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Heinrich Nordhoff
Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff (6 January 1899 – 12 April 1968) was a German engineer who led the rebuilding of Volkswagen (VW) after World War II. He was featured on the cover of ''Time'' magazine on Feb. 15, 1954. In 1948, Nordhoff accepted a British invitation to assume the directorship of VW, which had been revived as a functioning concern by the British under the direction of Ivan Hirst. Nordhoff subsequently guided the company to become the fourth largest automotive company at the time of his death in 1968. Background Nordhoff was born in Hildesheim, the son of a banker. He graduated from the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg, where he became a member of the Roman Catholic fraternity Askania-Burgundia. Nordhoff died on April 12, 1968, from the effects of a heart attack sustained months earlier. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte (Fassunge) Nordhoff (1898-1988) and daughters Elisabeth (later Mrs. Ernst Piech, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche) and Barbara Nordhoff (Mrs. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; or ; ) is a city in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim (district), Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the Leine River. The Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious founded the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815 and created the first settlement with a chapel on the so-called ''Domhügel''. Hildesheim is situated on the north–south Bundesautobahn 7, Autobahn 7, and hence is connected with Hamburg in the north and Austria in the south. With the Hildesheim Cathedral and the St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim, St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. In 2015 the city and the diocese celebrated their 1200th anniversary. History Early years According to tradition, the city was named after its founder ''Hildwin''. The city is one of the oldest cities in Northern Germany, became the seat of the Bishopric of Hildes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Automotive Industry
The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industry (economics), industries by revenue (from 16% such as in France up to 40% in countries such as Slovakia). The word ''automotive'' comes from the Greek language, Greek ''autos'' (self), and Latin ''motivus'' (of motion), referring to any form of self-powered vehicle. This term, as proposed by Elmer Ambrose Sperry, Elmer Sperry (1860–1930), first came into use to describe automobiles in 1898. History The automotive industry began in the 1860s with hundreds of manufacturers pioneering the Brass Era car, horseless carriage. Early car manufacturing involved manual assembly by a human worker. The process evolved from engineers working on a stationary car to a conveyor belt system where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of presidents of Germany#Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present), President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss, on 7 September 1951. Colloquially, the decorations of the different classes of the Order are also known as the Federal Cross of Merit (). It has been awarded to over 262,000 individuals in total, both Germans and foreigners. Since the 1990s, the number of annual awards has declined from over 4,000, first to around 2,500, then from 2015 to under 1,500, with a low of 918 awards in 2022. Since 2013, women have made up a steady 30–35% of recipients. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially the Volkswagen Type 1, is a small family car produced by the German company Volkswagen from 1938 to 2003. One of the most iconic cars in automotive history, the Beetle is noted for its distinctive shape. Its production period of 65 years is the longest of any single generation of automobile, and its total production of over 21.5 million is the most of any car of a single car platform, platform. The Beetle was conceived in the early 1930s. The leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, decided there was a need for a ''people's car''—an inexpensive, simple, mass-produced car—to serve Germany's new road network, the ''Reichsautobahn''. The German engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his design team began developing and designing the car in the early 1930s, but the fundamental design concept can be attributed to Béla Barényi in 1925, predating Porsche's claims by almost ten years. The result was the Volkswagen Type 1 and the introduction of the Volkswage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Electrical And Mechanical Engineers
The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is the maintenance arm of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's professional engineers". History Prior to REME's formation, maintenance was the responsibility of several different corps: * Royal Army Ordnance Corps—weapons and armoured vehicles * Royal Engineers—engineering plant and machinery, and RE motor transport * Royal Corps of Signals—communications equipment * Royal Army Service Corps—other motor transport * Royal Artillery—heavy weapons artificers During World War II, the increase in quantity and complexity of equipment exposed the flaws in this system. Pursuant to the recommendation of a Committee on Skilled Men in the Services chaired by William Beveridge, the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was formed on 1 October 1942. Phase I Such a major re-organisation was too complex to be carried out quickly an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Managing Director
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in various organizations, including public and private corporations, Nonprofit organization, nonprofit organizations, and even some government organizations (notably state-owned enterprises). The governor and CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the business, which may include maximizing the profitability, market share, revenue, or another financial metric. In the nonprofit and government sector, CEOs typically aim at achieving outcomes related to the organization's mission, usually provided by legislation. CEOs are also frequently assigned the role of the main manager of the organization and the highest-ranking officer in the C-suite. Origins The term "chief executi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allied-occupied Germany
The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II, from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unlike occupied Japan, Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and its government was entirely dissolved. After Germany formally surrendered on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC). Germany after the war was a devastated country – roughly 80 percent of its infrastructure was in need of repair or reconstruction – which helped the idea that Germany was entering a new phase of history (" zero hour"). At first, Allied-occupied Germany was defined as all territories of Germany before the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria. The Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945 defined the new eastern German border by giving Poland and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-largest in the European Union with a population of over 1.9 million. The Hamburg Metropolitan Region has a population of over 5.1 million and is the List of EU metropolitan areas by GDP, eighth-largest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. At the southern tip of the Jutland Peninsula, Hamburg stands on the branching River Elbe at the head of a estuary to the North Sea, on the mouth of the Alster and Bille (Elbe), Bille. Hamburg is one of Germany's three city-states alongside Berlin and Bremen (state), Bremen, and is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south. The Port of Hamburg is Germany's largest and Europe's List of busiest ports in Europe, third-largest, after Port of Rotterdam, Rotterda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Office Of Military Government, United States
The Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS; ) was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in Allied-occupied Germany, occupied Germany in World War II. Under General Lucius D. Clay, it administered the area of Germany and sector of Berlin controlled by the United States Army. The Allied Control Council comprised military authorities from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and France. Though created on January 1, 1946, OMGUS previously reported to the U.S. Group Control Council, Germany (USGCC), which existed from May 8, 1945, until October 1, 1945. OMGUS was eliminated on December 5, 1949, and the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany assumed control of its functions. The Restitution and Reparations Branch of OMGUS located and returned material to countries from which claimed property had been looted by the Nazis during World War II. OMGUS in 1945 began its own newspaper based in Munich, ''Die N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brandenburg An Der Havel
Brandenburg an der Havel (; ) is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, which served as the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg until it was replaced by Berlin in 1417. With a population of 72,040 (as of 2020), it is located on the banks of the Havel, River Havel. The town of Brandenburg provided the name for the medieval Prince-Bishopric of Brandenburg, Bishopric of Brandenburg, the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the current state of Brandenburg. Today, it is a small town compared to nearby Berlin but was the original nucleus of the former realms of Brandenburg and Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia. History Middle Ages The name of the city is a combination of two words ''braniti'' – to protect/defend and ''bor'' – forest/wood. Brenna, which had been a fort of the West Slavs, West Slavic tribe Stodoranie, was conquered in 929 after the Battle of Lenzen by the German King Henry the Fowler of Saxony. It was at this time first mentioned in documents as ''Brennaburg''. By the death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opelwerk Brandenburg
The Opelwerk Brandenburg was a truck vehicle assembly plant, located in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany. Built within seven months, it was opened by Adam Opel AG in November 1935 on the re-armament initiative of the Nazi government in order to ensure supplies of Opel Blitz trucks for the Wehrmacht armed forces. By 1944 more than 130,000 medium-weight trucks had been produced at the Brandenburg plant. Devastated by an Allied air raid on 6 August 1944, the facilities were dismantled and shipped east as reparations to the Soviet Union after the war. History A press release early in 1935 stated that Adam Opel AG, backed by the Reich government, had decided to build a new plant at Brandenburg an der Havel because the existing Rüsselsheim headquarters was operating at full capacity. Opel, a subsidiary of General Motors (GM) since 1929, were an obvious candidate for the project, having pioneered mass production techniques in German passenger car production: by the late 1920s the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerd Stieler Von Heydekampf
Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf (5 January 1905 – 25 January 1983) was an engineer who became a leading figure in the Automotive industry in Germany, German automobile industry during the 1950s and 1960s. He joined NSU Motorenwerke, NSU in 1948, becoming the company's chairman in 1953. Following the takeover of the company by Volkswagen, he stayed on as chairman of the new conglomerate's Audi#New Auto Union unit, Audi-NSU division till 31 March 1971 when he retired following a heart attack. Life Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf was born into an old Prussian aristocratic-military family in Berlin during the economically dynamic first decade of the twentieth century. His father died in 1907. Between 1923 and 1927 he studied Mechanical engineering at the Braunschweig University of Technology, emerging with an engineering doctorate in 1929. He then spent several years working in the United States. Here he worked first for Babcock & Wilcox and then with Baldwin Locomotive Works. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
