Richard Bruhn
Richard Bruhn (born June 25, 1886 in Cismar ; † July 8, 1964 in Düsseldorf ) was a German manager in the automotive industry , who from 1932 as CEO of Auto Union AG and, after the Second World War, as managing director and chairman of the supervisory board of the successor company Auto Union GmbH worked.
Life
After attending primary school, Richard Bruhn did an apprenticeship as an electrician and then switched to the commercial profession . In 1907 he became a commercial clerk in the AEG engineering office in Bremen . In 1910 he took over the commercial management of the AEG branch in London . During the First World War, Bruhn did military service from 1914 to 1918. After the war he began studying economics at Kiel University , which he completed with a doctorate in 1921 .
Immediately after completing his studies, Richard Bruhn became Commercial Director at Neufeldt & Kuhnke in Kiel . In 1927 he became a member of the board of directors at Junkers in Dessau . In 1929 he moved to the board of directors of Pöge Elektricitäts-AG in Chemnitz .
A turn towards the automobile industry in 1930 meant his appointment by the Saxon State Bank as the bank's representative to the board of directors of Zschopauer Motorenwerke J. S. Rasmussen ( DKW ). As a result, he prepared the establishment of Auto Union AG , whose CEO he became in 1932. Since it was in 1934 between the Auto Union sales manager Carl Hahn sen. and J. S. Rasmussen came to a complete rift, Bruhn and Hahn Rasmussen announced their resignation. Bruhn, who as Chairman of the Board of Management of Auto Union was also military manager , stayed in Chemnitz until May 7, 1945 and then went to Zwickau . When it became clear shortly afterwards that the American-occupied part of Saxony would become part of the Soviet zone of occupation , he left the city and moved to the British zone of occupation . As a result, Bruhn was interned by the British occupying forces and had to face the denazification process . Although Bruhn, as head of the Auto Union, was also responsible for the employment of thousands of prisoners of war and foreign workers, he was acquitted as unencumbered in the arbitration chamber proceedings and after his denazification went to Ingolstadt in Bavaria in the American zone of Germany's occupation . In order to ensure the supply of spare parts for the DKW vehicles still running in the later Trizone , the “Central Depot for Auto Union Spare Parts GmbH” was founded in December 1945.
Richard Bruhn, along with Carl Hahn senior, his former deputy on the board of the "old" Chemnitz Auto Union , was one of the initiators of Auto Union GmbH, which was established at the beginning of September 1949 with loans from the Bavarian State Government and Marshall Plan help from the "Central Depot" . Bruhn was their first managing director .
In addition to being awarded an honorary doctorate in 1952 by RWTH Aachen University for his services to the German automotive industry, Bruhn also received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1953 . On November 6, 1956, Bruhn resigned from the Auto Union management team; but he remained chairman of the supervisory board until 1958 .
Web links
- On Richard Bruhn's Nazi past in Economic Week on June 14, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.cismar.de
- ^ Peter Kirchberg: Grand Prix Report. Auto-Union 1934-1939. Transpress Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1982, ISBN 3-87943-876-5 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bruhn, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German manager in the automotive industry |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 25, 1886 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cismar |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 8, 1964 |
| Place of death | Dusseldorf |