Secret Security Information
German Democratic Republic
VEB Wandererwerke, Chemnitz
FDD Abstract [redacted]
(3pp; German [redacted]
Introduction is redacted
This [redacted] document is a general report on the VEB (People-Owned Enterprise) Wandererwerke, Chemnitz, and contains the following information:
There are about 2,500 workers, including 200 apprentices and about 200 office workers.
The principal personnel, all SED (Socialist Unity Party) men, are: Rostig, Plant Director, 48, an ex-lathe operator, has no concept of over-all plant operation; Schiefer XXXXXXX, Technical Director, 48, capable expert; Gerschler, Business Manager; Kurt Arnold, Cultural and Social Director, 40, totally incapable. The plant collective contract, forced through via brigade members, is bitterly criticized.
The plant produces office machines, typewriters, and automatic bookkeeping machines. Some of the output goes to the USSE as reparations (in September the USSR received 450 of the monthly production of 1,400 typewriters); the balance is for export only and is handled by the Foreign Trade Centers and not by the plant. Consumers in the GDR get only second or third choice of the goods which have been refused by foreign customers.
The plant had been 90 percent dismantled in 1945; in 1947 restoration began; the typewriter section is producing at the rate of 1,400 machines monthly (before the war it was 5,000).
The investment plan for 1951 amounted to 1,747 million Deutsche marks; a request for an additional 1,113 million Deutsche marks to be used in the production of automatic bookkeeping machines has not yet been approved. The plan to start series production of automatic bookkeeping machines (by teaming up with VEB Astra, Chemnitz) will probably not materialize because of the difficulty in getting machinery.
A new 5 million Deutsche marks power plant to serve this and other industries in Chemnitz is planned.
Since 1949 the lathe shop has been turning out for the USSR pieces of steel 50 cm long and 15-20 cm in diameter. The workers are told these are forms for the manufacture of food tins, but [redacted] thinks these are tank rollers. Production waste is extremely high; in the production of XXXXXXX cylindrical pins, which were formerly obtained in the West, there were once 994 rejects in 1,000. Production loss resulting from rejects is calculated at 20,000 Deutsche marks monthly.
There is a monthly budget of 40,000 Deutsche marks for research; one project is a midget typewriter, small enough to fit in a brief case.
From 1952 on, all construction work at the plant must be done by the VEB-Construction Union, not be private builders, although the latter are 20 percent cheaper. All VEB’s are under this compulsion.
The foreign language document or a microfilm of it [redacted] is available from CIA Library, [redacted]
24 April 1952
Editors comment: In the context of this blog, Wanderer-Werke of Chemnitz is more famous as the manufacturer of mid-class automobiles in the Auto Union AG Group. However, Wanderer started business as the manufacturer of typewriters and bicycles. Typewriters were sold under the brand-name Continental. This experience led them into automobile and motorcycle manufacture in the 1910s. After Wanderer was incorporated into Auto Union AG in 1932, it continued to manufacture typewriters, adding machines and other technical appliances.
With the coming of war, in 1940, all civilian automobile production was stopped and the factory became a dedicated military plant, turning out trucks and engines for the war effort. The factory was badly bombed in 1945 and was a virtual ruin. The Soviets stripped all surviving heavy machinery from the factory as reparations, but the small section of the plant dedicated to typewriters and other civilian appliances was left intact and continued manufacturing Continental typewriters. As noted in the CIA report, the plant joined forces with another Saxon typewriter manufacturer, Astra in 1950. In 1960, VEB Astra was sued in West Germany over the use of the business names 'Wanderer' and 'Astra' as part of the ongoing economic warfare against East Germany, so the company was renamed Ascota. Ascota continued manufacturing typewriters, adding machines and accounting machines and later computers until the Wall fell in 1991.
After VEB Wanderer and Astra were merged, typewriter production was relocated to the Astra plant in Thuringia and the VEB Wandererwerk became an aircraft engine plant, manufacturing Junkers aircraft piston engines and other associated industrial components. https://flugzeug-lorenz.de/flugzeugwerke-dresden/werk-804-karl-marx-stadt
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