The German language and culture in the founding of the Casal Metallurgy

• Autor(a) principal: Rodrigues, Manuel Ferreira
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/rual.v0i4.7901

During business trips, the merchant, João Casal reinforced relations in post-WWII Germany, becoming the representative of Zündapp-Werke GmbH engines (1917-1984), a family‑owned company, based at the time in Munich. Since the 1930s, Zündapp had been one of the largest European motorcycle manufacturers. In late 1963, disagreeing with the Zündapp strategy for the Portuguese market within the constraints of the Industrial Conditioning policy, João Casal left the German company and founded Metalurgia Casal, Lda. («Casal Metallurgy, Ltd»), manufacturer of motor vehicles and two-wheeled motorcycles, which, since the beginning, had the support of a significant number of German technicians. Metalurgia Casal, Lda. was founded in a climate of economic expansion and (not assumed) economic liberalization. Similar to what he had seen in Germany, João Casal established an innovative «Vocational Training School», which was initially managed by German technicians, therefore, following the German model João Casal had seen in some Germany companies. After having learnt French and a little English, this businessman from Aveiro soon realized that mastery of the German language was the most valuable resource of his business in the Federal Republic of Germany during its early years.