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Reconstruction (1945-1966)
In 1945 HOCHTIEF presented a picture of destruction. The construction sites and
branch operations east of the Oder-Neisse Line, which from now on was to be the
frontier between Germany and Poland, all had to be abandoned: Königsberg, Danzig,
Katowice and Krakow. The same fate later befell the branch operations in the Soviet
occupation zone: Halle, Magdeburg and Leipzig. The CEO, Eugen Vögler, had to flee
from the occupying authorities. Artur Konrad (1882-1970) took over the management
of the company until 1950, when he was succeeded by Josef Müller (1893-1981).
Survivors try to organize everyday life
Employees returned to their homes from all directions. Under the difficult conditions
prevailing in defeated, war-torn Germany, they tried to organize everyday life again.
Their cities were bombed to pieces and flooded with refugees driven out of former
German territories in Eastern Europe, and the majority of the German population
regarded itself as victims; they were not interested in discussions about "war guilt",
the destruction of the Jews or any of the Nazis' other crimes.
Branch offices destroyed in air raids
There was a universal shortage not only of food, but also of construction material,
machinery and workers. Most of the HOCHTIEF branch offices had been damaged or
destroyed in air raids. Much of the building machinery and tools had been stolen or
were useless. Necessity, however, is the mother of invention and one HOCHTIEF
engineer set up a kind of mining operation with an excavator he had rescued from
somewhere and extracted brown coal (lignite) at two locations, Bülitz on the River
Elbe and Delliehausen (near Göttingen).
The quality, however, was so poor that people
called it "combustible potting-earth". Nevertheless, the business made sufficient
profit for him to acquire a vacant lot in Hanover on which a HOCHTIEF office was built.
Despite all the problems, HOCHTIEF employees resumed work, and the first job after the war
was to clear away the rubble and to make at least minimal repairs to roads and buildings.
Orders for new buildings were a complete exception. It was not until the currency reform
and the introduction of the Deutschmark in 1948 that any great improvement appeared in the
order books, but then the "economic miracle" or wartime recovery started to affect HOCHTIEF
as well. Homes and factories and of course office blocks had to be built. One of the very early
major contracts went to HOCHTIEF after the war for the construction of the Bonn University
Hospital on the Venusberg (1946-1949).
From 1951 the HOCHTIEF Management Board tried to resurrect its foreign business, which had
lain fallow since the war, and a start was made with the building of the Nile bridge at Mansourah
in Egypt (1951-1952). HOCHTIEF also received orders from Turkey, and in 1952 work started on
the construction of the Sariyar hydroelectric plant and in 1953 on the Izmir power station. In 1954
HOCHTIEF took shares in a harbor-building company in Kandla (India).
The business consists of clearing rubble
Despite all the problems, HOCHTIEF employees resumed work, and the first job after the war
was to clear away the rubble and to make at least minimal repairs to roads and buildings.
Orders for new buildings were a complete exception. It was not until the currency reform
and the introduction of the Deutschmark in 1948 that any great improvement appeared in the
order books, but then the "economic miracle" or wartime recovery started to affect HOCHTIEF
as well. Homes and factories and of course office blocks had to be built. One of the very early
major contracts went to HOCHTIEF after the war for the construction of the Bonn University
Hospital on the Venusberg (1946-1949).
Abu Simbel bring HOCHTIEF international fame
From 1951 the HOCHTIEF Management Board tried to resurrect its foreign business, which had
lain fallow since the war, and a start was made with the building of the Nile bridge at Mansourah
in Egypt (1951-1952). HOCHTIEF also received orders from Turkey, and in 1952 work started on
the construction of the Sariyar hydroelectric plant and in 1953 on the Izmir power station. In 1954
HOCHTIEF took shares in a harbor-building company in Kandla (India).
In 1955 relationships with Egypt were strengthened with the construction of a smelting works in Helena. Many foreign projects were carried out as development aid. From 1962 Wilhelm Hartman (1908-1974) systematically built up the foreign business. The transplantation of the rock temples of Abu Simbel (1963-1968) in Egypt gave HOCHTIEF an international reputation.
