DKW Auto-Union Project: Horch Trucks 1909 to 1948

In the early days of automotive engineering until around the beginning of the First World War, the separation between car and commercial vehicle manufacturers - even within groups - was not as strict as we know it today. It was not uncommon for cars and trucks sharing the same chassis, with truck chassis being extended or reinforced depending on its use. Even with buses, manufacturers sometimes used this method. At a time when the self-supporting body did not play a role in vehicle construction, manufacturers often made use of specialised body companies.

This was also the case in 1909 for Horch's first commercial vehicle, an ambulance placed on an 11/22 hp car chassis in 1909. August Horch (October 12, 1868 - February 3, 1951) undoubtedly ranks alongside automotive pioneers alongside Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz. At Benz in Mannheim, he rose to become operations manager. On November 14, 1899 he set out on his own and founded Horch & Cie in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. The first Horch car premiered there two years later. In the spring of 1902 the company moved to Reichenbach in the Vogtland region, and another two years later it finally landed in Zwickau. From May 1904, the Horch works operated under the name 'August Horch & Cie. Motorwagen-Werke AG'. From its new Zwickau home the Horch brand would go on to achieve world fame, although ironically without its founder. August Horch had lost his financial stake in his company and seat on the board, and after years of quarrelling with the supervisory board, Horch, was pushed out of his former own company in the summer of 1909. The company’s upward trajectory actually increased after the departure of its founder.

In 1908 the German government introduced a subsidy for truck construction. Provided the given construction standards are adhered to, these vehicles can be purchased with government approvals, provided the buyer was willing to hand the vehicle over to the military authorities in the event of war. This subsidy scheme was of particular importance to Horch.

The production of real trucks began at Horch in 1912. With engine outputs of 20 to 55 hp (all in-line four-cylinder petrol engines) and useful weights of up to 3 tons, over 700 vehicles for various purposes were manufactured before 1916. Clearly, with the beginning of the First World War, military production took priority, but Horch was ideally equipped for war. For example, an 80 HP in-line four-cylinder engine drove artillery tractors and so-called powerhouses, mostly chain-driven monsters that served as tractors in the field.

After the war, Horch introduced a fire engine to their truck range, but otherwise, the era of commercial vehicles from the Horch factories was over for the time being. In 1932, due to the effects of the global economic crisis on the German automotive industry, the Saxon State Bank, instigated the foundation of Auto Union AG in Chemnitz via the merger of the firms DKW (Zschopau), Audi and Horch (Zwickau) and the automotive department of WandererWerke (Siegmar near Chemnitz). As part of the restructuring of the group, Horch retained the role of the manufacturer of luxury automobiles and sports cars with eight and twelve-cylinder engines.

Nevertheless, Horch also had plans to get back into truck production. A note from the board of directors on July 24, 1935, stipulated a truck with a payload of 2.5-ton powered by a 3.7-liter six-cylinder Horch engine. The project stalled, not least because a regulation on the 'type limitation in the motor vehicle industry' of March 2, 1939 restricted trucks to only four classes (1.5-ton, 3.0-ton, 4.5-ton and 6.5-ton). Horch’s former 15 and 113 truck types were in the 1.8-ton class so Auto-Union were not permitted to manufacture commercial vehicles.

Nevertheless, in 1941 the Auto-Union board of directors gave the Wanderer-Werke, whose car production ceased during the course of that year, the order to design and build a 1.5 ton truck (see Club News No. 40 from March 1985). This small payload class could be accommodated with Wanderer’s existing production systems and could be powered by standard car engines. The board hoped that this model would join the Wehrmacht's supplier list and that they would be immediately available to the civilian sector after the war. In early 1942, the Chemnitz company presented its first prototype, called the Auto-Union 1500 (the 1500 stood for the payload in kg), to the public and received a lot of praise from the trade press. The truck, with the most modern front-link design, with the six-cylinder engine of the Wanderer W 23 embedded deeply in the chassis under the driver's seat, offered all the advantages of a short wheelbase, e.g. good load distribution and small turning circle. Further prototypes were created and, in accordance with the already mentioned utility class regulation, was assigned an S-type class for normal use, and an A-type class for an off-road version with all-wheel drive for difficult terrain. Although constructed with modern details such as telescopic shock absorbers (a novelty in truck construction at this time), hydraulic brake system and central lubrication, the vehicle found no advocates in the responsible Reich Ministry. Instead, Audi received an order to assemble the Steyr 1500 truck, which left the assembly lines there from 1943 until the end of the war. https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-new-auto-union-truck-motor-und.html

1942 Motor und Sport review of the Auto-Union 1500: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2020/11/motor-und-sport-22-february-1942.html

At the end of 1943, the production of Horch motorcars had to be stopped due to the war and the factory began manufacturing medium armoured personnel carriers and half-track vehicles. These were powered by a 100 HP Maybach Otto engine, type HL 42, 1500 of which were manufactured under license by Horch and Audi from 1942.

The ubiquitous Steyr 1500 was manufactured under license by a range of German companies, including Horch and Audi. Wanderer would also manufacture the Steyr designed tracked Raupenschlepper Ost. Photos may be found here: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/06/august-horch-museum-chemnitz.html

The development of the Auto-Union 1500 would not be resumed until after the war under the auspices of the Soviet-occupation with the help of remaining workers in the former Horch factories. But these first had to survive the blackest years of the company’s 40-year history.

Although not destroyed by Allied air raids, the dismantling of the plant began immediately after the Soviets took power in Zwickau on July 1, 1945. Horch shared the fate of all Auto-Union plants and was classified by the Soviet leadership as 1st category armaments factories (there was also a concentration camp on the Horch site for the approximately 1,000 predominantly French forced laborers) and were to be razed to the ground after being stripped of useable assets. Fortunately, it didn't get that far; nevertheless, from August 1945 to March 1946, almost 4,000 machine tools left the Auto-Union factories for Russia. With only 68 machine tools and a dozen small machines remaining, Audi and Horch, which had been trading under 'Sächsische Aufbauwerke GmbH' since January 1, 1946, began manufacturing a huge range of household goods and simple craft and agricultural equipment to meet the immediate needs of the people.

On July 1, 1946, according to SMAD order No. 44 (Soviet military administration in Germany), ‘Horch’ were were to approved to being manufacturing replacement spare parts and provide vehicle repair services. From this date ‘Horch’ became 'Industrieverwaltung 19, Fahrzeugbau Werk Horch Zwickau - Sa.' With command no. 44, the repair of buildings and facilities was authorised and machine tools that were urgently needed were procured. In February 1947, the SMAD headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst placed an order to build a maximum of 300 trucks with a payload of 3-tons, which were intended exclusively for the Soviet authorities in Germany. That was no accident, because Horch had already provided the authorities with complete design documents for such a vehicle based on the Auto-Union 1500 truck. However, even in 1947, the company was still far from being able to manufacture all the parts required to build a truck or to be able to obtain them from East German suppliers.

The need for improvisation born out of necessity had now been made a virtue and the remaining specialists in Zwickau went to work, gathering together everything that seemed useful for the construction of a truck. In doing so, they uncovered a not inconsiderable number of the Maybach type HL 42 tank motors already mentioned, along with some gearboxes and axles. The idea arose to implant these in the fully constructed, enlarged Auto-Union LKW 1500. A separate eight-cylinder V-engine was originally planned for the drive, but its implementation in production was not possible due to the extremely poor material situation and the inadequate mechanical equipment. The technicians went to work. They retained the underfloor engine placement and power transmission via clutch and gearbox by means of a propeller shaft divided by intermediate bearings on the rear axle. Due to the larger dimensions of the Maybach engine, the designers had to make significant changes to the chassis and reinforce the frame as a whole, which in turn enabled the desired payload capacity of 3-tons.

The new Horch truck looked very similar to the old Wanderer construction, but larger. The already mentioned material situation and the modest machinery resulted in a no-frills design of the cab. Luxuries such as extendable side windows was unthinkable. The windshield, which was continuous on the Auto-Union truck, was now split in two. The engine was loud and uncomfortably hot under the seat - there was no engine tunnel, as with later types. A mechanical brake booster contributed to the hard work required by the H3 driver. The outer radiator cowling was modelled on the last Horch car and proudly showed the crowned 'H' in its tip. Together with the 3 for the payload, the simple designation 'H3' resulted for the first post-war truck in the area of the later GDR.

In the same year – 1947 - Horch put another 191 vehicles on their wheels under the most challenging of conditions. After using all the existing drive and transmission parts, the company had to fall back on their own developments, which could only be slowly made production ready. However, some parts, such as accumulators, starters and lamps, could neither be produced by the company nor procured anywhere in the Soviet zone of occupation. Even simple standard parts were 'recycled' from scrap. In order to get urgently needed material from the western zones, Horch used straw men for various shopping tours. Officially, western companies were not allowed to supply parts to the 'Eastern Zone', and the other way around as the Russians did not like to see such a penchant for the class enemy. When the required parts were found in the west, especially in West Berlin, 'backpackers' brought the smaller items over the then still permeable 'green border.' For larger cargos, double-floor cars were used to smuggle through the sector crossings. The completion of each individual truck required the participation of around 2,000 Horch employees. In the first year all flatbed trucks went to Soviet offices. In 1948, some vehicles were also delivered to East German agricultural concerns. The following year - all the Wehrmacht engines that were still in use had been recycled. The production of the H3 ended after 852 trucks were produced. In a second episode I will report on the successor type, the Horch H 3 A, as well as on the tractor 'Pionier' built in the Horch factory.

by Frank Rönicke. Published originally in AUVC Nachrichten Volume 100 March 2000 in German. A copy of the original article can be found here: https://auvc-archive.blogspot.com/2020/05/auvc-nachrichten-volume-100-march-2000.html