Oerlikon-Bührle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The machine tool factory Oerlikon (WO), later machine tool factory Oerlikon, Bührle & Co. , was a Swiss company that was formed in 1906 as a spin-off from the machine factory Oerlikon . The company's headquarters were originally in the municipality of Oerlikon , which has been part of the city of Zurich since 1934 . In 1973, the Oerlikon-Bührle Holding was created around the company, which resulted in the company's short name Oerlikon-Bührle. After extensive restructuring and the sale of various core areas in 1999, the holding company changed its name to Unaxis in January 2000 and to OC Oerlikon in 2006 .

history

20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun in use by the US Navy on USS Enterprise (CV-6) (May 1943)

The Schweizerische Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon (SWO) founded in 1906 was taken over by the Magdeburg machine tool factory in 1923 and thus saved from bankruptcy. The German Emil Georg Bührle , who was transferred from Magdeburg to Oerlikon in 1924 as authorized signatory, made weapons production the company's main business with the 20-mm Oerlikon cannon in the economically difficult 1920s, and in 1929 became the main shareholder in the Oerlikon machine tool factory . The Oerlikon cannon, initially also offered as an anti-tank cannon, became an export hit , especially as an aircraft on-board weapon and light anti-aircraft cannon . Already before the war it could be exported almost all over the world. In the context of armament in the 1930s, Bührle pushed the weapons sector further and made his company the leading Swiss defense company.

1920s

The main sales countries in the highly competitive market dominated by the armaments industries of France, Great Britain and the USA with world market shares of between 76.9 percent (1924) and 65.1 percent (1929) were primarily non-industrialized countries outside of Europe that did not have their own arms industry . France and England imported practically no armaments in the 1920s; only the industrialized countries Japan, the Netherlands and the USA had larger import shares of between 2.5 percent and 5 percent of world imports. It was not until around the mid-1930s that the large markets of the future opponents of the German Reich were opened to imports as a result of general armament .

In the twenties and thirties, the WO's war material deals were in line with Swiss foreign and security policy. This built on an exportable Swiss arms industry as the basis for supplying its own army and promoted the successful armaments sector also for reasons of job creation. There were basically no national or international law restrictions for the business of the Swiss armaments industry and thus for the WO until 1938.

1930s

The export ban during the Spanish Civil War , which broke out in 1936 , was circumvented with exports via Mexico . Reports of deliveries of Oerlikon weapons to Republican Spain were published in the media. In Abyssinia , WO 1935 delivered automatic cannons until shortly before the arms export ban came into force. Even later, weapons are alleged to have been smuggled into the country attacked by Italy by the WO of the EG Bührle. In Switzerland, Bührle represented Abyssinia as consul general .

The company achieved its breakthrough in 1929 with a major order for over 100 cannons in China. Deliveries were made in Europe, where market entry with the great powers remained difficult until the forced armament in the wake of the annexation of Austria and the Sudeten crisis , especially smaller states such as the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia and Greece. Real large orders and deliveries were made to France, Holland and England as a result of the massive armaments in 1938.

From 1936 onwards they did business with Switzerland. In France, Germany, Italy, Japan and England there were attempts to work together (1932/33 with Hispano-Suiza , France), to work together (1932/33 with Scotti , Italy), and to grant licenses (1936 to Germany and Japan , 1939 to GB) and participations in companies (1934 to 1939 in the Ikaria Gesellschaft für Flugzeug Zubehör mbH in Berlin; manufacturer of the 20 mm MG FF cannon ). In the 1930s the company rose to become the largest private armaments manufacturer in Switzerland and in 1939 employed over 2,000 people. From the end of the decade, WO held an important position in the Swiss economy as an employer for suppliers.

In 1939, Bührle and partners founded the Pilatus Aircraft in Stans . Emil G. Bührle's diversification strategy was carried out to reduce risk on the one hand in the civil sector and on the other hand in the development of the Pilatus aircraft factory. During the war, the Pilatus factories did not achieve any production worth mentioning due to the difficult framework conditions. Until the surrender of France in June 1940, the main clients of the WO were the Allied countries - at the head Great Britain and France. These countries placed orders worth almost CHF 250 million in Oerlikon. In order to meet these requirements, the Swiss Armed Forces even had to postpone urgent needs for 20 mm Oerlikon cannons out of consideration for the policy of the Federal Council .

After Bührle became Swiss in 1937, the German authorities, as part of their policy of self-sufficiency, purposefully pushed him out of his participation in the Berlin Ikaria Society until 1939. When the war broke out, both Italy and Germany had had their own efficient producers of 20 mm guns ( Mauser , Rheinmetall , Breda ) for years . It was not until the summer of 1940 that the WO delivered 20-mm cannons to the Axis powers, in accordance with the policy of the Federal Council and under pressure from the Swiss trade delegation . The research unanimously assesses the federal government's request to EG Bührle to deliver to Germany, which was later contested by Federal Councilor Kobelt, as a violation of the law of neutrality. After the conquest of France and complete fascist encirclement, Switzerland was put under pressure by Nazi Germany to deliver all war material produced for foreign countries to the Axis powers. From the point of view of WO, these partly entered into the delivery contracts with England and France that could no longer be fulfilled.

Deliveries to the Axis powers

During the Second World War , the 20mm Oerlikon gun was the main export product to the Axis powers . The business activities of WO with the countries of the axis - Germany, Italy and Romania - reached a total of 543.4 million Swiss francs in the years 1940 to 1944 (adjusted for inflation today about 2 billion francs) and included the delivery of 7,013 pieces 20 mm cannons, 14,758,489 rounds of ammunition, 12,520 replacement barrels and 40,092 magazines. What was ordered and produced in 1943 and 1944, however, was no longer delivered in some cases due to the development of licensing practices and the war situation. What was delivered was called by the German Foreign Office as “key deliveries”.

From 1944 onwards, the WO found itself in a difficult position vis-à-vis all former warring parties as a result of blacklists from the Allies and as a result of open claims from incompletely processed contracts (Germany, Italy). In the catastrophic situation for WO and its workforce due to the arms export ban since autumn 1944, it was Emil G. Bührle himself who kept the WO and its workforce afloat for around five years with the help of his personal assets.

post war period

In 1946 the device construction company was founded in Balzers . The company specialized in the production of thin layers and thus founded the core technology of today's OC Oerlikon , which was sometimes also called Unaxis. Oerlikon-Contraves developed SNORA and SURA-D rockets , RSA Missile , the guided weapons system RSC / D , the RSE Kriens and the sounding rocket zenith . In the field of anti-tank guided weapons, the Oerlikon-Contraves Mosquito was developed. In 1957, business development in the direction of vacuum technology and the first production plant for process systems in Trübbach followed .

Oerlikon-Contraves has been active in space travel since 1964; the company was involved in the development of the European satellite ESRO-1 . The Zenit sounding rocket, which was launched for the first time in 1967, was also a product of the space commitment. In 1973, Oerlikon-Bührle Holding AG was created and listed on the Swiss stock exchange . Three years later, the group integrated Balzers AG.

"Bührle Affair" in the 1960s

Between 1963 and 1968, the group violated the Federal Council's export bans on war material by supplying weapons to the conflicting countries of Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. Oerlikon-Bührle obtained the necessary export permits with applications that specified incorrect countries of destination. This practice became public in 1968 after media coverage of Oerlikon cannons in the Nigerian Civil War. In 1970 Dieter Bührle and three co-defendants were sentenced to conditional prison terms of between 8 and 18 months and a fine of 200,000 francs. The damage to the group remained small, however, because the Federal Councilor Bührle withdrew the license to produce war material, but transferred it back to the Oerlikon-Bührle Group. In the course of the affair that emerged from the media reports, Federal President Willy Spühler had to admit that the authorities had had information about illegal arms exports for months. As a political consequence, a popular initiative to ban the export of war material was submitted in 1969, which was only just rejected in 1972 with 49.8% yes votes, but also with a clear majority . As an indirect counter-proposal, more restrictive arms export legislation came into force in 1973.

After the end of the Cold War

In 1980 the Oerlikon-Bührle Group employed around 37,000 people, the highest level in the history of the Group. In 1991, failures in ADATS and the end of the Cold War forced a decision to focus on technology, consumer goods and customer service. In 1994 Oerlikon-Bührle took over the Leybold Group, which is active in vacuum technology, and merged it with Balzers to form Balzers & Leybold, the leading company for thin-film technology.

In 1999 the group focused on selected technology sectors and sold the armaments division Oerlikon Contraves Defense to the German Rheinmetall DeTec - now Rheinmetall Air Defense AG - and the shoe manufacturer Bally to the US Texas Pacific Group . The space division became legally independent as Contraves Space. The Rheinmetall Air Defense Estate AG was sold to the Allreal Holding sold and subsequently traded as Allreal Generalunternehmung AG. In January 2000 the Oerlikon-Bührle Group was renamed Unaxis and in September 2006 it was renamed again to OC Oerlikon AG. At the same time, Contraves Space was renamed Oerlikon Space. In 2009, RUAG acquired Oerlikon Space.

Holdings

See also

literature

  • Daniel Heller: Between entrepreneurship, politics and survival. Emil G. Bührle and the machine tool factory Oerlikon, Bührle & Co. 1924–1945. Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld 2002, ISBN 3-7193-1277-1 .
  • Peter Hug: Swiss armaments industry and war material trade during the time of National Socialism. Corporate strategies - market development - political surveillance . Chronos, Zurich 2002 (= publications of the ICE, vol. 11). ISBN 3-0340-0611-X . - Independent Commission of Experts (ICE) Switzerland - Second World War.
  • Christian Koller : 75 years ago: A wildcat strike near Bührle , in: Sozialarchiv Info 1 (2016). Pp. 4-10.

Web links

Commons : Oerlikon Contraves  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürg Fink: Switzerland from the perspective of the Third Reich, 1933–1945. 1985, p. 145 f.
  2. ^ Patrick Kupper, Institute for History, ETH Zurich: D. Haller: Between entrepreneurship, politics and survival. H-Soz-u-Kult for Clio-online-Historisches Fachinformationssystem eV , accessed on June 27, 2010 (short review from the book by Daniel Heller).
  3. ^ Patrick Kupper, Institute for History, ETH Zurich: D. Haller: Between entrepreneurship, politics and survival. H-Soz-u-Kult for Clio-online-Historisches Fachinformationssystem eV , p. 233 , accessed on June 27, 2010 .
  4. ↑ http://emits.sso.esa.int/emits-doc/industry/ombudsman_new.htm
  5. ↑ Stephan Meyer cell: A Place in Space: The History of Swiss participation in the European Space Program, 1960-1987. Beauchesne Verlag, 2008, ISBN 2701015324 , p. 136
  6. ↑ a b c Lea Ingber: Swiss cannons for Nigeria: The Bührle affair puts the export of war material in the political spotlight in 1968 , NZZ of November 3, 2014, p. 8 ( online )
  7. ↑ http://www.mkmk.ch/pdf/Le_Bourget.pdf Presentation of Contraves Space AG
  8. ^ Archive link ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) History of RUAG
  9. ↑ Peter Hug: Swiss armaments industry and trade in war materials at the time of National Socialism. Corporate strategies - market development - political surveillance. - Summary, 5 pp.