Word: wolfsburg
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...Volkswagen plant in the little North German town of Wolfsburg, about 100 miles west of Berlin, had been built by Hitler to turn out "people's cars" for the 1,000-year Third Reich. In World War II it was 60% destroyed by Allied bombs. Rain slashed through the holes in its roof after V-E day while a motley crew of 8,000 refugees and former soldiers grubbed about in the ruins. Half were cleaning up rubble; the others were virtually hand-tooling a few vehicles for the British occupation army. Falling bricks were a constant menace; live...
Still a G.M. man at heart, Nordhoff was scornful of Volkswagen and the shattered Hitlerian dream it represented. Says he: "I wanted nothing to do with that cheap competition." The British were insistent; they wanted him to take over the plant to provide employment for the depressed Wolfsburg area and produce vehicles for their army. Pressed by the hard facts of occupation life, Nordhoff agreed. Said he: "The future begins when you cut every tie with the lost past...
...sprawling plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, one day this month, workers tightened the last bolts on a beetle-like sedan, and rolled it off the production line. It was the 500,000th Volkswagen to be produced since...
Adolf Hitler, who promised to put a "people's flivver" (Volkswagen) in every German garage, collected $112 million in public subscriptions to build a big auto factory in Wolfsburg. About all it ever turned out was jeeps, and the only ride most Germans got for their money was a one-way trip to the battlefront. During World War II, Allied airmen smashed the plant...