Carl Hahn
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Carl Horst Hahn (born 1 July 1926) is a German businessman and former head of the
Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...
from 1982 to 1993. He served as the chairman of the board of management of the
parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
, Volkswagen AG (formerly Volkswagenwerk AG). During his tenure, the group's car production increased from two million units in 1982 to 3.5 million a decade later.


Early life and education

Hahn was born in the German state of
Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
and raised near
Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...
. His father had been a senior manager of the German car and motorcycle company
DKW DKW (''Dampf-Kraft-Wagen'', en, "steam-powered car", also ''Deutsche Kinder-Wagen'' en, "German children's car". ''Das-Kleine-Wunder'', en, "the little wonder" or ''Des-Knaben-Wunsch'', en, "the boy's wish"- from when the company built to ...
and was a co-founder of the
Auto Union Auto Union AG, was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today. As well as acting as an umbrella firm f ...
in 1932, which later evolved into the
Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. Th ...
car brand. As a college student, he studied business administration at the
University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...
and the
University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
, economics and politics in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
and
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. In 1952, Hahn received his doctorate in Economics at the
University of Berne The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It is a comp ...
in
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. He went to Perugia for a year to study art history, intending to volunteer at Fiat.Carl H. Hahn
Carl und Marisa Hahn-Stiftung, n.d. retrieved 25 July 2017


Career

Before joining Volkswagen, he worked as an
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
at the OECD in Paris in the European Productivity Agency. In 1953 Hahn joined VW as an assistant of chairman
Heinrich Nordhoff Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff (6 January 1899 – 12 April 1968) was a German engineer who led the Volkswagen company as it was rebuilt after World War II. Life and career Nordhoff was born in Hildesheim, the son of a banker. He graduated from the Tech ...
, and quickly became head of sales promotion in VW's export department. Hahn was a favorite of Nordhoff's.


Volkswagen of America, 1959–1965

In 1959, Nordhoff made him president of the company's U.S. subsidiary,
Volkswagen of America Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (sometimes referred to as Volkswagen of America, abbreviated to VWoA), is the North American operational headquarters, and subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group of automobile companies of Germany. VWoA is responsi ...
.Under Hahn's leadership, Volkswagen of America began a national advertising campaign to attract more attention to its quirky Beetle sedan and Microbus wagon. Hahn soon hired the
Doyle Dane Bernbach DDB Worldwide Communications Group LLC, known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies. The international advertising networks ...
ad agency, which created some of the most memorable car ads in history. Its print and television ads for the Volkswagen brand respected the customer's intelligence, gave detailed information about Volkswagen's products, and made fun of the unorthodox qualities of the cars. The ads became cultural icons as much as the cars did, and Volkswagen enjoyed phenomenal sales in the U.S. in the 1960s and early 1970s. Hahn became a beloved figure in the United States before his return to Germany in 1965, having been affectionately nicknamed "Mr. Volkswagen" by VW enthusiasts. While stationed in America, Hahn married Marisa Lea Traina (whose brother later married romance novelist
Danielle Steel Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel (born August 14, 1947) is an American writer, best known for her romance novels. She is the bestselling author alive and the fourth-bestselling fiction author of all time, with over 800 million ...
); their four children were all born in the U.S.


Chairman of Volkswagen AG,1982–1993

In 1973, Hahn left VW and returned to Hannover, Germany to lead the German tire company
Continental AG Continental AG, commonly known as Continental or colloquially as Conti, is a German multinational automotive parts manufacturing company specializing in tires, brake systems, interior electronics, automotive safety, powertrain and chassis compo ...
. In 1982, he returned to become chairman of Volkswagenwerk AG. Under his leadership, Volkswagen entered a cooperation agreement with the Spanish car brand
SEAT A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair (furniture), ...
in 1982, bought a majority interest in 1986, and by 1990 owned the entire company. In 1985, Hahn was able to push VW's earnings up 140 percent to $225 million based on sales of more than $21 billion, and he was credited for pushing VW beyond the one-car strategy left over from the era of air-cooled Beetles and the early success of the
Volkswagen Golf Mk1 The Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is the first generation of a small family car manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen. It was noteworthy for signalling Volkswagen's shift of its major car lines from rear-wheel drive and rear-mounted air-cooled engines t ...
in the 1970s. The second-generation edition, introduced in Europe in 1983 and in North America in 1984, was one of the bestselling cars of the 1980s worldwide. Two out of every three Volkswagen vehicles sold in 1985 were Golfs, and 97,128 second-generation Golfs were produced at Volkswagen's
Volkswagen Westmoreland Assembly Plant Volkswagen Westmoreland Assembly was a manufacturing complex located southeast of Pittsburgh in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, near New Stanton — and noted for manufacturing 1.15 million Volkswagens from 1978 until 1987. When VWoA beg ...
in Pennsylvania that year. Despite Hahn's earlier success in leading Volkswagen of America, VW sales in the United States dropped during his tenure as VW chairman, from 171,281 units in 1982 to 75,873 in 1992, largely to due intense competition from American and Japanese carmakers. Soon after Hahn became chairman of VW, he tested an American Volkswagen Rabbit built at the Westmoreland plant, which had opened in 1978, and he was deeply disappointed in how the Rabbit had been changed. The car had been re-engineered to drive like an American family sedan, with softer suspension and shock absorbers. "When I drove the American Rabbit, it felt like a Chevrolet," he complained. "If you want a Chevrolet, you should go to General Motors." Hahn fired Volkswagen of America president
James McLernon James Wright McLernon (August 7, 1927 – March 21, 2020) was an automobile company executive who worked for Chevrolet while at General Motors as an engineer. Born in Kenmore, New York, he became the first president in 1976 of manufacturing at V ...
, a former Chevrolet engineer who had been tapped by VW to get the Westmoreland plant up and running. Hahn brought in new management and kept the Westmoreland factory open to produce the second-generation Golf as a hedge against currency fluctuation between the German mark (DM) and the U.S. dollar, but inefficient production and soft sales in North America caused VW to close the plant in 1988. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991 Volkswagen entered a joint venture with the Czech company
Škoda Auto Škoda Auto a.s. (), often shortened to Škoda, is a Czech automobile manufacturer established in 1925 as the successor to Laurin & Klement and headquartered in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Škoda Works became state owned in 1948. After 199 ...
. Hahn's acquisitions made Volkswagen a global force, and affirmed its place as Europe's largest automaker. Hahn also cleaned up VW's business practices, dealing with a case of
foreign exchange fraud Foreign exchange fraud is any trading scheme used to defraud traders by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the foreign exchange market. Currency trading became a common form of fraud in early 2008, according to ...
, but its $300 million cost to Volkswagen ate into the very profits Hahn had helped the company make.


Legacy

Although Hahn was applauded for making the
Volkswagen Golf The Volkswagen Golf () is a compact car/small family car (C-segment) produced by the German automotive manufacturer Volkswagen since 1974, marketed worldwide across eight generations, in various body configurations and under various nameplates ...
the most popular car in Europe, and expanding the company through the SEAT and Škoda acquisitions, Volkswagen was in financial trouble by the end of his tenure as chairman, having lost 770 million marks in the eighties surge of the European car market, maintaining a low after-tax profit margin of 2.8 percent. Pre-tax profits went from three billion marks in 1989 to 1.785 billion marks just three years later. Hahn could not keep manufacturing and development costs under control. He was replaced as Volkswagen CEO by
Ferdinand Piëch Ferdinand Karl Piëch (; 17 April 1937 – 25 August 2019) was an Austrian business magnate, engineer and executive who was the chairman of the executive board (''Vorstandsvorsitzender'') of Volkswagen Group in 1993–2002 and the chairman of th ...
in 1993. Former Volkswagen of America president Bill Young, in an interview with journalist David Kiley, explained Hahn's record as chairman of VW: "Dr. Hahn had a lot on his plate in the 1980s, and W wasan organization that he was not suited or equipped to turn upside down the way Piech did." Automotive journalist David E. Davis offered a mixed review: "Hahn is a terrific man, and he did a lot of good things for Volkswagen, but he obviously lost interest in the American market by the time he came back in the 1980s based on the lack of attention the American division got."


References


Further reading

*Hiott, Andrea, ''Thinking Small: The Long Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle'', 2013. *Keller, Marryann, ''Collision: GM, Toyota, Volkswagen and the Battle To Own the 21st Century'', 1993. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hahn, Carl 1926 births Living people Volkswagen Group executives Businesspeople from Saxony People in the automobile industry Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony