13 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: the German fascist regime promoting the "people's car" 80 years ago
Random nugget of information there. A British assessor from the UK car industry was sent over after the war to check over if there was any potential in the vehicles VW were making. Deemed the project they were on with was like going to be a failure and not to invest in it. That car was the Beetle, which they went on to make 21 million of, over 65 years.
Comment by JavaRuby2000 at 12/03/2025 at 14:15 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
They weren't making vehicles after the war. They had switched entirely to making munitions. It was both the Russians and Americans who assessed it and decided it wasn't worth them starting up vehicle production again as they thought the production lines had been destroyed. Major Ivan Hirst decided to fully inspect the factory and discovered that the vehicle production lines were still usable. He reopened the Wolfsburg factory and Volkswagen was run as a branch of the British Military (as No 2 Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) from 1945 to 1949 and then handed it over to the West German Government. It was also Major Hirst who trademarked the VW Brand with the German patent office in 1948.