Thursday 28 May 2015

throwback thursday - TBT #11

on may 28th, 1937, the volkswagen car company was established in germany.

it was born as a result of hitler's intentions to have a 'people's car' that the german public could afford. the first car prototype, built to hitler's specifications and obejctives (by ferdinand porsche and his team) was called the 'kdf-wagen', which would later evolve into the iconic beetles.
with the onset of the war, the production turned to military vehicles and used slave labour.

the post-war revival of the company, made possible largely due to the intervention of the british army, is a whole other story.

thus began das auto !

camping with the kdf-wagen (volkswagen beetle) c.1938
image provided by the german federal archives to wikimedia commonsBundesarchiv, Bild 146-1988-019-16 


3 comments:

  1. Wow. Amazing. Quite interesting to read really.
    Infact quite a few of car makers were once upon a time involved in some arms mftg. Skoda, Mercedez, Audi and VW...

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    Replies
    1. yeah digging into these facts turn out to be quite interesting to read... i hadn't known that volkswagen had nazi roots and was involved in military production.

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  2. Rather, the other way...

    All German automobile companies were hijacked during WWII to support the country. This is no different to political machinery doing the collection rounds before a local body election

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