It was already dark in Wolfsburg when the 21 gentlemen of the Volkswagen supervisory board returned to the meeting room of the administrative tower on a Monday in April 1975. They had argued for almost six hours that day. In the early evening hours, the special meeting had to be interrupted several times because the whole thing was at stake for everyone involved. Toni Schmücker, who had been appointed as the new CEO of Volkswagen werk AG just two months earlier, had repeatedly warned of the “deadly danger” of excessive personnel costs and insisted on “drastic steps” to save VW. His opponent Eugen Loderer, IG Metall boss and deputy chairman of the supervisory board, countered. People will not allow themselves to be blackmailed according to the motto “Eat it or die!” It didn’t do him any good. The union lost in the fight vote at half past eight. The supervisory board decided to cut 25,000 jobs. This can be read page by page in the minutes, some of them handwritten, which are still kept half a century later in the corporate archives on the south side of the main plant.
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