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VW Group CEO Oliver Blume, IG Metall chair Christiane Benner, State Premier Olaf Lies, works council chair Daniela Cavallo and Aurelius Capital manager Tomer Jacob at Volkswagen Osnabr\u00fcck [Photo by Volkswagen AG]<\/p>\nVW Group CEO Oliver Blume, IG Metall chair Christiane Benner, State Premier Olaf Lies, works council chair Daniela Cavallo and Aurelius Capital manager Tomer Jacob at Volkswagen Osnabr\u00fcck [Photo by Volkswagen AG]<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Volkswagen Group agreed to sell its plant in Osnabr\u00fcck to Israeli investment firm Aurelius Capital and the state of Lower Saxony. Instead of convertibles, the Israeli-Lower Saxony state-owned company will now produce weapons for genocide and war.<\/p>\n
Production of the T-Roc convertible at Osnabr\u00fcck will end in the summer of 2027. The site is to be converted into a \u201ccentre of excellence for security and defence solutions\u201d\u2014a euphemism for the switch to war production.<\/p>\n
The state of Lower Saxony is expected to take a 20 percent stake in the joint enterprise, with the venture capital fund Aurelius Capital holding the majority. Former executives from the Israeli and US security sectors were involved in founding the fund; leading figures come from the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus. In the deal, Aurelius Capital is working hand in hand with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, a state-owned arms manufacturer that builds, among other things, the \u201cIron Dome\u201d missile defence system. Rafael reports directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defence, and thus to the Netanyahu government.<\/p>\n
The VW Group Works Council under Daniela Cavallo has hailed the collaboration with Israel\u2019s genocidal regime, describing the deal as \u201cstrong news for the site.\u201d Israel\u2019s largest arms manufacturer will produce, among other things, heavy-duty missile transport vehicles, launch systems, generators and engines in Osnabr\u00fcck.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green coalition government under State Premier Olaf Lies (SPD), the group works council and IG Metall union have actively driven forward the conversion of a car plant into an arms factory and are celebrating it as a \u201cmilestone.\u201d Volkswagen, meanwhile, is withdrawing completely from Osnabr\u00fcck.<\/p>\n
At its peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the historic Karmann brand built convertibles there, the plant employed up to 10,000 workers. After Karmann went bankrupt in 2009, Volkswagen took over the site, by which time the workforce had already shrunk considerably. Since then, employee numbers have fallen to 1,800.<\/p>\n
The works council and IG Metall have agreed that only two-thirds of these jobs will continue at the new arms plant: 400 jobs will be cut immediately, with a further 200 to go \u201cin the near future.\u201d Employment protection for the remaining 1,200 workers runs only until the end of 2029.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the union bureaucrats are delighted. Cavallo speaks of an \u201cimportant milestone for our colleagues in Osnabr\u00fcck,\u201d with 1,200 people gaining \u201ca future at their site.\u201d For J\u00fcrgen Placke, works council chairman in Osnabr\u00fcck, the \u201ctakeover of our plant by Aurelius and the state of Lower Saxony is a first major success.\u201d And IG Metall chair Christiane Benner fantasises about a \u201cnew industrial future for Osnabr\u00fcck and the region,\u201d which would mean \u201cabove all security for employees and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
How the SPD is putting the economy on a war footing<\/p>\n
It is the SPD that has made possible the entry of Israel\u2019s state arms industry into Germany, both in the federal government and in the Lower Saxony state government.<\/p>\n
Since the summer, the state has been examining whether to take a stake in the plant; according to media reports, the state was considering an investment of at least \u20ac200 million. The SPD-Green state government pushed forward the conversion from car to arms production and is now backing it with its own stake.<\/p>\n The deal deliberately outmanoeuvres Qatar, which holds 17 percent of Volkswagen\u2019s voting rights through its Qatar Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund, and which had until now opposed Rafael\u2019s entry on VW\u2019s supervisory board. Exactly one year ago, on 9 September 2025, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) carried out a targeted airstrike on a residential building housing the Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar, killing and injuring several people. Among the hundreds of civilians deliberately killed in Gaza are numerous journalists from the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera, including Hamza al-Dahdouh, Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Rifi, Anas al-Sharif and Ibrahim Zaher.<\/p>\n Under the current arrangement, Qatar is being bypassed: VW is withdrawing completely from the plant and selling the factory along with its land and buildings\u2014rather than acting as a partner in the arms business, as originally planned. The new owners, Aurelius Capital and the state of Lower Saxony, are concluding the arms contracts with Rafael independently, removing the legal basis for a Qatari veto.<\/p>\n While Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, together with SPD leader and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, are making Germany \u201cfit for war,\u201d pouring billions into rearmament and squeezing the money out of the population through massive social cuts, their fellow party member Lies has played a decisive role in Lower Saxony in driving forward the plant\u2019s sale and repurposing.<\/p>\n Lies called the agreement a \u201cgenuine industrial opportunity\u201d for Osnabr\u00fcck, pointing to the \u201cchanged security situation\u201d and the \u201cincreased need for security.\u201d Lower Saxony wanted to help ensure that this \u201ccreates value and secure employment,\u201d he said. A pro-war policy could hardly be stated more plainly.<\/p>\n In converting Germany into a nation geared for war, the SPD can rely on the IG Metall union. Many trade unionists and workers have pointed with outrage to the union\u2019s own constitution, under which IG Metall commits itself to \u201cpeace, disarmament and international understanding\u201d and aims for the \u201cdemocratisation of the economy while keeping neo-fascist, militarist and reactionary elements at bay.\u201d<\/p>\n The IG Metall and works council apparatus has openly aligned itself with the government\u2019s massive rearmament programme. For J\u00fcrgen Kerner, IG Metall\u2019s deputy chairman, the question is not whether the union agrees to the conversion to war production, but \u201chow it can best support it.\u201d<\/p>\n The sale of the VW plant in Osnabr\u00fcck marks a turning point: for the first time, an entire car plant is being converted into an arms factory. Investment funds already see Osnabr\u00fcck as a test case for the conversion of further VW plants.<\/p>\n If IG Metall and the works council have their way, the four plants in Emden, Hanover, Neckarsulm and Zwickau, where the end of car production is already settled, may also be \u201crescued\u201d by the arms industry. Last week, in a\u00a0historic betrayal<\/a>, IG Metall and the works council agreed together with the owner families and management to cut a further 50,000 jobs and phase out these four plants.<\/p>\n Questions about this article? Ask Socialism AI<\/p>\n The union officials have since vehemently denied that this sealed the plants\u2019 closure: they claim to have merely \u201ctaken note\u201d that these plants had \u201cacute competitive disadvantages\u201d and would \u201cnot be considered for follow-up products from 2031 to 2034.\u201d It should therefore be examined, they say, whether there were \u201calternative uses\u201d\u2014in other words, a sale, preferably to the arms industry.<\/p>\n The conversion of VW into a part of a war economy by the Porsche\/Pi\u00ebch families and the state follows historical precedent. Volkswagen was founded by the Nazis in 1937, after the destruction of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the SPD and the trade unions, as the \u201cGesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH\u201d (Company for the Preparation of the German Volkswagen, Ltd). With the outbreak of war in 1939, the company switched entirely to arms production, manufacturing K\u00fcbelwagen (a light, open-topped military utility vehicle) and Schwimmwagen (an amphibious variant), both built on the Volkswagen chassis, as well as aircraft parts and the V-1 rocket.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s development was financed with funds seized from the banned trade unions and with huge profits from wartime arms production and forced labour. This is the basis of the two families\u2019 present-day fortune of around \u20ac40 billion.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fce5c532-620d-47e2-8a67-be67ede7a313.png\"\/)
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