Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff German engineer who ran the Volkswagen company Date of Birth: 06.01.1899 Country: Germany

Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff: A Biography

Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff was a German engineer who led the Volkswagen company during its reconstruction after World War II. Born on January 6, 1899, in Hildesheim, Nordhoff attended a technical college in Berlin, where he became a member of the Roman Catholic fraternity 'Askania-Burgundia.' In 1927, he began working on aircraft engines at BMW, and in 1929, he joined Opel, quickly advancing in his career.

In 1936, Nordhoff became the commercial and technical director at Opel, where he introduced the company's latest development, the small car "Kadett." In 1942, when the production of passenger cars significantly decreased due to the war, Nordhoff took on the position of production director at the main Brandenburg factory, which produced trucks.

After the war, Nordhoff found employment as a service manager in one of Hamburg's garages. Hamburg was the main location of the British Military Government, which hired Nordhoff as the managing director of the heavily damaged Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. He began his work on January 2, 1948, succeeding Major Ivan Hirst of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME).

During his first year as director, Nordhoff managed to increase production to 19,244 cars. By the end of 1961, annual production exceeded one million vehicles. Nordhoff became a legend thanks to the Volkswagen Beetle, which revolutionized the global automotive market. He was the first to propose the idea of continuous improvement, keeping the car's style unchanged while enhancing its foundation.

Additionally, Nordhoff increased the wages of Volkswagen employees and offered generous pension benefits. In his first six years of leading the factory in Wolfsburg, he reduced the number of man-hours required to produce one car from 400 to 100, a 75% decrease. The Volkswagen Beetle still boasts its reliability due to Nordhoff's assembly line improvements.

While no one doubts Nordhoff's ability to sell cars, some observers, including analyst Maryann Keller, question whether it was necessary and wise to focus on expanding production of an established car rather than developing new models. By the late 1960s, the Beetle faced serious competition from Japanese, American, and other European models in various markets. Nevertheless, it remained a beloved car among enthusiasts worldwide.

In 1967, Nordhoff announced that he would retire at the end of the following year and introduced Dr. Kurt Lotz as his successor. He suffered a heart attack during the summer but returned to work in October. Nordhoff passed away on April 12, 1968, in Wolfsburg at the age of 69.