Hermann Münch

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Caspar Hermann Münch (born March 20, 1885 in Iserlohn ; † March 17, 1951 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe ) was the first general director of the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg after the Second World War .

After studying law in Freiburg, Bonn and Berlin and obtaining his doctorate in 1915, he worked as a lawyer in Berlin. After the First World War, he became chief legal advisor of Bayerische nitrogen works AG and sat on the supervisory boards of numerous industrial companies.

At the end of 1945 representatives of Property Control of the British military government approached the experienced lawyer, who not only had decades of experience in the industry, but also recommended himself through an opposition to the Nazi regime and contacts to the Czech resistance movement. On February 26, 1946, he took over the office of chief trustee at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg and, with effect from June 17, 1946, also became director general of the Volkswagen plant. Münch was primarily responsible for the finance area and initiated measures to reduce costs. Among other things, he campaigned for the works council's rights of co-determination, the appointment of a labor director and the solution of employees' housing problems.

In the autumn of 1947, the British officer Ivan Hirst , who headed the Volkswagen factory as Senior Resident Officer between 1945 and 1949 , was looking for a technical manager for the Volkswagen factory to increase the efficiency of the factory, whom he found in Heinrich Nordhoff and finally the British control commission as a new one General Director proposed. The appointment followed on November 7, 1947. Münch was not informed of his dismissal until November 25, 1947. During this time he introduced Nordhoff to the company and maintained a "friendly and harmonious cooperation" with him. On January 1, 1948, Heinrich Nordhoff succeeded him as general manager. Hermann Münch, who was still a trustee until then, left the company at the end of April 1948, bitter about the lack of recognition of his achievements. Before that, on April 26, 1948, he had arranged the relocation of the Volkswagenwerk GmbH headquarters from Berlin to Wolfsburg.

After working in Wolfsburg, Münch relocated to Frankfurt am Main, from where he was able to increasingly exercise his various supervisory board mandates, and in particular carried out extensive efforts to re-establish the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft and finally obtained its official approval for new business.

In 1949, Münch published a fundamental study entitled Bohemian Tragedy. The fate of Central Europe in the light of the Czech question .

literature

  • Markus Lupa: The work of the British - Volkswagen factory and occupying power 1945-1949. Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg 2005, ISBN 3-935112-00-9 .
  • Ralf Richter: Ivan Hirst. British officer and manager of Volkswagen construction. Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg 2003, ISBN 3-935112-12-2 . ( Available online , pdf, 8 MB)
  • Gerulf Hirt: chief trustee and first general director of the Volkswagen factory - Portrait: Hermann Münch (1885–1951), in Christoph Stölzl (ed.): Die Wolfsburg saga . Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2216-6 , pp. 100-101 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Markus Lupa: Change of lane on British orders. The transformation of the Volkswagen factory into a market company 1945–1949. ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volkswagen-media-services.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-935112-41-3 , p. 13. Accessed November 3, 2015.
  2. ↑ Hans Mommsen, Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich , p. 974
  3. ↑ a b Markus Lupa: Change of lane on British orders. ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volkswagen-media-services.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Pp. 121, 122.
  4. ↑ Volkswagen press release dated December 21, 2005, 3:41 p.m.
personal data
SURNAME Münch, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müch, Caspar Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lawyer and VW General Director
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Iserlohn
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1951
Place of death Bad Homburg vor der Höhe