Beetle beginnings: born in the bosom of Nazi Germany, and arisen from its ashes, the WV Bug was an immediate threat to the automotive establishment - Volkswagen Beetle

Automotive Industries, March, 1998 by Karl Ludvigsen

Born in the bosom of Nazi Germany, and arisen from its ashes, the VW Bug was an immediate threat to the automotive establishment.

Almost everything you know, or think you know, about the origins and early years of the Volkswagen Beetle is wrong.

Think Adolf Hitler backed Ferdinand Porsche's design and development of the first Volkswagen? Germany's other carmakers actually paid for it -- through their industry association, and through the nose.

Think that the money advanced by 336,668 savers--regular German volk who filled stamp books in a layaway plan to buy their Beetles--was actually used to equip the factory for wartime as a huge Nazi scam? Their 275 million Reichsmarks, plus interest, were staunchly guarded by one of the leading Nazis who was adamant that they would get their cars one day. The money did go unreturned after the war--but only because the bank holding it was in the Russian Zone.

Think the huge factory built expressly to make Volkswagens was patterned after Ford's Rouge complex, which Porsche and his team visited? It was patterned much more after Ford's newer and much better-laid-out factory at Dagenham, in Britain.

Think that by the late '30s all preparations to make Beetles were stopped and the production of its military version, the Kubelwagen, shifted into high gear? The German Army didn't like the Kubelwagen at all. Only after the determined urgings of young Ferry Porsche and the car's good performance at the Russian Front was it belatedly put into low-volume production.

Think that VW's big factory at Fallersleben, as it was then known, was only bombed by chance during the war? Allied intelligence had identified the plant as the main production source of the V-1 flying bomb and put it at the top of its strategic target list.

Think that the British occupiers restarted Volkswagen production at Wolfsburg, as the town was renamed? The American forces were the first to occupy the area and they encouraged the workforce to recommence Kubelwagen production via a bank loan. And the British military occupiers were far from eager to see the big plant making cars again. One senior officer, all too aware of the threat the Volkswagen would pose to Britain's own motor industry, urged Whitehall to turn the sprawling plant into an industrial park.

Think that British analysts studying the car rejected it as unworthy? One high-level U.K. intelligence team reported that the Beetle was "the most advanced and the most interesting for quantity production" of all the cars they'd seen in Germany, adding that it could offer "a possible solution of the cheap utility vehicle that would be acceptable in (the U.K.) and in overseas markets." British automakers did all they could to "cherry pick" key machinery from the plant and divide its assets to keep VW from making cars. The Brits realized the challenge the Beetle would pose to their lucrative export markets.

Think Ford was offered the VW plant, but rejected it? The British were amenable to Ford's interest in the VW works and its product, which a Ford report said "has a definite appeal owing to its operating economy, low purchase cost, and its unique design and performance." Ford proposed that it be the minority shareholder of a new German automaker formed by a complete merger of its own German operation with Volkswagen, and asked that the project be pursued by the new head of VW, Heinz Nordhoff. As it turned out, lone-wolf Nordhoff had other ideas.

Think that in a meeting in Germany to discuss Volkswagen, Ford's President En-de Breech, said to his boss, "Mr. Ford, what we're being offered here isn't worth a damn?" Breech and Ford never traveled to Germany together at that time.

So much for volklore.

These are but a handful of highlights from Battle for the Beetle, Karl Ludvigsen's upcoming book that reveals the untold story (and debunks many established myths) of the creation and the postwar disposition of the VW factory and its amazing little car. Ludvigsen is chairman of Ludvigsen Associates Ltd., a London-based automotive consultancy. He is the author of many award-winning books including Excellence Was Expected, the definitive Porsche history. Battle for the Beetle will be published later this year.