Rheinmetall Automotive: Difference between revisions

| location_country = Germany

| num_employees = around 12,000

| homepage = www.kspg-ag.de

}}

Bernhard Pierburg (1869 to 1942) founded on March 25, 1909, jointly with his brothers, Heinrich-Hermann and Wilhelm, at [[Berlin-Wilmersdorf|Wilmersdorf]] near Berlin the steel trading enterprise by the name of ''Gebr. Pierburg oHG''. In 1923, this general partnership was transformed into a stock corporation. In 1926 Pierburg acquired the bankrupt ''Arthur Haendler & Cie.'', an enterprise that manufactured under license French Solex carburetors. In 1928, Alfred Pierburg (born 1903) developed a proprietary carburetor that was installed in Hanomag vehicles. ''Deutsche Vergaser-Gesellschaft'' (DVG) was formed in 1935, a company that was to operate separately from the steel trading business. 1938 saw the liquidation of Pierburg AG. With the significant defense contracts awarded to DVG, Alfred Pierburg was promoted to the position of ''Wehrwirtschaftsführer West'', in charge of the defense industry in the West and responsible for coordinating arms production in occupied France. In 1945, DVG's production facilities were moved from Berlin to Lausitz where at the close of the War they were confiscated and dismantled. In the postwar years, Pierburg succeeded in setting up a modern company at Neuss and in West Berlin that with the production of carburetors once again grew to a significant size. In the 1970s, the Neuss plant saw one of the first of the wildcat strikes in Germany. Pierburg was taken over by Rheinmetall AG in 1986.

Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne Art Society) displayed for the first time in 2005 the documentation ''Ihr Kampf ist unser Kampf'' (Their Struggle is Our Struggle) on a wildcat strike at Pierburg in 1973. Industrial action by several hundred migrant female workers was to become the paradigm for the industrial conflicts of 1973.

 

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