaments. Some 336,000 people ultimately signed up to the instalment savings scheme – far fewer than the target envisioned by the gigantic manufacturing plan. But the ambitious plans were thwarted by lack of buying power – a Volkswagen was still realistically unaffordable for an industrial worker.
The car could be acquired through a minimum payment of just five Reichsmarks a week to the DAF. Accompanied by a massive advertising campaign, on Augthe DAF launched an instalment savings scheme for buyers of the KdF-Wagen. Shortages of labour and raw materials delayed the progress of both construction projects.Īt the propaganda-laden foundation-laying ceremony on May 26, 1938, Hitler christened Ferdinand Porsche’s vehicle the “KdF-Wagen” (based on the Nazi slogan “Kraft durch Freude”, or Strength through Joy).
In parallel with the construction of the main plant in what is today Wolfsburg, a facility was built in Braunschweig (Brunswick), known as the “Vorwerk” (outworks), to provide tools and dies and to serve as a training centre for the skilled workforce required. The size, technical equipment and manufacturing depth of the facility were oriented to that of Ford’s River Rouge plant in Detroit, which was considered the most advanced car factory in the world and was visited twice by Ferdinand Porsche and the planning team. Revenues from the sale of property confiscated from the now disbanded independent trade unions were earmarked to help pay for the investment. There was no financing for the estimated investment of some 172 million Reichsmarks in the site and 76 million Reichsmarks for the machine plant. The workforce was planned to grow from 7,500, to 14,500, and ultimately to 21,000 people. The medium-term target was to build 1.5 million “People’s Cars”. The target was to produce 150,000 units in the first year after the plant’s scheduled opening in Autumn 1939, and 300,000 in the second year, with capacity increasing to 450,000 units by the year after. In February 1938 work began on a site east of Fallersleben on the Mittelland canal to construct the main plant, which was designed to operate as a vertically structured and largely autonomous model factory. On May 28, 1937, the DAF in Berlin established the “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens”, or “Corporation to prepare the way for the German People’s Car”, which on Septemwas renamed Volkswagenwerk GmbH.
#Vw tank wars series
In the same period, in early April 1937, testing of the 30-vehicle W30 series began, involving more than two million kilometres of trials in total. This impasse was broken in January 1937, as responsibility for the project was assumed by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), or German Labour Front, a unified organisation encompassing both employers and employees, which was looking for a prestige project to polish up its image.
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