Ford-Werke GmbH is a German car manufacturer headquartered in
Niehl, Cologne,
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north ...
Rhine-Westphalia. It is a
subsidiary of
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
, which operates two large manufacturing facilities in Germany, a
plant in Cologne and a
plant in Saarlouis.
Berlin origins
The earliest presence of the Ford Motor Company in Germany was a parts operation set up in Hamburg in 1912.
At the end of 1924 the
US Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
established a sales office in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
which at the start of 1925 received a permit to import 1,000 tractors. In 1920 the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
had imposed a tariff so high that it amounted to a prohibition against importing foreign automobiles, but this was reversed in October 1925. The move had evidently been anticipated by Ford, since on 18 August 1925 the ''Ford Motor Company Aktiengesellschaft'' had been entered in the Berlin
Companies Register.
Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
*Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...
, p 411
During 1925 an assembly plant was constructed in a rented warehouse in the
Westhafen (western port) district of Berlin, which was well located for receiving deliveries of kits and components via the country's canal network. On 1 April 1926 the first German assembled
Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...
was produced, using imported parts.
The Berlin assembly operation produced 1,177 Model Ts in 1926 and a further 2,594 during 1927 which was the Model T's final year: in August 1927 Model T production in Berlin ended, and it was nearly a year before, on 20 August 1928, Ford auto-production in Berlin recommenced, now of the
Ford Model A.
Relocation to Cologne
![Ford B 1923](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Ford_B_1923.jpg)
In March 1929
General Motors purchased a controlling 80% holding in
Opel.
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
's reaction was a prompt decision to build a complete Ford auto-factory in Germany, and before the end of 1929 a site at
Cologne (Niehl) made available by the mayor of the city,
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Dem ...
was acquired by Ford. The 170,000 m
2 site was originally intended to support an annual production of 250,000 cars, suggesting a continuation of the spirit of boundless economic optimism that seized western industry in the months preceding the
1929 Wall Street crash. Locating the plant directly beside the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
ensured that, as with Ford's other principal European manufacturing locations in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Dagenham and Berlin, excellent access existed to the water transport network. On 2 October 1930 Henry Ford, then age 67, together with Adenauer, age 55, laid the foundation stone for the Cologne Ford Plant: construction, which cost 12 Million
Marks
Marks may refer to:
Business
* Mark's, a Canadian retail chain
* Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain
* Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members
* Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel ...
, progressed rapidly. The assembly operation in Berlin came to an end on 15 April 1931, and on 4 May 1931 the first Cologne produced Ford rolled off the production line. The first vehicle produced was a
Ford Model A based truck which, whether by coincidence or by design would also be the first vehicle produced by
Ford's new plant at
Dagenham, England in October 1931. From that time an increasing proportion of the Ford vehicles sold in Germany were also made in Germany rather than being imported. The Model A was joined at Cologne in 1932 by the
Model B.
Small car manufacture started in 1933 with the
Ford Köln
The Ford Köln is an automobile that was produced by Ford Germany from 1933 until 1936 at its Cologne plant.
Origins
The English Ford company had developed the car and introduced it in 1932 as the Ford Model Y. The German-built version, ren ...
, a year after its British launch as the
Model Y. With 2,453 produced in 1933 alone, the Köln propelled Ford to eighth place in the German passenger car sales charts for that year,
Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
*Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...
, pp 112 & 531 but it did not have the same impact in Germany as it did in Britain, and was undercut in price by the
small Opel.
The
Ford Rheinland was a unique model for the German market made by fitting a four-cylinder 3285 cc engine into a Model B V-8 chassis but most products continued to be Detroit designs albeit with local names.
The
Eifel was the German version of the 10 hp which was sold in Britain as the
Model C. 61,495 Eifels were produced by Ford Germany between 1935 and 1940, which was well over half of all the German Ford produced in the period, enabling Ford's German sales to overtake those of
Adler in 1938, making Ford Germany's fourth largest automaker, behind
Opel,
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...
and
DKW.
The Eifel was joined in 1939 by
the first of the long running
Taunus
The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is '' Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and '' Altkönig'' (798 m).
The Taunus range span ...
range.
''Ford-Werke'' AG later ''Ford-Werke'' GmbH
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-305-0652-04, Italien, Luftwaffen-LKW bei Fahrt über Brücke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-305-0652-04%2C_Italien%2C_Luftwaffen-LKW_bei_Fahrt_%C3%BCber_Br%C3%BCcke.jpg)
The company was re-organised in 1939 and changed its name to ''Ford-Werke''.
With the outbreak of the War, car production continued at first with the
Taunus
The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is '' Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and '' Altkönig'' (798 m).
The Taunus range span ...
being made until 1942 but increasingly military production took over. ''Ford-Werke'' built both conventional trucks and
Maultier
Maultier (English: "mule") or Sd.Kfz. 3 is the name given to series of half-track trucks used by Germany during World War II. They were based on Opel, Mercedes-Benz, Alfa-Romeo or Ford trucks.
History
Soon after invading the USSR, German troo ...
half-tracks for the German armed forces. Most notably, ''Ford-Werke'' manufactured the turbines used in the
V-2 rocket
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develop ...
s.
[Wallace, Max. (2003). ''The American axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the rise of the Third Reich''. New York: St. Martin’s Press.] In spite of the heavy
bombing of Cologne, the factory got off relatively lightly and after the war production was able to restart in May 1945 with truck manufacture, the US government having paid $1.1 million in consideration of bombing damage.
Car making restarted in late 1948 with the Taunus.
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), sometimes known as "Hank the Deuce", was an American businessman in the automotive industry. He was the oldest son of Edsel Ford I and oldest grandson of Henry Ford I. He was president ...
visited the factory in 1948 during his visit to Germany when he was considering a purchase of
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...
, with which he did not ultimately proceed.
In 1952 a
new Taunus appeared and this had much in common with the British Ford products and was a great success enabling record production figures to be reached. The company was now being run by Ehrhart Vitger and he spent time recruiting new dealers to replace those lost in East Germany but the company continued to rank third in sales in Germany behind VW and Opel.
Ford began to integrate the operations of its European subsidiaries in the 1960s with the launch of the 1965
Ford Transit panel van, which was a joint development between Ford of Britain and ''Ford-Werke'', however it was the
Ford Escort in 1968 that truly marked the end of unique models in European countries and followed the creation of
Ford Europe
Ford of Europe GmbH is a subsidiary company of Ford Motor Company founded in 1967 in Cork, Ireland, with headquarters in Cologne, Germany.
History
Ford of Europe was founded in 1967 by the merger of Ford of Britain, Ford Germany, and Irish Hen ...
in 1967 from the assets of the British and German operations but the corporate entities continue.
General Motors would later follow Ford's lead in the 1970s by integrating its Opel and
Vauxhall
Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...
subsidiaries into
GM Europe
General Motors Europe (often abbreviated to GM Europe) was the European subsidiary of the American automaker General Motors ("GM"). The subsidiary was established by GM in 1986 and operated 14 production and assembly facilities in 9 countries, a ...
.
Use of forced labor during World War II
During the Second World War, ''Ford Werke'' employed slave laborers although not required by the Nazi regime. The deployment of slave labor began before the ''Ford-Werke'' was separated from the Ford Motor Company in
Dearborn, Michigan, while America had not yet entered the war.
Robert Hans Schmidt presided over ''Ford-Werke'' during the Second World War, and engaged slave labor and the illegal manufacture of munitions, including such manufacturing during the period before the U.S. entry into the War. Once the War was over, "notwithstanding all his carefully publicized efforts to erase the stain of the company's past, no evidence emerged that either Henry Ford II or any other top-level Ford Motor Company executive ever raised any moral objects to rehiring
chmidt who had presided over one of the company's darkest chapters. However, a three-year study which was published by the Ford Motor Company in December 2001 maintained that the U.S. headquarters had no control over what happened at the German ''Ford-Werke'' when the Nazi forced labour policy went into effect.
It was also maintained that the German subsidiary did not provide profit for the U.S. headquarters.
John Rintamaki, Ford´s chief of staff, would acknowledge that ''Ford-Werke'' used forced labour, stating that "The use of forced and slave labor in Germany, including at Ford-Werke, was wrong and cannot be justified."
In 1942, German soldiers swept into the city of
Rostov
Rostov ( rus, Росто́в, p=rɐˈstof) is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:
While ...
in the Soviet Union, moving among the homes of Rostov families, forcing them to register at a labor registration center.
Elsa Iwanowa, who was 16 years old at the time, and many other Russians were transported in cattle cars to
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...
in the western part of Germany, where they were exhibited to visiting businessmen. From there Elsa Iwanowa and others were forced to become slave laborers for ''Ford-Werke''. "On March 4, 1998, fifty-three years after she was liberated from the German Ford plant, Elsa Iwanowa demanded justice, filing a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ford Motor Company." In court, Ford acknowledged that Elsa Iwanowa and many others like her were "forced to endure a sad and terrible experience" at ''Ford-Werke''; Ford, however, maintained that cases like that of Elsa Iwanowa are best redressed on "a nation-to-nation, government-to-government" basis.
By November 1998, compensation lawsuits were filed against Ford and GM put both the German subsidiaries of both companies under heavy scrutiny for their roles in aiding Nazi forced labor at their production lines in territory controlled by Nazi Germany during World War II. In 1999, the court dismissed Elsa Iwanowa's suit; however, a number of German companies, including GM subsidiary Opel, agreed to contribute $5.1 billion to a fund that would compensate the surviving slave laborers.
After being the subject of much adverse publicity, Ford, in March 2000, reversed direction, and agreed to contribute $13 million to the industry-government restitution fund for an estimated 1.2 million survivors of Nazi forced labor during World War II.
Ford Motor Co. AG
Until 27 January 1950 all Ford's European operations other than in the USSR were run from Dagenham and owned by
Ford Motor Company Limited
Ford of Britain (officially Ford Motor Company Limited)The Ford 'companies' or corporate entities referred to in this article are:
* Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Michigan, USA, incorporated 16 June 1903
* Ford Motor Company Limited, incorporat ...
,
Dearborn's 55% owned subsidiary. In Ford Motor Company Limited's published reports to their British shareholders Germany and the other Ford European interests were referred to as 'the associated companies'. These associate companies had been established in order to allow for substantial holdings by local shareholders.
[
The company (Ford Motor Company Limited of Dagenham) has been formed to acquire and carry on as a going concern the business of motor vehicle manufacturers of:
* Ford Motor Company (England) Limited, Manchester
* Henry Ford and Son Limited, Cork
]
It will also acquire through holding their share capitals:
* Automobiles Ford S.A., Paris
* Ford Motor Company A/S, Copenhagen
* Ford Motor Company S.A.E., Barcelona
* Ford Motor Company of Belgium S.A., Antwerp
* Ford Motor Company d'Italia S.A., Trieste
* N.V. Ford Motor Company of Holland, Rotterdam
* Ford Motor Company A.B., Stockholm
* Ford Motor Company A.G., Berlin
* Ford Motor Company of Finland O/Y, Helsingfors
The new company will offer 40% of the share capital of all the Continental companies to the public in their respective countries.
The Company will also acquire the sole and exclusive rights . . . Ford products in the following parts of the world:
* United Kingdom and Ireland the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
* The continent of Europe (excluding USSR)
* Asia Minor, Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, Egypt and certain other parts of Africa
and the benefit of all the patents inventions, drawings, designs . . . . . owned by the Ford Motor Company of America and Mr Henry Ford
On the outbreak of the second world war those shares in Ford Motor Company AG not belonging to German shareholders were placed under the control of the German Commissioner for dealing with enemy property.
Aston Martin Engine Plant
In October 2004, when
Aston Martin was a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford, the company set up a dedicated engine production plant within the Ford Niehl plant, with capacity to produce up to 5000 engines a year by 100 specially trained personnel. Like traditional Aston Martin engine production in
Newport Pagnell, assembly of each unit is entrusted to a single technician from a pool of 30, with V8 and V12 variants assembled in under 20 hours. By bringing engine production back to within the company, the promise was that Aston Martin would be able to produce small runs of higher performance variants engines.
Marketing
Slogans
Ford's corporate
tagline
In entertainment, a tagline (alternatively spelled tag line) is a short text which serves to clarify a thought for, or is designed with a form of, dramatic effect. Many tagline slogans are reiterated phrases associated with an individual, s ...
is ''
Eine Idee weiter.'', meaning “A step ahead” (literally, “An idea further”). This
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
tagline is used in German speaking countries in Europe.
Sales and market share in Germany
Models
Current model range
The following tables list Ford production vehicles that were sold in Germany in 2020:
Passenger cars
Light commercial vehicles
ST models
Ford produce high-performance derivatives of their cars developed by their
Ford Team RS
The Ford TeamRS was Ford Motor Company's European performance car and motorsport division for Ford Racing activity. The Ford RS badge was born for rally racing, the RS stands for Rallye Sport. TeamRS was the successor to Ford Special Vehicle Engi ...
division.
Former Ford Germany model range
This is a list of models produced by Ford Germany prior to the creation of Ford of Europe. Although the Taunus TC and MK3 Ford Cortina were related, the body work and engines were different.
*
Ford Model A
*
Ford Model B
*
Ford Rheinland
*
Ford Model Y
The Ford Model Y is an automobile that was produced by Ford Britain, Ford SAF and Ford Germany from 1932 to 1937. It was the first Ford automobile specifically designed for markets outside the United States, replacing the Model A in Europe.
Prod ...
*
Ford Köln
The Ford Köln is an automobile that was produced by Ford Germany from 1933 until 1936 at its Cologne plant.
Origins
The English Ford company had developed the car and introduced it in 1932 as the Ford Model Y. The German-built version, ren ...
*
Ford Eifel
The Ford Eifel is a car manufactured by Ford Germany between 1935 and 1940. It initially complemented, and then replaced, the Ford Köln. It was itself replaced by the Ford Taunus.
Between 1937 and 1939, it was also assembled in Hungary and D ...
*
Ford Taunus G93A "Buckeltaunus"
*
Ford Taunus P1
The Ford Taunus P1 is a small family car which was produced by Ford Germany from 1952 until 1962. It was marketed as the Ford Taunus 12M, and, between 1955 and 1959, as the larger-engined Ford Taunus 15M. The company produced a succession of Ford ...
*
Ford Taunus P2
*
Ford Taunus P3
The Ford Taunus 17 M is a middle sized family saloon/sedan that was produced by Ford Germany between September 1960 and August 1964. Oswald 1945 - 90 (vol 3), p 371 The Taunus 17M name had been applied to the car's predecessor and it would app ...
*
Ford Taunus P4
The Ford Taunus 12 M is a small family car that was produced by Ford Germany between September 1962 and August 1966.
The Taunus 12M name had been used for the car’s predecessor and it would apply also to subsequent Ford models which is why the ...
*
Ford Taunus P5
*
Ford Taunus P6
*
Ford P7
The Ford P7 is a range of large family saloons/sedans produced by Ford Germany between autumn 1967 and December 1971. The P7 was marketed as the Ford 17M, Ford 20M and Ford 26M.
At launch, the 17M was available with four different engine size ...
*
Ford Taunus TC
The Ford Taunus TC is a range of large family cars that were built by Ford Germany from 1970 until 1982. The Taunus TC was based on the same basic construction as the Ford UK's Cortina range, with the "TC" badge standing for Taunus Cortina.
Ta ...
Notes
See also
*
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
*
Ford of Europe
*
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
*
Ford of Britain
*
List of German cars
Current major manufacturers
Current minor manufacturers
* 9FF (2001–present)
* Aaglander (2003–present)
* AC Schnitzer (1987–present)
* Alpina (1965–present)
* Apollo Automobil (2016-present)
* Arden
* Artega (2016-present)
* ...
*
Merkur
Merkur (, '' Mercury'') is a defunct automobile brand that was marketed by the Lincoln- Mercury division of Ford Motor Company from 1985 to 1989. Drawing its name from the German word for Mercury, Merkur was targeted at buyers of European execut ...
References
*
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Car manufacturers of Germany
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1925
1925 establishments in Germany
German subsidiaries of foreign companies