Ivan Hirst

Ivan Hirst ( born March 4, 1916 in Saddleworth, England; † March 10, 2000 in Marsden, England ) was a British officer (Major) and Engineer of the REME ( Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers ).

Biography

After the end of World War II the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg went in Wolfsburg, before "City of the KdF Car " in the trusteeship of the British military government, which was planning to dismantle the Volkswagen factory. Hirst was sent in the fall of 1945 as a Senior Resident Officer of the British military government to Wolfsburg, where he was a member of the Control Commission of the work. These summoned, among others, by the British Colonel Marsh as representative of the Property Control of the British military government, Hermann Münch to the main trustee and the first Director General of the Volkswagen factory. After the dismissal Rudolf Brörmanns as a production manager in 1946, Hirst was responsible for the establishment of Herrmann Steinmeier as his successor.

Hirst campaigned for the preservation of the Volkswagen plant by helping beginning the work to secure orders from the British government. The disassembly plans have been postponed several times and the future of the plant was finally secured. Hirst pursued the expansion of the factory, eliminating in particular supply and transport bottlenecks to improve the production conditions. He was responsible for the beginning of the Volkswagen exports. On the recommendation of Hirst Heinrich Nordhoff was appointed on 1 January 1948 to the Director General of the Volkswagen factory. Ivan Hirst left the Volkswagen factory in August 1949. The official handover of the trusteeship of the Volkswagen plant to the federal government was on October 8, 1949.

By 1955, Hirst still remained with the British Army before joining the OECD in Paris in 1955. From 1976 he lived in Manchester in retirement.