The Skeletons in the Volkswagen Closet
The Volkswagen Beetle took America by storm and forever changed the American automobile industry. It surpassed the Model T to become the highest selling car in US automotive history. However, not many buyers are aware of its origins.
Prior to World War II in Europe, Ferdinand Porsche, a brilliant automotive designer, became discontent with his employer, Daimler Benz and left to set up his own company.
Like Henry Ford in America, Porsche dreamed of a car for the common people, a car that an average working man could afford.
Porsche designed and built three models but had not been able to get them into production. Then, in the summer of 1933, Porsche received an invitation to meet with Adolph Hitler at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin. Hitler had summoned Porsche based on his engineering reputation but was unaware that Porsche had already designed a small car.
At the meeting Hitler informed Porsche of his own idea for a small car that all the people could afford. According to Hitler, it was his dream to put the German masses on wheels. Hitler specified that the car should seat two adults and three children. It must also be able to transport three soldiers and a machine gun. The engine needed to be durable and air-cooled. Gas mileage should average 40mpg. However, the car must have a cruising speed of 100 kilometers per hour.
Porsche was comfortable with Hitler's demands until price was mentioned. Hitler mandated that the car should sell for under 1,000 marks. Porsche was appalled. At that time the cheapest car available was the Opel P4, which sold for 1,500 marks, and Porsche knew that Hitler's price was unreasonable but dismissed it as a dictator's fantasy, and signed the contract.
Hitler however, was deadly serious. He ordered a town with a production facility to be built. The town was named KDF stadt and production was scheduled to begin in September 1939.
What Porsche didn't realize was, that although Hitler was serious about building the car, he didn't care whether it would be mass-produced. This was a carrot dangled in front of the German public to win willing followers to his regime. So in one impassioned speech after another, Hitler promised the German people an affordable car.
A German citizen could acquire the car by buying a stamp valued at 5 marks. When a person had accumulated 200 stamps, they could exchange the stamps for a car.
However, in March of 1939, World War II in Europe started and the factory was diverted to producing war materials including military vehicles, which led to another nefarious chapter in Volkswagen history.
In order to support the German war machine, citizens of conquered countries were enslaved in production facilities, including Volkswagen. Czechoslovakians and Soviets were forced to work barefoot in the cold. They were poorly fed, inadequately clothed and subjected to frequent beatings. Many died.
Three million Soviet citizens were enslaved in German factories of which over half were women. Less than a million were still living at the time of liberation. In April of 1945 when the American troops arrived at the Volkswagen plant, they also found Hungarian Jewish slave laborers.
However, while the design originated with Hitler and Porsche, the Volkswagen cars, which have been marketed around the world, were not produced until after World War II. When Dr. Ing. Heinz Nordhoff took over Volkswagen in 1948; he launched post-war production with the statement that "the future begins when you cut every tie with the past."
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