H.I.H. and
H.I.H. Siderius
Dutch offshoots of Rheinmetall,
1923-1934
By A.F. Nuyt
Introduction
By the end of WW1 German heavy industries started to
bring their stocks and machinery into safety. It was
clear that, once the treaty of Versailles would come
into being, German arms production and army
equipment would be severely limited. Several
companies, most notably Krupp and Rheinmetall,
would soon after the war set up several interesting
arrangements with foreign companies, usually in small
non-aligned countries.
These companies were not alone. Well known is the
migration of the Fokker Flugzeugwerke from Schwerin
in Germany to Holland. Anthony Fokker's
homecoming went along with 6 long trains of
equipment, including hundreds of airplanes. All this
happened under the eyes of international inspectors.
Fokker's adventurous journey went down well in
Holland as he was a Dutchman. Besides, he
successfully founded the Fokker aviation industry, one
of Holland major manufacturing companies in the
1930s. However, the migration of some parts of the
German armament industry has been surrounded by
mystery and accusations.
After WW1 Krupp managed to move some tools for
building guns to Hoogezand, in the north of The
Netherlands. The Ehrhardt and Rheinmetall factories
shipped a significant amount of their products (mainly
unassembled guns) as well to Holland in 1919. These
were stored in a depot at the former Otto Shipyard in
Krimpen aan de IJssel, near Rotterdam. There was
nothing secret. The locals knew the depot as the "gun
shed".
In 1922 Rheinmetall teamed up with a Dutch company
that was willing to take over their stocks and
machinery as well as several engineers and designers.
The name of the company was rather vague:
Hollandsche Industrie- en Handelmaatschappij or
Holland Industry and Trading Company, H.I.H.
(pronounce Hah-eeh-hah or Haiha). This company
had been founded already in 1916 by the Godron
brothers in The Hague. Nothing is known about the
earlier activities of H.I.H.
By 1923 all stocks and machinery had been transferred
to H.I.H. The company HQ and sales department
moved to nice premises in The Hague on prestigious
Javastraat. The company workshops were set up in the
bustling port of Rotterdam, already the gateway to the
German industrial heartland. The factory was finally
established on the site of Machinefabriek en
Scheepswerf Piet Smit Jr. (a shipyard), where it rented
purpose-built halls.
Relations with Piet Smit were intense, and though
H.I.H. and Piet Smit were distinct companies, the
factory was colloquially known as "Piet Smit's gun
factory". Both companies not only operationally shared
some services, but Piet Smit Jr. itself invested a large
sum of money in the acquisition of new specialist tools
(some of the Krupp tools from Hoogezand were also
used).
Throughout the years H.I.H. has remained a rather
mysterious company. Little remains today that remind
us of their activities in the 1920s. In the 1920s both
Rheinmetall and Krupp used a plethora of companies
in Holland, Sweden and Switzerland to continue their
activities and secure their financial assets. While Krupp
mainly worked with Bofors on the development of
artillery, Rheinmetall did so with Solothurn and to a
lesser extent with H.I.H. Though legally H.I.H. was
a Dutch company, by judging its products it was a
Rheinmetall offshoot. The company tried to dispose of
Rheinmetall stocks of artillery, but also developed and
tested some new types of guns.
Commercially H.I.H. may not have been a success.
Exports were meagre. Dealings with the Dutch
government did not yield the results one might have
expected. H.I.H. presented itself as a genuine Dutch
arms manufacturer, appealing to nationalist
sentiments in Dutch military and political circles.
Attempts to gain a foothold as a supplier to the Dutch
forces were hard fought, in spite of excellent contacts
in the Dutch political, military and entrepreneurial
elites at the time.
Some H.I.H. designs were tested by Dutch officials
and duly rejected. Guns that were thought useful,
would be produced by the Artillerie Inrichtingen, the
Dutch State Arsenal, instead. H.I.H.'s main local
achievements were their modification of hundreds of
Dutch Army Krupp 75mm guns and the production of
small samples of anti-tank, bunker, AA and Navy
guns.
Continue to page 2 (of 8)
H.I.H.'s first modest workshop in Rotterdam
H.I.H.'s second, larger premises at Piet Smit
Shipyard, Rotterdam
H.I.H.'s large hall with several guns on the
workbenches, 1920s.
H.I.H. 75mm infantry howitzers in action in
China, 1930s.
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