Prof. Dr. Carl H. Hahn died on Sunday night at the age of 96 in his home in Wolfsburg. As Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG and a member of the supervisory boards of numerous national and international companies, Carl Hahn was an important European entrepreneur. He was formative for the Volkswagen Group and its suppliers. This is how this company remembers him today:
Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen AG, paid tribute to the deceased: “Carl Hahn was a visionary and a great personality. For four decades he set the course at Volkswagen – and created the basis for today’s company success. In the USA, the VW Beetle became an icon. As Chief Sales Officer, he was instrumental in founding the premium brand Audi. And in a figurative sense he became one of the fathers of the Golf generation.
As Chairman of the Board of Management, he developed Volkswagen into an international multi-brand group and, above all, demonstrated strategic vision with his involvement in China. After German reunification, Saxony became a future location under his aegis. Volkswagen AG and Wolfsburg owe Carl Hahn a great debt of gratitude and mourn with his family. Carl Hahn was, is and will remain an integral part of the Volkswagen family.”
Carl Horst Hahn was born on July 1, 1926 in Chemnitz into a Catholic family of industrialists. His father was instrumental in the rise of DKW to become the largest motorcycle factory in the world and was one of the co-founders of Auto Union in 1932. Hahn survived World War II unharmed as a private. He studied economics in Germany, Switzerland and England and political science in France. In 1952 he received his doctorate in Bern.
At the end of 1954, at the age of 28, Carl Hahn joined what was then Volkswagenwerk GmbH and became assistant to the general manager Heinrich Nordhoff. Hahn sent him to the USA in 1959 to set up Volkswagen of America there. By setting up an exemplary sales organization and with the help of a revolutionary concept, he succeeded in increasing sales of the VW Beetle on the US market to more than 650,000 vehicles.
In 1964, at the age of 38, Hahn’s success in the US led him to the Volkswagen Board of Management in Wolfsburg, where he was responsible for global sales. In the same year, Auto Union was purchased from Daimler-Benz. Hahn pushed through a two-brand strategy in the group with vigor and against the greatest resistance: In 1967, the DKW Auto Union became the Audi brand, with its own product range and independent sales organization.
His career path brought him to Continental for a few years as CEO in 1972 before he returned to Wolfsburg in 1982 to take over as CEO of Volkswagen AG.
Shortly after taking office, the company entered into an exclusive cooperation with the Spanish manufacturer Seat. The resulting relocation of Polo and Passat production to Spain made it possible to increase Golf production in Wolfsburg and paved the way for the Volkswagen Group to return to profitability and pole position in Europe.
When Volkswagen bought Seat in 1986, the group acquired a new, profitable brand. Only a few years later, Hahn succeeded in bringing the Czech brand Skoda into the group and thus taking over the market leadership with the Volkswagen group after the collapse of communism in the markets of Central Europe.
During his time at Volkswagen, the convinced European Hahn always pursued a consistent globalization strategy. The Chinese market, which he had on his agenda from the start as CEO, played a key role. Hahn recognized the potential ahead of all its competitors, and as early as 1983 Volkswagen began test assembly of the Santana in Shanghai. Just a year later, Volkswagen signed a joint venture with the Chinese government and the foundation stone for an automobile factory in Shanghai was laid. A second joint venture followed in 1991 with FAW in Changchun, which positioned Audi in the Chinese premium market.
Saxony had a special place in the heart of the native of Chemnitz. Ever since he was a child, Carl Hahn had been familiar with the region’s automotive tradition and believed in the opportunities it offered. After the Wall came down, he was one of the first to invest in the location by bringing Volkswagen to Zwickau. Today, the plant in Zwickau has become a flagship location for Volkswagen for the transition to e-mobility and, as the most efficient factory for electric cars in Europe, is an industrial beacon.
All in all, Hahn had a decisive influence on Volkswagen’s strategy over a period of four decades. At the end of 1992, he handed over his position as CEO to the then Audi boss Ferdinand Piëch († August 25, 2019) and switched to the company’s supervisory board, of which he was a member until June 1997. The European-influenced cosmopolitan Hahn remained active after his retirement: This included activities on numerous supervisory boards and the honorary chairmanship of the supervisory boards of Audi, Seat and Skoda.
In addition to his entrepreneurial successes, Carl Hahn’s cultural and socio-political commitment was wide-ranging. The Wolfsburg Art Museum and its private financing go back to Hahn’s initiative. He was a member of the Board of Trustees and Board of Directors of the Antonius Holling Foundation, the Ilsenburg Monastery Foundation, the Mayo Clinic Foundation in Germany and the Board of Trustees of the Volksbank BraWo Foundation. In 2006 he founded the Carl and Marisa Hahn Foundation with his wife, who died in 2013. In addition to supporting those in need, this is dedicated to pre-school education.