Distribution note for ancillary manufacturing (Quality), 28 January 1941

In this document

The document is a typewritten table from the Quality department, titled "Répartition pour les fabrications annexes" (Distribution for ancillary manufacturing), dated "28/I/41" at the top of the page p. 1.

It distributes the quality supervision of various manufacturing items, unrelated to the automobile, between three managers — Messrs. Blondel, Ingueneau and Magès.

Distribution by manager

A handwritten ink annotation in the right margin level with "Metal bed" mentions "Tôlerie 28/..." (following digit uncertain) p. 1. Stamps or symbols at the top of the page remain illegible.

Context

The document does not specify it, but it is known otherwise that under the German Occupation (1940-1944), French automobile factories, including Citroën, had to drastically reduce their vehicle production and turn to substitute manufacturing — everyday objects, spare parts for other industries, heating equipment or non-motorised transport — in order to maintain activity and employment despite the shortage of raw materials and requisitions.

The document does not specify the roles of Blondel, Ingueneau or Magès, but it is known otherwise that at this date Paul Magès, who joined Citroën in August 1925, was a self-taught man who had become a technical writer and then deputy manager of the Super-Control (autobiographical notes) — a role consistent with this quality manager position for ancillary manufacturing.

Archivist's perspective

This note, very administrative in its form, offers a concrete glimpse of the forced diversification of Citroën workshops in January 1941: trailers, wheelbarrows, radiators, stoves or metal beds coexist in the same distribution table p. 1.

For Paul Magès, it seems that this period associated him with objects relating more to sheet metal work and heating — radiators, fireplaces, stoves — quite far from his future work on hydropneumatic suspension, the first plans for which date from February 1944 (plans of 17 February 1944), but revealing the versatility required of engineers at the time p. 1.

The handwritten annotation "Tôlerie 28/..." suggests a follow-up or a complementary processing date, without it being possible to specify its meaning further.

This document would benefit from being compared with other items from the same "Ancillary manufacturing at Citroën during the German occupation" collection to reconstruct the entirety of this substitute production.