The armaments industry’s interest in the freely free capacity of the crisis -plagued automotive industry becomes more specific. On Friday, a delegation from the armaments group Rheinmetall visited the Osnabrück location of the Volkswagen Group. As the IG Metall union confirmed, the CEO of Rheinmetall Armin Papperger was there. The head of the subsidiary Man Truck and Bus, Alexander Vlaskamp, and Group board member Gunnar Kilian, who is also responsible for the VW group’s truck business, are said to have participated from the VW side. The possibilities for a collaboration were “discussed in terms of results” on site, it was said in the afternoon. The background is that the work at the VW location Osnabrück is only secured until 2027. Then the production of the convertible variant of the T-Roc model, the last remaining vehicle at the location. It has long been speculated that an armor manufacturer could take over the work to avert a closure. After the conversation on Friday, it was said that “concrete derivations” for the factory and the employees do not yet result. The fact that there were ranking representatives on site shows very obviously that Rheinmetall was considering the entry. The CEO Papperger had already described the VW location Osnabrück as “very suitable” for armaments production in mid-March. The Rheinmetall Group from Düsseldorf, listed in the DAX stock index, is looking for opportunities to quickly expand its production due to increasing armaments expenditure in Germany and other EU countries. For explosive material, the Osnabrück location, located in the middle of a city -related industrial area, should not be considered. But vehicles could be manufactured there. Metal struggled with the military VW and Rheinmetall for 15 years in the production of military commercial vehicles. The joint company Rheinmetall Man Military Vehicles, for example, produces military trucks that are delivered to customers around the world. One of the recent successes included a large -scale order of the Bundeswehr over almost 600 logistics vehicles worth 330 million euros. More on the topic of IG Metall wants to save around 2300 jobs in Osnabrück, but is not easy with the military. The union said that the union said. How the talks between the companies and IG Metall should continue became not known on Friday.
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