The longtime CEO of Volkswagen AG, Carl Hahn, died on Saturday at the age of 96. This was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Hahn Foundation of the German Press Agency. Previously had the World reported on the death of the former manager. Hahn fell asleep peacefully at home in Wolfsburg.
The manager, who was born in Chemnitz on July 1, 1926, had laid the foundations for the global corporation during his time as VW boss. His tenure, which began in 1982, included the takeovers of Seat and Skoda and the company’s expansion into China.
He made the Beetle big in the US and brought VW to China
Hahn began his career at Volkswagen in 1954 as Head of Export Promotion. From 1959 to 1964 he headed the American division of VW and made the Beetle big in the USA. Back in Wolfsburg in 1965 he became a member of the board and head of sales for the group. After differences about the independence of Audi with the then VW boss Rudolf Leiding, there was a break: Hahn left the car company and took over the management of the then Continental-Gummi-Werke AG in Hanover in 1973.
Just as surprisingly as he left Wolfsburg, he returned in 1982 as VW CEO. The Chinese market was considered uninteresting by many managers at the time, but Hahn pushed the entry in the early 1980s. “Fortunately for us, hardly anyone was interested in going there at the time,” Hahn told the VW employee newspaper at the age of 92 Inside. There were plenty of critics of the decision, including politicians, but developments proved him right: China developed into the Group’s most important individual market – and Hahn turned Volkswagen into a global corporation.
The first Santana, the edgy 80s car that was once intended as a kind of noble Passat, brought no success in Germany, but did so in China from 1983 on. “With only 5,000 vehicles sold, we had a market share of 27 percent practically overnight in the first year,” Hahn recalled. The former VW boss refuted his critics from business and politics: “They all thought I was crazy.” A former head of a German company said in the presence of Chancellor Helmut Kohl that “the rooster” was sinking 100 million dollars with the communists.
There is still criticism of VW’s involvement in China today – especially because of the factory in the Uyghur region of Xinjiang. But there is no doubt about the country’s economic importance for the group. China is the most important market for Volkswagen. Carl Hahn was very pleased that at the beginning of 2019 the then CEO Herbert Diess declared the China business a top priority.
Prince Charles, Steffi Graf, Boris Yeltsin – he met them all
After entering China in 1982, Hahn took over Seat in 1986, in 1989 VW started business in the former GDR and in Eastern Europe and in 1991 the company took over the Czech car manufacturer Skoda. In 1992 Hahn handed over his office to Ferdinand Piëch, who later became known as the “VW Patriarch”. Hahn was a member of the VW supervisory board until 1997.
Even after leaving the VW Group, Hahn was in demand as an author and speaker. In Wolfsburg, which had become his home, Hahn sat on the board of trustees of the art museum that he helped initiate. There he had an office in which his numerous appointments, which he also had as a pensioner, were coordinated. A few photos in his study documented his eventful life: the former Prince Charles, Steffi Graf, Boris Yeltsin – he met them all. In between were the photos of his family. Hahn was married and had four children. Even when he was very old, he was committed to early childhood education with his foundation. The funeral service will take place according to information from World on January 24th in Wolfsburg.