The people’s car that was created by Hitler
VOLKSWAGEN has its roots in the dark days of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
The original ‘People’s Car’ was designed for Adolf Hitler by Porsche dynasty founder Ferdinand Porsche as a budget car for the masses.
Launched in 1936 at the Berlin motor show, British journalists were treated to road tests in which SS officers held the doors open for them.
Eager Germans bought saving stamps with a view to owning one of the first ‘People’s Cars’ – but never got the chance.
Instead, at the outbreak of war, they were transformed into military vehicles, and the factory used slave labour from adjoining concentration camps to build them.
After the war, the British Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers took over the factory. Seeing parts for the Beetle cars strewn around, they put them back into production.
By March 1946 they had produced its 1,000th Volkswagen and in May 1949, the ‘Volkswagenwerk’ was formed. Five months later the factory was handed back to the Germans.
Since then, more than 21million Beetles have been produced and the manufacturer has gone from strength to strength.
The original Beetle and the ubiquitous VW camper van became symbols of the Swinging Sixties. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Volkswagen was quick to seize on the Czech brand Skoda, turning it from a joke to the choice of the clever customer.
Booming Audi, Spain’s SEAT, Porsche, and supercar makers Bugatti and Lamborghini are also part of the giant Volkswagen Group. It even bought part of Crewe-based Bentley.
But competitors complained Volkswagen had an unfair advantage. In 2007 the European Court of Justice ruled that a so-called ‘Volkswagen law’ enacted in 1960 – requiring an 80 per cent yes vote for any take-over – was illegal and anti-competitive. Crucially, the Federal state of Lower Saxony held a 20.2 per cent voting share which allowed it to veto major decisions. The law was tweaked in 2013.
The carmaker has also been embroiled in a corruption and bribery scandal, which centred on managers throwing lavish parties for union leaders and providing prostitutes from 1995 to 2005, leading to a number of VW executives being jailed.
Nevertheless, last year Volkswagen Group sold more than 10million vehicles for the first time in its history. So far in this year to August it has sold 6.55million. But then the emissions scandal broke.
Pride, they say, often comes before a fall.