Volkswagen, the German word that literally means the people's car, was born under the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, in 1937, out of his own desire.
In the thirties, in fact, Hitler wanted to create a car that would be able to be afforded economically by the German people of the poorer class, who could not afford the luxurious and expensive Mercedes-Benz.
"It's the only good idea Hitler ever had," wrote one of Volkswagen's oldest experts, Bernard Rieger, in the book "The People's Car: The Global History of the 'Volkswagen Beetle'," an interesting history of how how a prestigious Nazi project turned into a national icon for three different countries. Rieger's book emphasizes the fact that "Volkswagen" is not just a German company, which collaborated with the Nazis to survive during the war years, but also the very origin of this car is a main component of the Nazi ideology, javanews reports.
Highly inspired by the extraordinary success of Henry Ford, with whom he shared both an extreme hatred of Jews and a belief that the power of mass industrialization could improve society, Adolf Hitler asked to start the construction of "Volkswagen", or the "people's car", in 1943. The name of the new Nazi car had not yet been made public, but it began to be ubiquitous in the German media quickly. Hitler's project was part of the creation of a "traffic community" to improve the lives of the middle class of the Aryan population, a project which also envisaged the construction of the Autobahn network.
The task of achieving the project was entrusted to engineer Ferdinand Porsche, owner of the design firm founded in 1931 with the mandate to create a compact, economical, simple, powerful car, easy to build in large quantities and affordable.
In 1936, three prototypes were presented (2 sedans and a cabriolet) to the Führer, who gave this order to find a place for the people's car manufacturing plant. She was chosen in the city of Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, not far from Hanover.
The groundbreaking ceremony, presided over, of course, by Hitler, took place in 1938, but soon after the outbreak of World War II forced him to convert the Typ 1 project from civilian to military. Thus was born the Kübelwagen (tub car), used as a means of light transport by Wehrmacht officials, and the "Schwimmwagen" (floating, or amphibious car).
After the war, thanks to the initiative of Ivan Hirst, the British Army, and Anton Ferdinand Porsche (Ferdinand's son), the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg was reopened. The direction was given to Heinz Nordhoff, and the model designed before the war, updated and adapted finally went into production and was placed on the market under the trade name of Volkswagen 1200, better known as Beetle (or Kaefer, Beetle or Maggiolino in depending on the language of the countries of commercialization). The success was really great.
