on 12 june 1933 gläserkarosserie g.m.b.h was founded, effectively a new company formed from the remnants of the bankrupt old one. leadership passed to willy bachmann, by training a plumber, who had married heuer's daughter, johanna, in 1929. dresdner bank was the principal banker of gläserkarosserie g.m.b.h and also of auto union, another saxony based auto-business that underwent a major restructuring in order to survive the aftermath of the great depression. during the rest of the 1930s gläserkarosserie produced cabriolet and other bespoke bodies for auto union brands, notably luxury bodies for horch cars, but they were also producing bodies for use with chassis from other mainstream german car makers including opel and bmw. from 1935 the factory was also supporting german rearmament with special bodies for "commando/staff cars" based on steyr and skoda chassis, and specialist conversions of ford and opel commercial vehicles. by the time war resumed in september 1939 they were also producing a plethora of components and sub-assemblies for messerchmitt fighter planes. overall activity was by now at a high level, and as the war progressed it became hard to find workers with the skill levels needed. by the mid-1940s bachmann had received an allocation of 1,000 foreign workers along with between 150 and 180 soviet prisoners of war in order to keep the factories running.