Anton Piëch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anton Piëch (born September 21, 1894 in Vienna , † August 29, 1952 in Klagenfurt ) was an Austrian lawyer and business manager . Ferdinand Porsche's son-in-law managed, among other things, the Volkswagen main plant in the "City of the KdF car near Fallersleben ", today's Wolfsburg, from 1941 to 1945 . The Porsche family comes from the Sudetenland , the Piëch family comes from Brno .

Life

Anton Piëch, son of the lawyer Anton Paul Piëch, studied law. He had a brother (Ernst, 1897-1918) and a sister (Hermione). His brother was killed in the First World War . During his studies in 1913 he became a member of the Bruna Sudetia fraternity in Vienna . He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1922 . He settled in Vienna as a lawyer and was, among other things, defender of Austrian National Socialists. In the 1920s he got to know Ferdinand Porsche, whom he also represented in a legal dispute over his employment contract against Daimler-Benz at the end of the 1920s .

In 1928 Piëch married Ferdinand Porsche's daughter Louise in Stuttgart . Together they had three sons Ernst (* 1929), Ferdinand (1937–2019) and Hans-Michel (* 1942) as well as their daughter Louise Daxer-Piëch (1932–2006).

On April 25, 1931 in Stuttgart, “ Dr. Ing. Hc F. Porsche GmbH ”he owned a ten percent stake in the limited partnership that emerged from it at the end of 1937 . Piëch represented the company on contractual and legal issues, among other things.

In May 1933 he became a member of the then illegal NSDAP of Austria, in July 1937 he was accepted into the Reich German NSDAP (membership number 6.114.404), and in 1944 he was accepted into the SS .

In June 1941, Anton Piëch plant manager and as successor to Otto Dyckhoff beside Ferdinand Porsche and Bodo Lafferentz , chief executive of Volkswagen GmbH He was involved as the right hand of Ferdinand Porsche instrumental in the conversion of the Volkswagen plant in the production of military equipment, such as the "Vengeance Weapon “V1 . About 20,000 workers - two thirds of all those working at the VW plant during the Second World War - were forced laborers from Poland, the Soviet Union, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as German "Wehrmacht prisoners" and prisoners of the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp . The latter existed in Wolfsburg from 1942 to 1945. According to incomplete lists, around 500 prisoners of war, displaced persons and concentration camp inmates were killed in Wolfsburg. In Rüsten , near the VW plant, the management, including Piëch, had a children's home built for the babies of the forced laborers. At least 350 children died after being separated from their return to work mothers two weeks after giving birth.

As operator, Piëch was also the commander of four Volkssturm companies , the soldiers of which were mainly factory workers. On April 10, 1945, he ordered the unit to retreat towards the Elbe . He himself went with 10 million Reichsmarks under the pretext of relocating the group management via Neudek to Zell am See , where Ferdinand Porsche owned an estate (" bulk goods "). The money was to be used for the outsourcing of part of the Volkswagen factory from Neudek to the Allgäu, but this was no longer possible, so that the money was used to finance Porsche KG. Piëch took a missing notice of dismissal as an excuse to continue acting as managing director of Volkswagenwerk GmbH until November 1945 and to settle invoices from Porsche KG.

At the instigation of the French Justice Minister Pierre-Henri Teitgen , he was arrested in Baden-Baden at the end of 1945 together with Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche after an invitation from the French Industry Minister Marcel Paul . They were accused of having arranged the deportation of French workers to Fallersleben and the deportation of directors of the Peugeot company to a concentration camp during the occupation of France . In addition, they were made responsible for the dismantling and relocation of machines and tools from the Peugeot company to the Volkswagen factory. Like Ferdinand Porsche, Anton Piëch spent 22 months in French prisons. Through a large number of testimonies, Porsche was able to ensure that they were not given any responsibility for the offenses and crimes they were accused of.

He was involved again in the contract between the Volkswagen factory under the direction of the new general director Heinrich Nordhoff and Porsche-Konstruktionen-Ges.mbH , which was signed on September 17, 1948 in Bad Reichenhall . Porsche waived the previously existing general contract for all VW development work. With the license fees and general agency rights for Austria, the financial basis for the new car factory Dr. Ing. H. c. F. Porsche KG and the Salzburg trading company Porsche Holding .

In 1950 Piëch in Salzburg became managing director of "Porsche-Konstruktionen-Ges.mbH", which was founded on April 1, 1947 in Gmünd in Carinthia and which was expanded to become a Volkswagen general agency in Austria based in Salzburg , which later became the Porsche Holding . In 1952 Anton Piëch died unexpectedly and his wife Louise took over the management of the business in Austria.

His grave is in Zell am See , where his urn is buried in the house chapel of the bulk material .

literature

  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft . Vol. 1, Part. 8, Supplement L-Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 145-146.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.gerritspeek.nl/porsche/genealogieen/porsche-01/fotos/piech_anton-1894.html
  2. ^ Orf report on the Porsche and Piech family 1995 , ORF, 1995.
  3. ↑ Field pilot Lt. d. R. Ernst Piëch . In: Neues Wiener Tagblatt . No. 163 , June 18, 1918, p. 23 , col. 2 ( Online [accessed January 4, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Dr. Anton Piëch senior In: Neues Wiener Tagblatt . No. 294 , October 25, 1939, pp. 11 , col. 1 ( Online [accessed January 4, 2020]).
  5. ↑ Willy Nolte (Ed.): Burschenschafter Stammrolle. List of the members of the German Burschenschaft according to the status of the summer semester 1934. Berlin 1934. p. 373.
  6. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. ECON Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-430-16785-X , page 914
  7. ↑ a b Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 916
  8. ^ Wolfram Pyta , Nils Havemann and Jutta Braun: Porsche. From design office to global brand. Siedler, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0100-4 , p. 37.
  9. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 74
  10. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 915
  11. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 222
  12. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 477
  13. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 763
  14. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 927
  15. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 942ff
  16. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich. Page 938ff
  17. ^ History of Porsche Holding AG ( Memento from October 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Piëch, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1952
Place of death Klagenfurt