Auto Union

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Auto Union AG Chemnitz
legal form Corporation
founding June 29, 1932
Seat Chemnitz , Germany
management Richard Bruhn , William Werner
Branch Automobile manufacturer

Trademark: Four rings correspond to four trademarks.
The former headquarters of Auto Union in Chemnitz
Signets of the four brands in Auto Union

The Auto Union AG , Chemnitz was the first German state automotive group. He arose from the fusion of small car and motorcycle producers Zschopauer Motorenwerke JS Rasmussen ( DKW ) with its subsidiary Audi Werke AG of Zwickau , the Horch Werke AG (also Zwickau ) and the car plant Siegmar of Wanderer-Werke in Schoenau near Chemnitz . It was founded in June 1932 with the entry in the Chemnitz commercial register . The head office was initially in the DKW headquarters in Zschopau and not at the company's headquarters in Chemnitz. It was only moved to the converted and expanded buildings of the former Chemnitz Presto works in 1936 .

The company logo with the intertwined rings symbolized the merger of the four brands Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer, which however remained independent. Only the Grand Prix racing cars developed by Horch in Zwickau between 1934 and 1939 bore the name “Auto Union”; a car model of this brand did not exist until 1958 ( Auto Union 1000 ).

Before the Second World War , the Auto Union Group was the second largest German automobile manufacturer after Adam Opel AG .

Company history

Creation of Auto Union

The Zschopauer Motorenwerke JS Rasmussen AG was in 1928 the largest with 65,000 produced motorcycles motorcycle manufacturer in the world. In the same year, its owner Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen took over the majority of shares in Audiwerke AG in Zwickau with loans from the Saxon State Bank . In the wake of the global economic crisis , Rasmussen's group got into a tight financial situation in the early 1930s. The Sächsische Staatsbank, which in turn had held a 25% stake in Zschopauer Motorenwerke AG since 1929, blocked further loans. Rasmussen and Richard Bruhn , shop steward of the state bank, then developed the plan to unite the Zschopauer Motorenwerke with their daughter Audi and Horchwerke AG, which was also in trouble . In addition, it was possible to conclude a ten-year lease agreement with the Wanderer works in Schönau near Chemnitz for the modern vehicle plant in Siegmar ( Südstrasse 17 , today Jagdschänkenstrasse) , which had only been in operation five years earlier . There were also negotiations about the inclusion of Hanomag and Brennabor , but these did not lead to success.

As a result, Auto Union AG, Chemnitz was founded on June 29, 1932, retroactively to November 1, 1931 , and entered in the commercial register of the Chemnitz Local Court. The previously reorganized and restructured Zschopauer Motorenwerke was now the company that was taking over Auto Union AG for the two previously released corporations Audi and Horch, which continued to exist as independent brands, but when the group was founded in the course of a share swap as a company, it was de facto dissolved and part of the new one Group were. The two joint stock companies Horch and Audi no longer existed and both vehicle manufacturers were continued as Auto Union AG, Horch plant and Auto Union AG, Audi plant . The Auto Union logo was the four intertwined rings symbolizing the Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer brands.

The following were appointed full board members: Richard Bruhn (Sächsische Staatsbank, chairman of the board), Claus Detlof von Oertzen ( Wanderer Werke , areas of general sales, public relations, authorities, until 1935) and Jörgen Skafte Rasmussen (DKW, technology area, until 1934). The following were appointed as deputy board members: Carl Hahn (DKW, sales department) and William Werner (Horch, technology department, full board member from 1934).

When Auto Union was founded, Chemnitz was set as the company's headquarters . Only under these conditions did the city of Chemnitz participate in the company with a share capital of 750,000  Reichsmarks . Despite reminders, the group administration was housed in the DKW parent plant in Zschopau for the first few years and was only moved to Chemnitz in 1936 in the former administration building of the Presto works . After the Saxon State Bank (and thus the Saxon state), the city of Chemnitz was the second largest shareholder. The state bank initially held 75% and soon 90% of the new company's share capital.

In the 1930s, the export and sale of the Auto Union brands in Austria began through the general agent Fritz Tarbuk , a former officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy , who had been running an automobile trading company for various manufacturers in Vienna since 1920. In 1934, Auto Union had a sales share of around 22% in the passenger car business. It was in second place after Adam Opel AG with 41%. The Audi brand had the lowest sales in the entire group. The sales shares of the individual brands in total automobile production in Germany in 1938 were: DKW 17.9%, Wanderer 4.4%, Horch 1.0% and Audi 0.1%. Sales rose from 65 million Reichsmarks in 1933 to around 273 million Reichsmarks in 1939, with around 61,000 passenger cars and DKW motorcycles each being produced in 1939. The Zschopau plant, at that time the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer, produced DKW brand motorcycles and two-stroke engines for DKW cars. People's motorization began in Germany with the inexpensive DKW “Frontwagen” produced in the Zwickau Audi factory . The larger DKW cars with rear-wheel drive came from the Spandau plant in Berlin. The middle class segment of Auto Union were the Wanderer models from the Siegmar plant near Chemnitz. The Audi brand offered vehicles of the upper middle class with front-wheel drive (except for the Audi 920 ), which were produced in the Horchwerke Zwickau. Their Horch brand combined prestige and tradition and had the highest market share in the luxury class in the German Empire of the 1930s with more than 50%. The number of Auto Union employees grew from around 8,000 in 1932 to 23,000 in 1938.

The Second World War led to far-reaching changes in the company . The Auto Union AG was a weapons manufacturer. From May 1940 the DKW plant in Zschopau produced stationary and mobile power generating sets , two-stroke motorcycle engines and complete DKW military motorcycles for the Wehrmacht . The production of anti-aircraft guns ( 2-cm-Vierlingsflak ) and the all-wheel-drive truck Steyr 1500 A took place at the Audi plant in Zwickau, where the largest group plant Horch torpedoes, Kübelwagen ( Horch 830 R ), medium ( Horch 901 ) and heavy (Horch 108) unit car , chassis for light armored cars ( Sd.Kfz. 221 / 222 ), Maybach -Panzermotoren (type HL 42 ) as well as light tractors ( Sd.Kfz. 11 produced). In addition to medium-sized standard passenger cars of the Wanderer 901 type, the Siegmar plant also built torpedoes, machine guns, cannons and, from the end of 1943, Maybach V12 tank engines of the HL 230 type . "Civil" production took place only to a small extent.

Grand Prix racing

Auto Union Type D, Grand Prix racing car from 1939 with a twin-compressor V12 engine,
3 liter displacement, 485 hp.

The development of the Auto Union racing department at Horch in Zwickau was headed by Ferdinand Porsche from 1934 to 1937 . From 1938 Robert Eberan von Eberhorst was head of the racing department. The mid-engine cars of the Silver Arrow era (1934-1939) were the only competitors, the Mercedes-Benz racing cars were able to defeat. Bernd Rosemeyer , Hans Stuck , Ernst von Delius , Rudolf Hasse , Hermann Paul Müller and Tazio Nuvolari were the drivers. In 1936 Rosemeyer won the European Grand Prix Championship on Auto Union .

The Auto Union racing car type A sixteen-cylinder - V engine was the first mid-engine race car. The drive unit was located behind the driver, a technical concept that has been used in high-performance racing to this day. The Grand Prix racing cars of types A to D (1934–1939) were technically far ahead of their time, but difficult to control and required the highest level of driving skills. Auto Union's expenditure on participation in racing between 1933 and 1942, when all development work was stopped, was more than 14 million Reichsmarks . State aid covered around 20 percent of the costs. In relative terms, that wasn't even one percent of Auto Union's total sales . To this day, the Grand Prix racing cars stand for the Group's quality work and innovative strength.

Central German engine works

As part of the armament of the Wehrmacht , Auto Union founded the " Mitteldeutsche Motorenwerke " (MiMo) in 1935 . The aircraft engine plant at Taucha was financed by the state-owned Luftfahrtkontor GmbH (from 1940: Bank of Deutsche Luftfahrt ). In 1940 Auto Union was able to take over the entire plant. The most important engine in production between 1938 and 1943 was the Junkers Jumo 211 , followed by the Jumo 213 . In 1942, the Auto Union subsidiary built 4675  Junkers aircraft engines with sales of around 161 million Reichsmarks , which accounted for around 36% of total group sales. Towards the end of the war, up to 7,000 people, especially forced laborers , were employed in the third largest group plant.

End in central Germany

On April 17, 1945, the 3rd US Army occupied Zwickau. Production at the Auto Union plants there came to a standstill. When the Americans withdrew from Thuringia and south-west Saxony to Bavaria at the end of June 1945 , these parts of the company - like the corporate headquarters in Chemnitz - were in the Soviet occupation zone . The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) ordered the dismantling of production facilities as early as August, and the transport of machines to the Soviet Union began as part of the reparations payments . With the issue of Order 124 of the SMAD of October 30, 1945, all larger companies in the Soviet zone of occupation were then sequestered . After the referendum carried out by the SED-dominated state administration in Saxony on June 30, 1946 , the assets of the Nazi activists and war criminals were confiscated. In the course of the organization of the state-owned industry, industrial administrations were created in Saxony in June 1946 to manage the associated companies, which were subordinate to the main administration of the state-owned / state-owned companies of the Ministry of Economics and Economic Planning and which existed until the summer of 1948. After brief trustee management by Sächsische Aufbauwerke GmbH (SAW), the "Industrieverwaltung 19 - Fahrzeugbau" was founded in Chemnitz in July 1946, from which the Industrie-Verband Fahrzeugbau (IFA) later emerged, in which all motor vehicle manufacturers in the GDR were brought together.

With the order 201 of the SMAD of October 19, 1947, denazification commissions were formed in the districts . These chambers, which were very one-sided in terms of party politics, had to check which party members were active Nazis (polluted persons) or which were only followers or even critics of the regime (unencumbered persons). According to this, only incriminated people should be punished with deprivation of property. Finally, with Order 64 of the SMAD of April 17, 1948, further sequestrations were prohibited. In July 1948, on the basis of the order 76 of the SMAD, Associations of Publicly Owned Enterprises (VVB) were created, because the state-owned enterprises were to be broken up. In contrast to the common practice in the Trizone was on August 17, 1948 the corporation Auto Union AG in the commercial register deleted Chemnitz. This gave up the rights to the Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer brands and paved the way for the establishment of a new Auto Union GmbH in West Germany.

“Almost a quarter of German car production before the war came from Saxony and with the majestic Horch eight-cylinder certainly also the most beautiful cars. This tradition was broken off after the end of the Second World War. Not only the machines had to leave the country. The ability and knowledge also went west with many heads. For a region like Ingolstadt it was an invigorating vitamin boost. Incidentally, just as an anecdote: Audi has belonged to the Saxon state since the Great Depression and to that extent VW bought the Ingolstadt automotive location from us. "

- Georg Milbradt , Saxon Prime Minister : Greeting on May 11, 2004 on the event "100 Years of Automobile Manufacturing in Zwickau"

So-called publicly owned companies (VEB) emerged from the plants of the major Auto Union brands in 1948 :

The IFA F9 rolled off the assembly line in Zwickau and Eisenach

The long-term production plan from 1957 originally provided for the Sachsenring P 240 model in VEB Sachsenring and the Trabant P 50 model in the EEZ . When the management of VVB-Automobilbau realized that the capacity was insufficient for production in both plants, the two plants were merged with a resolution of the SED state and party leadership in May 1958. The production of the P240 was therefore to be discontinued in 1959 and the P240 development topic to be concluded.

The DKW F9 with the 3 = 6 engine was announced by the "old" Auto Union for 1940, but was not released until 1950 in the GDR as the IFA F9 (with the new three-cylinder engine ) and - also in 1950 - in the Federal Republic of Germany as DKW "Meisterklasse" (F89) (with modified old two-cylinder engine of the F8 ) goes into series production. From Auto Union's point of view, the production of the IFA F9 constituted unfair competition because it was too similar to the later DKW F93 and was based on pre-war construction plans that were now owned by Auton Union Ingolstadt. In 1955 Auto Union therefore brought an action. The explosive nature of the process was limited, however, since the F9 was replaced by the Wartburg 311 in early 1956 . With regard to the further use of the engine, chassis and spare parts production, Auto Union and the GDR reached a settlement .

The arrangement of the (two-cylinder) front engine transverse to the direction of travel, developed by DKW engineers and implemented for the first time in the DKW F1 , was not only retained in the Trabant, it is now used worldwide in front-wheel drive; the curved DKW box frame was until the end of production marks the F9 successor Wartburg 311 / 312 .

New beginning in West Germany

Memorial plaque at the first company headquarters in Ingolstadt (2009)
DKW RT 125 W (1950)

Since most of the DKW vehicles had not been requisitioned by the Wehrmacht because of the two-stroke engines , there were still more than 65,000 Reich and Meisterklasse vehicles in traffic in West Germany , the later Trizone , at the end of the war, and a considerable number of these were still in service abroad Vehicles. The supply of spare parts for Auto-Union vehicles via the four branches in Munich , Nuremberg , Hanover and Freiburg (Breisgau) was soon no longer available, as all of the factories except for the Berlin-Spandau plant were located in the Soviet occupation zone . To ensure the supply of spare parts, the central depot for Auto Union spare parts GmbH was founded in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, on December 3, 1945 - a first step towards a new beginning in West Germany.

At that time, the Auto-Union group based in Chemnitz still existed. A law of the four occupying powers provided for the confiscation of all German state property. This also applied to companies that were more than 50% state-owned. In the course of the deletion of the company from the Chemnitz commercial register in August 1948, the protection of the rights to the Auto Union brand was neglected. Since the group was now dissolved, a new Auto Union GmbH was founded at the beginning of September 1949 with loans from the Bavarian State Government and the assistance of the Marshall Plan . Shortly after the end of the war, many employees from the former plants in Zschopau, Zwickau and Chemnitz left for West Germany and started rebuilding in Ingolstadt. Above all were Richard Bruhn, former CEO of the "old" Chemnitz Auto Union AG , and his deputy Carl Hahn senior. As the largest shareholder, the Swiss building contractor Ernst Göhner supported the reconstruction and the strong expansion at the beginning and middle of the 1950s. Auto Union vehicles were sold under the old DKW brand, and the new company soon employed around 14,000 people.

Construction of the new DKW Schnellaster and the DKW RT 125 W motorcycle model began in Ingolstadt in 1949 . W stood for west because an RT 125 was built in the former DKW factory in Zschopau according to pre-war plans. The 60-year-old Rheinmetall - Borsig Plant II in Düsseldorf-Derendorf was initially taken over with a lease agreement as a further production location in West Germany . The company, which was partly destroyed by bombs and intended for dismantling as an armaments factory , was completely owned by Auto Union in the 1950s . The first DKW model from Düsseldorf was the DKW F89, built from 1950 . With its two-stroke models Schnelllaster, DKW special class , "Large DKW" 3 = 6 , the Munga off-road vehicle for the German armed forces and the DKW Junior , the company was successful in the economic miracle .

At the beginning of the 1950s, the Spanish Auto Union subsidiary Industrias del Motor SA (IMOSA) built a new plant in Vitoria (Basque Country), which from 1954 initially produced the DKW Schnellaster and in the 1960s the DKW-IMOSA F 1000 L made.

In 1958, motorcycle production was transferred to the Zweirad-Union , newly founded in Nuremberg with the participation of Victoria and Express , where only small numbers of the RT 175 VS and RT 200 VS models were produced. Mainly mopeds like the DKW Hummel and small motorcycles were built.

Takeover by Daimler-Benz

At the urging of the major Daimler-Benz shareholder Friedrich Flick , Daimler-Benz AG took over 88% of the share capital in April 1958 . The two major Auto Union shareholders Friedrich Flick and Ernst Göhner each sold 41 percent of their GmbH shares to Daimler-Benz. At that time, the company was the fifth largest German car manufacturer after VW, Opel, Daimler-Benz and Ford. From December 1959, Daimler-Benz was the sole owner.

In 1959 the DKW Junior appeared with a 34 hp three-cylinder two-stroke engine and a body mounted on a box-profile frame, which was decorated with small tail fins based on the American model. It was followed in 1961 by the Junior de Luxe with almost the same body and engine, but this one with "fresh oil automatic" . It no longer needed to be filled with a gasoline-oil mixture, but instead mixed the oil with the fuel from a separate tank, depending on the speed and load. The successor, the DKW F12 , was the first car in its class with disc brakes in 1963 . The engine power increased to 40 hp. In summer 1964 the DKW F11 / 64 came with the larger body of the F12, but the mechanics and equipment of the Junior de Luxe . The Auto Union brought in 1965 still the F12 / 65 on the market, this had the 45-horsepower engine of the F12 roadster and was the last car of the series. The last newly developed two-stroke DKW was the DKW F 102 built from 1964 to 1966 .

VW boss Heinrich Nordhoff expressed in 1962 for the first time the interest of the Volkswagen plant which Auto Union to take over. At the urging of Daimler-Benz, a new car with a four-stroke engine was to be developed in Ingolstadt at the time, but in 1964 Daimler-Benz sold Auto Union to Volkswagenwerk AG . Daimler-Benz kept the Auto Union plant in Düsseldorf and began manufacturing light Mercedes-Benz vans there as early as 1961 with the Mercedes-Benz L 319 . In 2011 the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and VW Crafter were produced at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Düsseldorf . Daimler-Benz also kept the Spanish IMOSA factory in Vitoria, where u. a. from 1988 to 1995 the MB 100 and from 1996 to 2003 the W 638 series (Vito and V-Class) were produced. From 2003 the models of the 639 series (Vito and Viano) were manufactured there and the current V-Class ( 447 series ) since 2014 .

Takeover by Volkswagen

International Police Exhibition Hanover 1966: Exhibition stand with an Audi Variant (F103)

At the turn of the year 1964/65 the Volkswagenwerk AG took over 50.3% of the shares - from the end of 1966 the Auto Union GmbH was completely owned by the Volkswagenwerk.

The 1.7-liter "medium pressure engine" originally designed by Daimler-Benz and fully developed in Ingolstadt (because the very high compression of 11.2: 1 was between the usual values ​​of a gasoline and diesel engine) was launched in 1965 brought onto the market in a revised version of the DKW F 102 . The DKW F 102, the last car from West German production with a two-stroke engine and at the same time the last DKW car, then became the new "Audi" with a four-stroke medium-pressure engine. Since the name DKW was always associated with two-stroke engines, it was decided not to use it any more and to use the old Audi brand again. The four rings were retained as the company logo. This first car after 1945 with the name Audi was internally called the F103 and when the model was later offered with different engines, it was named Audi 72 to identify the engine power in hp . This ended the era of the two-stroke car engine in mass production in West Germany - only the DKW Munga off-road vehicle with a two-stroke engine continued to be produced until the end of 1968. In the same year, Auto Union's last new design came onto the market with the first Audi 100 .

Merger with NSU and renaming to Audi AG

Audi NSU Auto Union AG emerged from the merger of Auto Union GmbH with Neckarsulmer Motorenwerke AG in 1969 . In 1985, when the company's headquarters were relocated from Neckarsulm to Ingolstadt, the company was renamed Audi AG . Translated from Latin into German , Audi means “Listen!” Or “Horch!” And goes back to the family name of August Horch , the founder of the original Audi factory and, previously, of the Horch factory, two of the four companies in the Auto Union founded in 1932.

Timelines

Brands & Group

Auto Union was founded before the Second World War:

Creation of Auto Union
brand 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s
5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
listen August Horch & Cie.
Cologne-E.feld u. Reichenbach 		August Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG ( Zwickau ) Horchwerke AG Zwickau Auto Union AG Chemnitz
Audi August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau Audiwerke AG Zwickau Audiwerke AG (Rasmussen holds majority)
DKW Rasmussen and Ernst Zschopauer Maschinenfabrik JS Rasmussen Zschopauer Motorenwerke JS Rasmussen AG (DKW)
SB Slaby-Beringer automobile company
walker Chemnitz Velociped Depot Winklhofer & Jaenicke , ( Chemnitz ) Wanderer Fahrradwerke AG , Schönau near Chemnitz Wanderer-Werke AG , Schönau Wanderer vehicle factory in Siegmar

Change from Auto Union to Audi AG, as part of Volkswagen AG:

Timeline of the Volkswagen AG vehicle brands from 1935 to the present day
company 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s brand
5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
Volkswagen Volkswagen Volkswagen
Volkswagen Volkswagen commercial vehicles
Seat Seat
Škoda Škoda
Bentley to Vickers Bentley
Bugatti Bugatti
Porsche Porsche
Suzuki Suzuki
Auto Union DKW , Wanderer , Horch , Audi DKW
(Auto Union GmbH) 		DKW / Auto-Union
to Daimler-Benz 		Audi Audi Audi Audi
NSU NSU
Lamborghini (Sports car) to Chrysler to Megatech to Audi Lamborghini
(Tractors) to Same Lamborghini
Jetta Jetta
Ducati to Audi Ducati
Scania Scania-Vabis Scania to Saab independent Scania
MAN MAN MAN MAN
Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus Simca to Chrysler Dodge Volkswagen to MAN Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus
  •  Brand of an independent company before participation or takeover by Volkswagen, possibly already active in other areas beforehand
  •  Brand of a company that partly belongs to Volkswagen
  •  Brand of a company that is majority owned by Volkswagen
  •  Brand of Volkswagen or a wholly owned subsidiary
  •  Porsche brand
  •  Porsche, the former parent company of Volkswagen
    1. ↑ In August 2015, VW announced that it wanted to return its stake in Suzuki. Current status unclear!
    2. ↑ a b 1969 merger to form Audi NSU Auto Union AG

    Models

    Models of the brands that were absorbed by Auto Union before the Second World War:

    Timeline of the Horch , Audi , Wanderer , Slaby-Beringer and DKW models from 1900 to 1942
    class Nov. 1931: Auto Union is founded
    1900s 10s 20s 30s 40s
    0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2
    Microcar Slaby ringers
    Small car Slaby ringers F1 F2 / F4 F5 F7 F8
    W 1, W 2, W 3, W 4, W 8
    dolls         		P 15 hp PS 600 Sport
    4-15 hp Pony (5/14 hp) Type p
    Lower middle class Type A (10/22 HP) Type G (8/22 hp) P 25 PS (4 = 8), V 800 4 = 8, V 1000 4 = 8, Type 432, 1001 special class Floating class, special class
    W 6, W 9
    Middle class 10-12 hp 14-20 hp 10/30 hp 6/18 hp
    K (12/30 hp) 8/24 hp
    Type B (10/28 hp)
    15/30 hp W 10 W 15,
    W 17, W 20         		W 21, W 235 / W 35 W 24
    Type C (14/35 hp) Type K (14/50 hp) W 22, W 240 / W 40
    upper middle class O (14/40 hp) 10 M 20/10 M 25 W 11
    22-30 hp 18/25 hp H (17/45 hp) W 245 / W 45, W 250 / W 50, W 51 W 23, W 26, W 52
    Type D (18/45 hp) Type T (15/75 HP)
    Dresden         		Type UW
    front         		225 920
    Upper class 18/50 hp
    23/50 hp 8 (type 303–405) 8 (3 & 4 liters) 830
    Type E (22/55 HP) Type M (18/70 hp) Type R (19/100 hp)
    Imperator         		Type SS (20/100 HP)
    Zwickau
    25/60 hp 8 (4.5 & 5 liters) 850
    26/65 hp S (33/80 hp) 12
    Sports car W 14 W 25 K, W 25
    Kübelwagen W 11
  • listen
  • Audi
  • walker
  • Slaby ringers
  • DKW
  • Developed by DKW and marketed under the brand name Audi .
    		•

    Auto Union models (as DKW and Auto Union ) after World War II:

    Timeline of the Auto-Union , DKW , NSU and Audi models and Volkswagen models derived from them from 1949 to 1979
    Auto Union Auto Union GmbH , independent Auto Union GmbH , majority owned by Daimler-Benz AG Auto Union GmbH , majority owned by Volkswagenwerk AG Audi NSU Auto Union AG ,
    majority from Volkswagenwerk AG
    NSU NSU Werke AG , independent NSU Motorenwerke AG , independent
    Type Body versions 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s
    9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
    Small car Hatchback Audi 50 (Type 86)
    VW Polo (Type 86) ...
    Notchback NSU Prinz (type 40) NSU Prinz 4 (Type 47) VW Derby (Type 87) ...
    NSU Prinz 1000/1000 TT (type 67)
    Coupe NSU Sport Prince (Type 41)
    Small car / lower middle class Notchback NSU type 110 / NSU 1200 (type 77)
    DKW Junior DKW F11 / F12
    Cabriolet NSU Wankel Spider (Type 56)
    DKW F12 Roadster
    Middle class Cabriolet DKW F89 F DKW F91 DKW 3 = 6 (F93)
    Sedan / notchback DKW F89 P DKW F91 DKW 3 = 6
    (F93 / F94)     		Auto Union 1000/1000 S. DKW F 102 Audi / Audi 60/75/80 / Super 90 (F103) Audi 80
    (B1; type 80/82)     		Audi 80
    (B2; type 81/85) ...
    Station wagon DKW F89U DKW F91U DKW 3 = 6 (F94U) Auto Union 1000 U Audi / Audi 60/75/80 (F103) VW Passat (B1; Type 33) ...
    Hatchback / Coupe DKW F91 DKW 3 = 6 (F93) Auto Union 1000/1000 S. VW Passat (B1; Type 32) ...
    Notchback VW K 70 (Type 86; VW Type 48)
    upper middle class Notchback Audi 100 (C1) Audi 100 (C2) ...
    Hatchback Audi 100 Coupé S (C1) Audi 100 (C2) ...
    Notchback NSU Ro 80 (type 80) Audi 200 (C2; Type 43) ...
    Sports car Coupe DKW 3 = 6 Monza Auto Union 1000 SP NSU TT / TTS (type 67)
    Convertible Auto Union 1000 SP
    Off-road vehicle DKW Munga
    Vans Panel van, flatbed, bus DKW Schnellaster (F 89 L / Type 30 / Type 3) DKW F1000L sold to Daimler-Benz,
    continued as Mercedes-Benz N1300
  • Offered by Auto Union under the brand name DKW .
  • Offered by Auto Union under the Auto Union brand name .
  • Offered under the brand name NSU .
  • Developed by NSU, sold under the brand name Volkswagen .
  • Offered under the brand name Audi .
  • Developed by Audi, sold under the brand name Volkswagen .
    		•

    Auto Union automobiles 1945 to 1965

    After the re-establishment of the Auto Union in West Germany, automobiles were manufactured in Ingolstadt and Düsseldorf until 1968 under the name DKW.

    Autania

    Parallel to the re-establishment of Ingolstadt, the old stock corporation was reactivated as early as 1948 after the expropriation of the company's assets and the deletion of the company in the Chemnitz commercial register by merging its operational parts located in the western zones. After the remaining name and trademark rights were sold to Audi NSU Auto Union AG , this stock corporation was called Autania Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft AG , Essen, from 1979 . It has developed into an important mechanical engineering holding company based in Kelkheim (Taunus) .

    literature

    (in chronological order)

    • Stefan Knittel: Auto Union Grand Prix car. Schrader & Partner, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-922617-00-X .
    • Peter Kirchberg: Auto-Union picture atlas. A technical historical photo documentation. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-613-01187-5 .
    • Martin Kukowski: Finding aid for the holdings of Auto-Union AG, Horchwerke AG, Audi-Automobilwerke AG and Zschopauer Motorenwerke JS Rasmussen AG. 2 volumes. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2000, ISBN 978-3-89812-065-4 .
    • Peter Vann: Nickel silver - Auto Union racing cars and record cars. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-613-02161-7 .
    • Martin Kukowski: The Chemnitz Auto-Union-AG and the "democratization" of the economy in the Soviet occupation zone from 1945 to 1948. (= contributions to company history . Volume 15). Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-515-08059-0 .
    • Michael Eichhammer : Silver Arrows and Cannons - The History of Auto Union Racing Cars and their Drivers. Wieland, Bruckmühl 2004, ISBN 978-3-9808709-1-7 .
    • Peter Kirchberg: On the trail of silver - the fate of the Auto Union racing cars. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-3-613-02402-1 .
    • Lutz Sartor: Auto Union AG and its reactions to the “Volkswagen” project 1931–1942. In: History of Technology. 72nd volume, issue 1. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2005, ISSN  0040-117X , pp. 51-72 ( PDF ).
    • Christian Suhr: Power of the four rings. Commercial vehicles of the Auto-Union and their brands Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, NSU. Kraftakt Verlag, Halle (Saale) et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-938426-07-4 .
    • Jörg Feldkamp (Ed.): 75 years of Auto-Union. (= Accompanying book on the occasion of the exhibition "Four Rings for Saxony. 75 Years of Auto-Union" from June 9th to September 2nd, 2007 in the Chemnitz Industrial Museum). Zweckverband Sächsisches Industriemuseum, Chemnitz 2007, ISBN 978-3-934512-16-0 .
    • Thomas Erdmann: In the footsteps of Auto Union. A tour of the former Auto Union production facilities in Ingolstadt. 2nd Edition. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1794-3 .
    • Thomas Erdmann ao: four rings. The Audi story. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-7688-2578-8 , p. 80 ff.
    • Matthias Braun, Alexander Franc Storz: Audi. Auto-Union and its brands Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-613-02914-9 , pp. 147-164.
    • Peter Kirchberg, Siegfried Bunke: From Horch to Munga. Auto-Union military vehicles. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-7688-3143-7 .
    • Franziska Hockert: Forced labor at Auto-Union. A case study from the Audi and Horch plants in Zwickau. (= Writings on social and economic history. Volume 17). Kovač, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8300-6165-6 .
    • Martin Kukowski, Rudolf Boch : War economy and labor at Auto Union AG Chemnitz in the Second World War. Franz Steiner Verlag, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-515-10618-4 .
    • Martin Kukowski: Auto Union AG. Search for traces east. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-667-11710-6 .
    • Ralf Friese: Auto Union GmbH. Search for traces of Ingolstadt. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-667-11712-0 .

    Web links

    Commons : Auto Union vehicles  - collection of images, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ Hitler's racing battles ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) - A film by Eberhard Reuss, Phoenix
    2. ^ DKW Nachrichten - special edition , Richard Bruhn on his 65th birthday, article: "DIE AUTO UNION AG", page 5: Quote: "The company was initially based in Zschopau, from 1936 Chemnitz", AB 340 (65113) Printed in Germany 1951.
    3. ^ Martin Kukowski: The Chemnitz Auto Union AG and the "democratization" of the economy in the Soviet occupation zone from 1945 to 1948 . ISBN 3-515-08059-7 .
    4. ↑ Das Rad der Zeit, 3rd edition, Delius Klasing, ISBN 3-7688-1011-9 , pp. 105 and 109.
    5. ↑ Address book for Chemnitz 1933, page 579: AUTO UNION A.-G., WERK WANDERER , on adressbuecher.genealogy.net, accessed on April 21, 2019
    6. ↑ Gaswerk Siegmar and Auto-Union-Werk Photo from 1930 on fotocommunity.de, accessed on April 21, 2019
    7. ^ Martin Kukowski: The Chemnitz Auto Union AG and the "democratization" of the economy in the Soviet occupation zone from 1945 to 1948 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08059-7 , p. 22.
    8. ^ Audi Automobilwerke AG Zwickau , State Archives Chemnitz, 9.9. - Vehicle and engine construction
    9. ^ Horchwerke AG Zwickau , State Archives Chemnitz, 9.9. - Vehicle and engine construction
    10. ↑ From the Wolfsjägersiedlung to the high-tech location. Verlag Heimatland Sachsen GmbH Chemnitz, 2001.
    11. ^ Richard Bruhn on his 65th birthday , article: "DIE AUTO UNION AG", p. 5: Quote: "The company was initially based in Zschopau, from 1936 Chemnitz" , AB 340 (65113) Printed in Germany 1951.
    12. ↑ Hans Pohl, Stephanie Habeth, Beate Brüninghaus: Daimler-Benz AG in the years 1933 to 1945 . In: Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte , published by Hans Pohl and Wilhelm Treue, supplement 47, Franz Steiner Verlag 1987, ISBN 3-515-04733-6 .
    13. ^ Frank Köhler: The manufacture of tracked vehicles at the MNH company in Hanover from 1939–1945. In: Association of Friends and Patrons of the Defense Technical Study Collection Koblenz , first published in 1994, online since October 22, 2011, accessed on December 18, 2017.
    14. ↑ Chamber history (s) - 150 years of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Saxony , page 95.
    15. ^ Audi AG film: The Silver Arrows from Zwickau , Peter Kirchberg, Video 1992.
    16. ^ Peter Vann: German silver . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-613-02161-7 , p. 58.
    17. ↑ July 1939. In: Chroniknet. Retrieved December 27, 2013 .
    18. ↑ "Dream Car Archive" . Accessed February 19, 2014.
    19. ^ Peter Vann: German silver. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-613-02161-7 .
    20. ↑ Uwe Day: Myth ex machina. Media construct “Silver Arrow” as a mass-cultural icon of Nazi modernization. Dissertation, 2004, p. 97
    21. ↑ Audi AG film: The Silver Arrows from Zwickau , quote from Peter Kirchberg: “At Auto Union, the effort for the Grand Prix sport for the development, design, construction and use of the racing cars was between 1933 and 1942, when all development work was stopped , exactly 14,188,460 Reichsmarks. That was a lot of money, not only for the circumstances at the time. But if you measure this sum in terms of sales, it did not even reach 1% of it. ”(The original source in the Dresden State Archives is the Auto-Union folder, total cost evidence of sports expenditure 1939/40 ), Video 1992.
    22. ^ Peter Kohl, Peter Bessel: Auto Union and Junkers: History of Mitteldeutsche Motorenwerke GmbH Taucha 1935-1948 . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-515-08070-5 .
    23. ↑ a b State Archive Chemnitz - Economy
    24. ^ Damian van Melis: Denazification in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Rule and Administration 1945–1948. 1999, ISBN 3-486-56390-4 , p. 208.
    25. ↑ see also: Article XII of the Allied Control Council Directive No. 38 of October 12, 1946
    26. ↑ Dr. Werner Lang: "We Horch workers are building vehicles again", history of the Horch factory 1945 to 1958 , 2nd edition 2007, Bergstraße Verlagsgesellschaft mbH Aue, ISBN 978-3-9811372-1-7
    27. ^ Peter Kirchberg: Plastics, sheet metal and planned economy . Nicolai-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87584-027-5 .
    28. ↑ Mirsching, Gerhard; Audi: Four decades of automotive engineering in Ingolstadt - The way DKW and Audi took after 1945; Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 1988, p. 18ff
    29. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Auto Union in Düsseldorf - A private banker as financier, intermediary and owner .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wiso.uni-koeln.de
    30. ^ U. Märker: The story of DKW MUNGA .