Carl Hahn junior

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Carl Horst Hahn
Carl Horst Hahn 2016 in the council chamber of the New City Hall in Chemnitz

Carl Horst Hahn (born July 1, 1926 in Chemnitz ) is a German manager of the automotive industry who was among other things CEO of Volkswagen between 1982 and 1993 . He is the son of Carl Hahn senior , who worked successfully as a manager at Zschopauer Motorenwerke ( DKW ) and the Audi predecessor company Auto Union in the 1920s / 30s and 1950s .

education

Hahn studied business administration at the Universities of Cologne and Zurich and economics at the University of Bristol and the Sorbonne in Paris. He received his doctorate in economics from the University of Bern .

career

In 1953 Carl Hahn became assistant to Heinrich Nordhoff , the general director ( managing director ) of Volkswagenwerk GmbH . Hahn was soon promoted to head of sales promotion in the export department.

In 1958 Hahn became head of Volkswagen of America and he managed to build a solid market in the USA for the VW Beetle and the Transporter with remarkable and original advertising campaigns. There he married the San Francisco-born Marisa Lea Traina (1926-2013), sister of the ex-husband of the novelist Danielle Steel . The couple's four children were born in the United States. Hahn stayed in the United States until 1965.

In 1972 he moved to Continental AG in Hanover as the head of the company and returned to VW in 1982 as CEO . During his term of office, he took over the Spanish Seat and Czech Škoda plants as well as expanding into the People's Republic of China . VW was also able to hold onto the North American market, albeit with sharply falling sales, at a time when other European mass manufacturers such as Fiat and Renault had to withdraw, mainly due to East Asian competition. Furthermore, since the beginning of the 1980s, he campaigned for automobile production in his home region of Chemnitz (then Karl-Marx-Stadt); this commitment resulted in the founding of Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH in 1990 .

At the beginning of the 1990s, VW's sales more than doubled, but due to excessive production and development costs, key economic indicators of the VW Group appeared unsatisfactory. Then Ferdinand Piëch took over the chairmanship of the executive board in 1993 from Hahn, who moved to the company's supervisory board .

Carl Horst Hahn lives in Wolfsburg and currently works as a senior advisor for the German investment company General Capital Group .

Honors

Carl Hahn has been an honorary citizen of Wolfsburg since 1977, an honorary citizen of his hometown Chemnitz since 1994, and an honorary citizen of Zwickau since 1998 .

In 1989 he received the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold with the star for services to the Republic of Austria .

Audi AG appointed him honorary chairman of the supervisory board on January 1, 1993.

Since 2002 he has been honorary professor at the West Saxon University of Zwickau and honorary professor at the Kyrgyz State University for Construction, Transportation and Architecture . Hahn has been an honorary senator of the TU Braunschweig since 1987 and the name giver of the Saxony International School - Carl Hahn gGmbH in Glauchau since August 17, 2009 .

The building in Chemnitz, in which Carl Hahn spent a large part of his childhood and youth, has been named Villa Hahn in his honor since April 2nd, 2008 . On June 24, 2014 he was honored with a bust for his life's work.

The City of Wolfsburg's Vocational School I was also officially renamed the Carl Hahn School in 2014.

He is the holder of the Lower Saxony State Medal .

Autobiography

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carl Hahn on Trabant, Polo and his commitment to the old home. Free press from May 21, 2010
  2. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ^ Name giver Carl H. Hahn. In: Carl Hahn School Wolfsburg. February 13, 2018, accessed on August 15, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Carl junior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hahn, Carl Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrial manager
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz