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Audi revising own history in light of 'shocking' study of Nazi-era activities

Daimler opened up its archives for research into its Nazi affiliations for one book published in 1990 and another in 1998. The Quandt family behind BMW had its public catharsis in 2007. The ties between the National Socialists and the Porsche and Piech families have almost rendered the Volkswagen Beetle some kind of cult tchotchke of the Third Reich. And it's not just automakers called in for cleansing: Deutsche Bank credit helped build Auschwitz, Hugo Boss made Nazi uniforms, patriarch of food and frozen pizza giant Dr. Oetker volunteered for the Waffen-SS. As one historian said, for any business that wanted to stay in business during the war, "no company was really clean. Everyone had to resort to slave labor when their own workers were fighting at the front."
Audi is the latest to go public with findings from an in-depth study of the Nazi-affiliated past of Auto Union, its predecessor company, and the "Father of Auto Union" Dr. Richard Bruhn, the man who headed it pre- and post-war. Commissioned by Audi, written by Audi's history department head Martin Kukowski and University of Chemnitz historian Rudolf Boch, its findings are just as severe as those already heard so often over the past 20 years. Among other discoveries, the study found that not only did Brun manage the use of more than 3,700 forced labor camp workers from seven SS-run camps, 16,500 forced laborers that didn't live in camps worked in two more factories; Bruhn wanted even more laborers but couldn't get them because of the battlefield situation; and that Auto Union had "moral responsibility" for roughly 4,500 workers killed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The study found that disabled workers were routinely sent to the camp and executed there.
Audi works council head Peter Mosch said, "I'm very shocked by the scale of the involvement of the former Auto Union leadership in the system of forced and slave labor. I was not aware of the extent." The company is figuring out how it will respond to the findings, so far working on changing the online profile of Dr. Bruhn on its history pages on Audi sites around the world, and considering stripping Brun's name from the street that bears it and from company offerings like pension plans. If you can read German or can work Google Translate, Wirtschaftswoche has a long piece on the study and its conclusions.

Coming to America | 2018 Audi RS3 Sedan First Drive

Audi's Quattro division never let us have the giant-killing, all-wheel-drive RS3. Too sophisticated for the US, they said. Too European. And we only make it as a Sportback (that's hatchback to you). You wouldn't like it. You're more SUV kind of people. Others, those in Quattro's special we-like-you countries, bought the RS3 and constantly raved about it, insisting its handling made the Mercedes-AMG A45 look ponderous (because, well, it is), its packaging was terrific, and the noise, they said. The noise. Over and over, the noise. But ex-Lamborghini president Stephan Winkelmann is now the boss and he's brought with him a worldview that Quattro GmbH never had. And despite being busy changing the letterhead to Audi Sport, Winkelmann found time to think about America. And he must like us because he's moved us to the top of the list. Not only will we get the face-lifted RS3, with its new, lightweight five-cylinder turbo motor crunching out 332 pound-feet of torque and 400 horsepower, we'll get it in a crisply styled three-box sedan. And we'll get it first, before even Germany (where it's built). The RS3's 2.5-liter five-cylinder has enough power to hurl it to 62 mph in 4.1 seconds and, thanks to launch control, the ability to do so repeatably. It's coming with a 155-mph top speed that can be raised to 174. It's coming with limpet grip from a rear-biased all-wheel-drive system. It's coming with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (and don't ask for a stick shift, because they haven't bothered to engineer one). It's coming standard (for the US) with constantly variable magnetic ride dampers, which replace the base fixed-rate steel spring-and-damper setup. But more than anything else, the RS3 sedan is coming here with that engine. It starts with a sharp braaap as it spins to around 4000 rpm and then a pop and bang that will wake the neighbors. And that's in the quieter default mode. It's like an angry man who always wakes up looking for a fight and, finding he can't get one, barks out the last word anyway. Except it never really goes quiet. It goes less loud, but not quiet. Quiet is not in the repertoire. The engine is what dominates this car and the noise dominates the engine. It's always there, always threatening, menacing, bellowing, barking, or popping and burbling. With a 1-2-4-5-3 firing order, the turbo five is a unique combination of belligerent and sophisticated, raucous and operatic, brutal and smooth, and often all of them at the same time.

Audi to keep hiring workers despite VW diesel scandal

Even while Volkswagen contemplates delaying or canceling projects to pay for costs related to the massive diesel emissions scandal, its stablemate Audi is hiring, according to Reuters. Audi certainly isn't immune to the diesel scandal, with around 2.1 million affected vehicles worldwide including 13,000-14,000 in the US, but the scandal so far isn't affecting staffing levels. "We are sticking with plans for strategic growth and are continuing to hire new employees as planned," Audi board member for human resources Thomas Sigi said in a German newspaper, according to Reuters. Sigi even suggested paying a "respectable" bonus to workers next year. Audi has some big projects on the horizon, too. Among them, the company intends to launch a production version of the E-Tron Quattro Concept in 2018, and for performance fans a new TT RS appears to be on the way. The new A4 should be a big contributor to global volume when its worldwide rollout is complete. Rather than allowing the diesel scandal to hurt all of its divisions, the VW Group instead wants to concentrate the fallout (and costs) on the VW brand, according to Reuters. Those expenses could be huge. Volkswagen is budgeting around $7.3 billion just to repair the 11 million emissions-cheating vehicles. Worldwide, maximum estimates put the whole mess at $87 billion. Related Video: