US President Donald Trump is refunding the time using imports as a tool to force international companies to manufacture his products in the United States.
Many companies produce abroad, usually in their respective host countries to benefit from low labor costs, or closely related to customers. It produces jobs in foreign markets, which increases local sales.
One such company is Volkswagen (VW). Two years ago, the German automaker celebrated its 70th anniversary as a “Brazil” car manufacturer. The company began work in Brazil when a warehouse was opened on 23 March 1953 at Sao Paulo. The first production facility of VW outside Germany, the Estita Factory, soon opened there.
“Volkswagen Do Bracil has fulfilled the 70 -year technological innovation and leading spirit,” said VW Brazil’s boss Siro Postbom at the 2023 ceremony. “VW has modernized its Brazilian factories, developed new techniques and is a brand that is very close to people today.”
A year later, VW announced that it would expand its presence in Brazil by enlarging its four places in the South American country. At that time, automobile analysts reported that VW had planned to spend 7 million Brazilian Real (€ 1.1 billion, or $ 1.26 billion) in Brazil by 2026. Now that plan has been revised in 16 billion reals by 2028.
VW: Earning money with cars and cows in Brazil
VW’s investment in Brazil has made large -scale payments from the beginning. It not only invested in cars there, the company has beef to earn money on cows, especially, beef. To facilitate the latter, Volkswagen created a new agricultural business, known as Fazeda Volkswagen, or Volkswagen Farm, located in Crystalino, which is about 2.200 km (1.367 miles) from VW Thu Brasil Headquarters in Sao Paulo.
Christopher Kopar, a historian at the Bellafeld University, Germany, who has studied the history of VW Dow Bascill, says that it was away from the movement of the big city, that the image of VW was to be taunted.
Kopper told DW, “VW was contacted about the treatment of workers in Fazeda Woakeswagen in the 1980s.”
In 2016, Volkswagen tasked Kopper to compile a report on the activities of VW Thu Bascill during the Brazilian military dictatorship, which began when in 1964, a military jute steda, a coup in 1964 and went on an iron grip in the country for the next 21 years.
Only VW workers were noticed fazeda
The VW contracted Swiss Agricultural Economist Frederick-Jorge Brugar for the establishment of the farm in 1974. A report transmitted by the German publvision only after years became clear that it became clear how Rutles Brugars were in completing their plans.
Kopar said that VW workers were always taken care of. “He had his home, his school, a medical clinic.
The historian explained that the company always maintained that distinction. Hey said that the managers always “stressed out of trouble that they were not responsible for the treatment of laborers employed by subcontinent.” At the same time, he ever “pointing out that full -time workers were appointed by VW in Fazeda, who lived very well by local standards.”
Dark Secret: VW and Brazil’s military dictatorship
The field’s eyes were held far away from pricking the work in the field, and the final failure of the project did not make the headlines.
“Fazeda had no chance to make a profit from the beginning,” Kopper said. “The project was a washing.”
But Fazanda was even more shocking for Kopper than the conditions, which he learned about the company’s attitude towards cooperation with the ruling military jute of Brazil.
“VW worked closely with the security system of dictatorship,” he said. “This applies to the main factory of VW in Sao Paulo and other features.”
Copper eventually felt that the conditions of the fashed was only a wide piece from a very large and distant dark photo. For example, VW Brasil works closely with security in factories, ie Junta. VW employees arrested arrests and abuses by military police, even assisted him several times.
“Correspondence with the board of directors in Wolfsburg [where VW is headquartered in Germany] By 1979, full acceptance of military dictatorship, “Kopper calls Kopar of his discovery.
Shadow from Nazi Yuga
The search behavior will be a scam in any company, but is worse with Volkwagen when one considins the start of the global vehicle manufacturer during Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship. Established in Nazi Germany by Nazi organizations, Volkswagen systematically earned profits from slave labor, exploiting and abusing thousands of forced laborers.
Was nothing to learn in the positions of responsibility in Wolfsburg? Of course, immediately suspected that the company had planned to continue its wrong way since a decade ago, just under another dictator on another continent.
VW Manager with skeleton in his wardrobe
Kopar said that it is really difficult to separate the search allegations. “I will partially agree about management in VW Do Bracill.”
Hey, what to do with the fact that many VW managers were “army officers and members of the Nazi party” in the 1950s when they were younger in the 1950s and 60s.
Kopar said that there is no case for Wolfgang Sawyer, who ran VW’s Brazilian subsidiary from 1971 to 1984, “he was very young.” According to the historian, Sawyer was not bound to the Nazi military tradition of Germany, but “the tradition of Brazil’s ruling patriarchal: You can give social benefits to the workers, but this does not mean that you have to keep in mind the independent work councils.”
During the military dictatorship of Brazil, more information about the social and judicial recurrence of VW works is over. Many legal battles on the loss and entry of crime wait for the global vehicle manufacturer. Only when that process can be completed, Wolfsburg can close this chapter of its corporate history.
This article was the original published in German and was translated by John Shelton.
