Schell plan
The Schell Plan was an economic policy program developed by Colonel Adolf von Schell (1893–1967) shortly before the Second World War to standardize Imperial German motorcycle and automobile production . The goals were to simplify the maintenance and repair of the Wehrmacht fleet as well as more efficient production by drastically reducing the number of passenger cars and trucks and standardizing their components. As part of the four-year plan , the Schell Plan is part of the economic and political war preparations that were made before the Second World War.
Already in the first decades of the 20th century there was a growing German and Austrian vehicle industry and thus brisk competition between the various automobile manufacturers, which led to a large number of different vehicle types. In 1938, 130 different types of trucks were produced and delivered to the Wehrmacht, among others. In the event of war, this would have meant great difficulties for the Wehrmacht, as a large number of different spare parts and training on many types of vehicles would have been necessary. Mass production during war would also be much easier with a low number of types.
For these reasons, Hermann Göring, who as head of the four-year plan authority was responsible for preparing German industry for the war, appointed Colonel von Schell on November 15, 1938 as “General Representative for Motor Vehicles” (GBK). He was supposed to reorganize production relations in cooperation with the automobile industry.
On March 2, 1939, Göring, as the representative for the four-year plan, issued the “Ordinance on Type Limitations in the Motor Vehicle Industry”, according to which “the manufacture of motor vehicles and their trailers” is subject to the “approval of the general representative for motor vehicles”; the “general agent sets the type, cubic capacity, type numbers and payload limits which the manufacturer must comply with”; In addition, it determines “the factories that may manufacture engines for motorcycles” and issues implementation regulations.
Schell presented his program on March 15, 1939. It provided only a few basic types for motorcycles, trucks and cars. The 114 existing truck types were reduced to 19 models based on four basic types, the car types from 52 to 30. The Reich government approved the Schell Plan, which came into force on January 1, 1940.
From this point on, the manufacturers were considerably restricted in their freedom of action. They were largely dictated in which form and in which edition they had to produce which models. As a result, the entire production framework was converted to meet the needs of the Wehrmacht.
A typical example of a motor vehicle manufacturer completely transformed by the Schell Plan was Borgward . Before the war, Borgward was primarily a manufacturer of civilian passenger cars, but in the further course the focus of production suddenly had to be shifted to army trucks, artillery tractors and armored personnel carriers.
literature
- Kirchberg, Peter: Army motorization, Schell program and the Auto-Union, in: Kirchberg, Peter (Ed.): Vom Horch zum Munga. Auto-Union military vehicles, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-7688-3143-7 , pp. 90–96.
- Gregor, Neil: Star and Swastika. Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-549-05604-4 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Kirchberg, Peter: Heeresmotorisierung, Schell program and the Auto-Union, in: Kirchberg, Peter (ed.): Vom Horch zum Munga. Auto-Union military vehicles, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-7688-3143-7 , p. 93.
- ^ Reichsgesetzblatt I, year 1939, page 386
- ^ Website "Epoch II" : Historical bullet points 1939 , September 15, 2006
- ↑ http://buessing.gerlts.de:/ The Schell Plan, short entry ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 4, 2008
- ↑ Andreas Falkenhagen, Christoph WO Matthies, Maik Ziemann: The automobile industry under National Socialism ( Memento from July 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) September 15, 2006
