Did you know that Hitler created this model of the car? (Photo)

Volkswagen “boll” dedicates his birth to the Nazis: 80 years ago Adolf Hitler laid the foundation for the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. A critical balance of a German success story.

Two men, one big project: Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche are car creators “bore” Volkan. Porsche is a genius construction worker, Hitler, the one who helped politically to the east. “Here they found two people adapting to each other”, concludes historian Wolfram Pyta, professor of new history at the University of Stuttgart

Along with fellow historians Neils Havemann and Utah Brown, he wrote in the book “Portche. The history of the concert, founded on April 25, 1931 in Stuttgart, is from the global brand construction office”.

In summary: Without Hitler's support, Porsche would not have completed the Volkswagen project: “Hitler needed a creative mind to build a small vehicle suitable for production in series”, Pyta says. “ ”

Motorization and mobilization

Since the February 1933 Auto Show, about a few weeks after being appointed Chancellor of Reich, Hitler had declared “the modernisation of the people”. In summer 1934 “The German Automobile Industry Reich Association” commissioned Porschen to conceive of a “power vehicle through joy”, called the same name as the Nazi leisure organisation.

On December 29, 1935, Hitler, who himself had no driver's license, personally took in a prototype of his “Volkswagen”. More than two years later, on May 26th 1938, it was celebrated in the presence of “Fyhrer” placing the cornerstone stone of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg.

But the “power vehicle through joy” initially served, not the engine of the people, but the Vehrmaht. It was used at the front, such as a field vehicle and a small cargo truck and an amphibious vehicle.

But no one was surprised at this military use. Because the transformation was set at the top. In a 1934 Porsche exhibition, a Volkswagen “should be not only suitable as a transport vehicle but also as a vehicle for supply and certain military goals”.

A French Volkswagen?

The success story of the small vehicle for the people began only after the war. To get rid of the Nazi past, he was replaced by “bore”. Since December 1945 a half a year after the end of the war, the first beetle came out of the factory. Ten years later Volkswagen celebrated the million-dollar specimen. The back car and the Boxer engine advanced into symbol of the German economic miracle. Known as “Beetle” he had record sales worldwide. Nearly 22 million beetles were produced and sold.

His nationalistic past was left behind in the postwar period. It was the French Ministry for Industrial Production, led by the Communists, that established contact with Porschen in October 1945.

The disparagement from nationalism was successfully made, this is nowhere clearer than in the French government's attempt to win the Volkswagen construction for its services”, says historian Pyta.

“Optimism without limit”

The French competition, however, knew how to prevent a “popular population”. “created an intriguing Renault and Peugeot”, says Pyta in conversation with DW. “Portche and his brother-in-law Anton Peach accused him of having participated in war crimes”.

Then, unexpectedly in December 1945 Porschen was arrested by French military authorities, who had him arrested until August 1947. But the beetle's worldwide success, however, did not prevent it.

For the renowned historian I asked, collaborations such as that of Pashke and Hitler are not so extraordinary: so-called non-political actors are often impressed, when authoritarian rulers attract them with great fascinating projects: “Portche was not the only one who was thrown into the heads without any moral reserve with a non-border opportunism”, Pyta says.

“Persona responsible for the economy, who only care about the success of their venture or the implementation of ambitious technical projects, occasionally have no reservations to connect the pact with the holders. ”

Source Layer: DW