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Duration 01:00:44

Cars and democracy: British trusteeship of Volkswagen 1945 to 1949

This talk gives an overview of British policy and the decisions relating to the Volkswagenwerk GmbH, and today’s Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. Production was set up in December 1945, against all obstacles, along with a dealers and service organisation. They began to export in 1947, while undertaking the efforts of denazification and bringing democracy by holding elections for the Workers` Council in October 1946. This talk covers the important decisions which put the company on the path to success by providing it with an excellent start into the so-called economic miracle.

Dr Ulrike Gutzmann is responsible for the Corporate Archives of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft which is part of the Volkswagen Corporate History Department. She holds a degree as a teacher, a doctorate from Kiel University, and trained as an Archivist at Greifswald and Marburg.

Dr Gutzmann started her career at Stuttgart Hauptstaatsarchiv in 1999 and joined Volkswagen in 2000 to build up a professional Company Archive. Since 2003 she has been running a workshop within the Vereinigung deutscher Wirtschaftsarchivare e.V. (Association of German Business Archivists) dealing with questions of electronic archiving. She has been one of the two representatives of Business Archivists in the Association of German Archivists since 2005.