337,000 Germans once saved on a “KdF car” and never got the dreamed car, after the war their money was gone. When they sued Volkswagen, the group resisted with all the harassment.
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Tuesday, 01.05.2018
09:56 clock
Due to the diesel gate scandal Volkswagen AG is currently threatened with damages claims in indefinite amounts. For the global corporation from the province of Lower Saxony, this is not a novelty. Even in his early years VW had to deal with demands of hundreds of thousands of customers. However, they never owned a Volkswagen.
Under the headline “Nordhoff pays” reported the SPIEGEL 1961 on a court settlement between VW and a club from the Hochsauerland. This ended a long, carefully watched by the public history, which began under National Socialism.
In the thirties Germany was not yet a car country. Only about every 50th German had a car. Hitler decreed 1934 the development of an affordable “Volkswagens” for under 1000 Reichsmark, named after “Strength through Joy”, the National Socialist recreational equality organization.
The order received Ferdinand Porsche, as a “power-by-pleasure-car”, the project got moving. On Ascension Day 1938 was the foundation stone for the Volkswagen factory. Paddling instead of spilling: The Ford plant in Dearborn modeled complex was huge, immediately arose “City of the KdF car” – today’s Wolfsburgon which the ICE trains always rush by,
From the “Kdf car” to the VW Beetle
In the standard version, the car should cost 990 RM and be purchased through savings rates. Weekly buyers should save at least 5 RM, young people 5 RM per month. As a slip, they glued savings badges in cards. If four cards were full, the saver should be able to receive his KdF car.
Should. But then came the Second World War. The few cars manufactured until then mainly received the Wehrmacht. The Volkswagen factory now produced pail and Schwimmwagen, later also parts of the V1 cruise missiles, with the use of forced labor, with which the “Third Reich” terrorized especially in the last months of the war, especially Belgium and England.
Soon after the end of the war, vehicles were built in Wolfsburg again for the KdF car. Of the VW Beetle was born, the work flourished quickly. But the VW savers went out empty. 336,668 Germans had hopefully stuck their cards, no one got the dreamed car – a damage of no more than 1000 RM.
It can be considered silly in the face of many millions of war victims and large parts of Europe in rubble. The small savers, however, saw it very differently and founded associations to enforce their interests.
The most successful was the Hilfsverein former Volkswagensparer (HEV), founded in 1948 by a brewery in Sauerland: Karl Stolz, leg amputee war veteran and former NSDAP party comrade, made every effort to help the approximately 30,000 club members to the car or to money, if necessary, by all instances.
At the beginning of 1949, Stolz filed a complaint with the Hildesheim district court. However, VW boss Heinrich Nordhoff fiercely resisted, his lawyers wanted to dismiss the action as inadmissible. Contractors of savers, they argued, was not VW, but the German Labor Front (DAF). She also received the savings. In addition, by war and system change, the basis of the contract has been eliminated. And anyway: Even if VW would be awarded the savings, they are now worth much less.
Mutual taunts
Thus began an unprecedented process marathon, which ended only eight judgments and twelve years later by comparison. Especially at the beginning, both sides tried energetically to discredit each other. Thus, the HEV presented the KdF car program as politically unencumbered, the savers as hard-working “little people” who were cheated out of their hard-earned money. And of a bad opponent: Pride designated VW – in the most beautiful Nazi diction – as a representative of the “power of capital,” whose “dictates” you will resist instead bow, to the “final victory”.
VW backtracked and described the HEV members as selfish old Nazis with unfounded claims, and that at the expense of the recovering German economy. In contrast, the company praised the “decent” VW savers – namely, those who demanded nothing. For a compensation would endanger the company and thus thousands of jobs. Then as now a powerful argument.
The political polemic ended when both parties realized that allusions to the role of the other in the “Third Reich” did not suit them. But the legal issues proved highly intricate. The courts contradicted each other from case to case.
The LG Hildesheim rejected the lawsuit. Pride could not be dispelled and appealed. At the Higher Regional Court Celle VW claimed to have never received the accumulated funds. When balance sheets showed the opposite, the group’s attorneys claimed that these funds had been shown only as a slip.
“I will not let go”
In addition, they claimed that the Beetle – now on the market – differs significantly from the technical “KdF car”; the further development had increased the production costs in such a way that even a discounted purchase for the plaintiffs would drive VW into ruin. However, the company remained guilty of the proof and refused to allow a court-appointed appraiser access to the bookkeeping.
Nevertheless, VW also won in this round. The decisive factor for the Celle judges was the overall economic damage to be feared in fulfilling any claims.
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Now the HEV moved to Karlsruhe. There it went for VW less well, the Federal Supreme Court largely followed the plaintiff’s arguments and dismissed the case back. The OLG Celle should clarify three things: whether the VW plant had been contractual partner; how many savers still exist; whether one can settle the dispute by discounts on the purchase price.
A stage win for the Sparer Club. The case landed in Karlsruhe three times before it was finally agreed. Here, VW had already offered a comparison in 1954 for the first time: For each complete set of Sparkarten the new car buyer should get a discount of 500 DM, alternatively 250 DM compensation. No generous offer and far less than the savers had in mind. Pride refused. “You can do it the way you want,” he said. “I will not let go.”
The deal could have been earlier
So the mills of the justice continued to grind. Until 1961. At the end came out a comparison, which resembled the offer of 1954 amazingly. Now there was a discount of a maximum of 600 DM on the purchase, the maximum cash compensation was 100 DM. In addition, VW undertook to provide monthly 1000 cars for the KdF savers, and also took over the bulk of the HEV court costs.
With the deal both sides could live well. Stolz and his club could claim for themselves, one Industrial icon of the Wirtschaftswunderzeit to have stood up and to have achieved that the savers did not go completely empty. 135,000 of them ultimately took advantage of the offer – and thus fare better than many other Reichsmark creditors.
The carmaker, who was transformed into a stock corporation in 1961, and had to pay attention to shareholder value from then on, was quite satisfied. His damage was limited. Chief Heinz Nordhoff had foreseeably amassed provisions of DM 242 million; In 1961 alone, the long-powerful group made 72 million DM profit. Now VW also got access to the DAF account with the prewar contributions of the small saver.
And finally: anyone who demanded a discount of a maximum of 600 DM had to buy a beetle, which cost around 4000 DM at that time. The comparison therefore had the potential to increase sales for VW. That’s what carmakers like it.