Maj. Ivan Hirst, the British Army officer responsible for getting the Volkswagen factory running again after World War II in what is now Wolfsburg, Germany, died March 10 at his home near Marsden, in Yorkshire, England. He was 84.

Without his efforts, Volkswagen probably could never have shifted from its failed dream of producing a people's car for the Third Reich into the economic powerhouse that built the Beetle, the symbol of German recovery.

''Anyone who drives a VW owes a lot to Major Hirst,'' said Ryan Lee Price, editor of VW Trends magazine, a publication for Beetle owners.

Ivan Hirst was born March 4, 1916, in Saddleworth, England. He studied at the University of Manchester and worked for a time in his family's optical instrument business.