Authors: Andrea Hiott
13.5
. The first projects of the Porsche design firm went toward a midsize, two-liter car called the Wanderer.
13.6
. The design of the car’s body came in large part from Erwin Komenda.
13.7
.
Tatra
: Much later, long after Porsche and all his designers were gone and after the torsion bar had proven to be an asset in the Volkswagen, Tatra would sue VW over this issue, and win. Hans Ledwinka and Tatra played a big role here. Once one starts looking deeply, however, there are examples of “Beetle-like” cars all over the place from around this
time. So many people were experimenting with so many of the same ideas, options, and tools. Porsche and his engineers most certainly used a lot of what they saw around them, especially the very advanced Czech companies like Tatra. In the end though, for whatever mysterious reason, there was only one car that became the Bug.
14.1
. “The motor vehicle”: Sachs, 47. From Hitler’s speech on 11 February 1933.
14.2
. Goering would later oppose the idea of the Volkswagen, claiming it would nationalize private industry and hurt the country in the end.
14.3
. “No symbolic groundbreaking”: Sachs, 48.
14.4
. “Just as horse-drawn vehicles”:
Die Strasse,
1939, no. 20, 242.
14.5
. “The erasure of stubborn differences”: Sachs, 53.
14.6
.
widespread construction of the first modern highway
: The first bit of autobahn did not come from Hitler but from the Weimar Republic, but Hitler was the first to make it into a program and to actually build the plans that had been made. Mussolini had also attempted to build highways.
14.7
. “Nothing to cramp or delay you”: Sachs, 52. From W. Bade,
Das Auto erobert die Welt. Biographie des Krafwagens,
Berlin, 1938, 316f.
14.8
. “German car makers have made”:
Motor,
1935.
14.9
. “It should look like a Beetle”: This is attributed to Hitler in various books about the Beetle, but with no references, only word of mouth. “Wie ein Maiekaefer soll er aussehen. Man braucht nur die Natur zu betrachten, um zu wissen, wie sie mit der Stromlinie fertig wird.”
15.1
.
Mercedes
: Created by Daimler, this was always Hitler’s favorite car, the one he was sure to be seen in around town. The car had been named after Mercedes Jellineck, the daughter of Emil Jellineck, a former patron of the company and a wealthy and influential Jew.
15.2
.
Auto Union race car
: Giving them race-car funds was one of the best moves Hitler could have made. Porsche’s Auto Union Type C race car would become one of the most famous race cars in German history. The government’s annual funding would also lead to the famous Silver Arrows, the racing cars that dominated the European races from 1934 until the outbreak
of war. In those years, Germany was clearly emerging as a dominant automotive power again. An issue of the magazine
Der Nürburgring
filled its front cover with a photo of him: “Adolf Hitler, the patron of the German motor car,” it read.
15.3
.
Kaiserhof Hotel
: Very famous Prussian hotel. It used to be close to the Reichskanzlei and was a sign of power and prestige.
15.4
. For the hardcore VW fans: I have used slightly different dates here than Chris Barber does in his very excellent book on the Beetle. There is no definite date (the month, we know, but we don’t know which came first), and in my research, the way I have presented these meetings is the way that made sense with the documents I found. Barber puts Werlin’s visit after
the Exposé was mailed.
15.5
. “In my opinion, a people’s car does”: Porsche Musuem, FP and the VW, 15.
16.1
. “chess match for power”: Kershaw, Location 4899.
17.1
. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing
”
: Porsche gets different phrases like this attributed to him in his biographies. They are all paraphrases. See Nelson, 40–41.
17.2
. “Who is a Jew”: Goering is often quoted with this phrase, though it was a popular one at the time and probably did not originate with him. Many Germans had Jewish friends or acquaintances who didn’t count for them as “real Jews.” Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna who Hitler so liked when he lived there, once said something quite similar when
the press asked him why he talked so badly of Jews but then still had friends or dinner partners who were Jewish businessmen.
17.3
. “There can be only one Volkswagen”: Hitler/Domarus, 880.
17.4
. “the most significant public monument in America”: Brinkley, 291.
17.5
.
The Porsche plant
: Hawranek,
Der Spiegel Online,
21 July 2009.
18.1
. “a psychologocial balance”:
Hitler
documentary, Fest.
18.2
. ——— “We will not lie and we will not cheat”
18.3
. “Germany needs and desires peace”: Arendt, 37.
18.4
. “Let there be no doubt”: Hitler speech from 1937 Auto Show.
18.5
.
extended learning trip to the United States
: A member of the DAF, Bodo Lafferentz, was sent with them as well to watch over things and a man from Porsche’s workshop, Dr. Feuereisen, a man who would later work for VW and be an engine of the service department, was also with the group.
18.6
. “without having to be supervised”: Ferry Porsche, 107.
18.7
.
German banker unaware of war
: “Little of this sentiment was really understood on the German side. A German banker visiting the City of London in May 1939 was mystified by the endless talk of war and the evident preparations for its imminent arrival.” Overy, 356.
18.8
. “There are 75,000”: Ghislaine Kaes’s “Lecture on the Trip to North America by Dr. Ing.h.c. Ferdinand Porsche in 1936,” given 29 January 1937. Recorded in VW’s
Place of Remembrance.
18.9
. “Automated operations require”: Otto Dyckoff,
Place of Remembrance,
26.
19.1
. “an unscrupulous criminal”: Hitler, speech from 1939 Auto Show.
19.2
. “sense of spaciousness almost unmarred by interior columns.” “The
building drew attention as a harbinger of a new era in industrial design. Factories would no longer be doomed to the look of ‘old prison workshops’ …,” Brinkley, 136.
19.3
. “visually with the center of town”: Rosenfeld, 89–115.
19.4
. ——— “considered this axis”
19.5
. “Chianti bottle and dagger ruled”: Nelson, 78.
19.6
.
to help Germans save their money
: The car was being advertised for 990 marks. In reality, the car would have cost each person closer to 1200 marks due to hidden added costs such as a “delivery fees,” which made little sense as customers were expected to travel to Wolfsburg and pick up the cars themselves.
19.7
. “nothing would induce him to pull the trigger”: Ferry Porsche, 7–8.
20.1
.
Hoover
: He did not allow direct and obvious intervention in the domestic market, but he did set up some potential solutions that FDR would later capitalize on. Hoover’s real mistake, however, was to allow direct intervention in the
international
market by greatly restricting international trade, a move that had devastating economic consequences.
20.2
. “After all,”: Fireside Chat, 12 March 1933.
20.3
. “Politics was the first big business”: Bernays,
Propaganda,
Location 889.
20.4
.
German government became openly totalitarian
: There was also a slide toward paranoia, which added a new level of violence and horror to industrial relations. Hitler was afraid of leaks about the People’s Car, for instance, and jailed one Opel exec after his trip to America because he thought the man had given away the secrets of the car. Porsche and his team
would eventually be told to smash all the original VW prototypes to keep them out of enemy hands.
21.1
. “One stated: After what has happened there …” All Ranicki quotes here are from
The Author of Himself,
39, 40. Phoenix Books, London, 1999.
21.2
. This conversation between Porsche and Hitler is reported in various books, though of course none of us knows the exact words, it was something to this effect.
22.1
. “Through night and blood”: Clausewitz, Location 14.
22.2
. “Until four-thirty this morning”: Roosevelt, Radio Address, Location 3413.
22.3
. “That Hitler came into political existence”: McLuhan,
Understanding Media,
1964, p. 262.
22.4
. “You, the people of this country”: Roosevelt, Fireside chat, 3 September 1939.
22.5
. The National Association of Manufacturers, NAM, had formed in a previous cycle of recession at the end of the 19th century as a way of supporting foreign export.
22.6
. “Even a neutral”: Roosevelt, Fireside chat, 1939.
22.7
. “Tonight over the once peaceful roads”: FDR, Fireside Chat, 1940.
22.8
.
Bertrand Russell
: In an open letter to Russell at the time he was removed from his position in NYC, Albert Einstein wrote his often quoted phrase: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
22.9
. “We are now in this war” FDR, Fireside chat, 1941.
22.10
. “Private industry will continue to be the source”: FDR, Gearing up for the war in 1940 chat.
23.1
.
Chauffeurska
: Hitler’s close inner daily circle was in large part comprised of his drivers. Hanfstaengl called this “sycophantic entourage” his Chauffeurska. Kershaw, Location 5801.
23.2
. “I belonged to a circle”: Speer’s testimony, Nuremberg, Germany, 7–19 June 1946.
23.3
. “With the success of a sleepwalker”: Reuss, page 215, translation of Mommsen.
23.4
. “I think you have a rather good idea there”: Ferry Porsche, 145.
23.5
. Speer was right about the organization having a lack of standards or efficient rules. Only in 1944, for example, would the Volkswagen factory be officially designated as the prime car manufacturer for the Nazis.
23.6
.
Porsche also courted by Stalin
: Porsche knew Russia firsthand because he had been invited there by Stalin. He accepted the offer, was given a tour of their country and industry, and was even offered a job as the director of the development of the Soviet auto industry, a job which he had considered taking but eventually declined, saying he did not want to leave his
home, or live in a country where he could not understand the language.
23.7
. “working towards the Fuhrer”: Kershaw explains this beautifully in his books on Hitler, but basically it was the idea that anyone in the country always had the feeling that in their everyday acts they were doing what was best for the country and since Hitler was the symbol
of the country, he embodied that country and one did everything that
would please him.
23.8
.
Nordhoff at Opel’s Brandenburg plant
: It was here that the air-cooled engine of Porsche’s VW also made it into Nordhoff’s life once more: It had once been thought that Hitler did not like this particular engine, but now the Nazis had decided air-cooled engines were best for war, and thus the truck factory was encouraged to design a truck that
could use one. An air-cooled engine for a heavy-duty truck was impractical so Opel engineers developed one that used both air and oil to keep itself cool: Oil absorbed heat from the cylinder barrels, but the heads were cooled by air. This truck never made it into mass production, however, but its design gave Nordhoff quite a headache.
23.9
. “The future looks dark”: Heinrich to Charlotte: 12 August 1943, Privatarchiv Barbara Cantacuzino. Edelmann, 61.
23.10
. “He is a real genius”: Taylor, 26.
23.11
. “Hitler drove around the country”: Trudl Junge, 71.
23.12
. “At most a half-dozen men”: Ferry Porsche, 141.
23.13
.
Mein Kampf
from loudspeaker:
Niemand Wusste was Morgen sein würde.
Wolfsburg, Volkswagen AG, CD 1, Title 3.
23.14
.
Women workers at VW
: Some women arrived pregnant. Many others got pregnant while working there. In one of the more horrific crimes of the time, 365 children would eventually die, most before the age of one, in connection to camps such as these within the town. The doctor overseeing the factory nursery would later be sentenced to death.
23.15
.
Burned his foot by holding it to a hot stove
: “Under no circumstances could I continue living this way. Since I was rejected each time I reported myself sick because (as the ineterpreter told me) neither blood nor any injuries were visible, I thought out a plan. In the middle of the night while everyone was asleep, I went to the red-hot stove in the hut and
pressed my left foot against the back of it utterly fearlessly … The next morning I reported myself sick and was certified unfit to work on the huts … Since I was working in the kitchen, I began to regain some of my strength.” Cesare Pilesi,
Place of Remembrance,
72.
24.1
. “anguish and disbelief and bewilderment”: Ferry Porsche, xi–xiv.
24.2
.
Ferry and Hitler
: Ferry, though he at times cooperated with the Nazi government to a great extent, was leery of Hitler, but he would later write in
We at Porsche
that he’d always been impressed with Hitler’s automotive skills: “… here, I thought, was a man who had taken the
trouble to study and
understand this particular problem of the Volkswagen. He asked a surprising number of technical questions, all of which made good sense.” Porsche, 91.