From Hitler to hippies: the fascinating story of the VW Beetle

It’s the 1930s, your name is Adolf and you want to solve Germany’s unemployment problem. So, you come up with a cunning plan. Build special roads, known as autobahns, for motor vehicles and create a mass-produced car - the ‘people’s car’ or Volkswagen - which the average man in the street can buy.

So, in April 1934 Ferdinand Porsche was tasked with designing this special car within just 10 months. The task was simple but intimidating; It needed to be capable of 62 mph, achieve 42 mpg, be air- cooled, be able to transport two adults and three children and be priced at no more than 1000 Reichmarks.

The young chap named Adolf also had plans for the styling too. He is reputed to have said, “It should look like a beetle; you have to look to nature to truly see what streamlining is.” However, Hitler did not call it a Beetle, instead he announced the Volkswagen’s new name should be the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) Wagen or ‘Strength Through Joy Car’, to be built in a factory called KdF-Stadt.

Strength Through Joy - the KdF

Kraft durch Freude or KdF was Germany’s state-controlled leisure organization, a bit like a Nazi Thomas Cook. It was established as a propaganda tool, to make the people of Germany feel good about themselves and the work they did for their country. It was also intended to bridge the class divide by making middle-class activities (such as holidays and car ownership) available to all Germans regardless of income or status, and in doing so it aimed to stimulate the German economy out of its slump from the 1920s.

The KdF provided the German people with affordable leisure activities and was quite successful - official statistics show that in 1934, 2.3 million people took KdF holidays and that by 1938 this figure had risen to 10.3 million. However, it was more a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. KdF was more geared towards increasing the popularity of the Nazi Party than improving lives.

The Volkswagen programme, in theory, allowed everyone to save up and purchase a car – the KdF Wagen. Prospective buyers bought stamps in a stamp-savings book which, when full, would be redeemed for a car. But the shift to wartime production in 1939 meant that no consumer ever received a KdF Wagen – though after the war, Volkswagen gave some customers a discount for their stamp-books if they bought a new Beetle.

The KdF effectively collapsed in 1939 when Hitler embarked on his Polish Holiday. The factory was converted to produce the Kübelwagen (the German equivalent of the jeep) and the few Beetles produced went to the diplomatic corps and military officials.

A New Beginning

6 years, 75 million deaths and 1 war later, the factory was renamed Wolfsburg by the Allies and placed under the jurisdiction of the British Military. British motor manufacturers were given the opportunity to produce and market the Beetle but were uninterested in what they considered a dead-end concept. They deemed it to be “quite unattractive to the average buyer”. Instead, the factory produced Beetles for the British military. This led to small numbers of the cars being exported and introduced to the civilian market in Ireland. After this success the cars were then exported to Japan, England and the rest of the world.

Over the next 50 years, it hit some major milestones. In August 1955 Beetle production reached one million vehicles. Then on the 17th of February 1972 the 15,007,034th Beetle left the assembly line at Wolfsburg, surpassing record held up to that point by the Model T Ford for the most popular car in the world. The following year production of Beetles passed the sixteen and a half million mark and the Beetle officially became the world's most popular car. Then in 1992 the Beetle set a new world production record by producing its twenty-one millionth vehicle.

Along the way it earnt cult status. Thanks to its association with the hippie movement and surfing community it became a globally recognised symbol. This and it’s unique design and affordability. It also made numerous appearances in Hollywood films, most notably as Herbie in ‘The Love Bug series’.

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The beginning of the end?

Like all good things, it had to come to an end. The rot set in, when in May 1974 Volkswagen announced that they had designed a new car – the front-engined, front-wheel drive Golf (which ended up being OK I suppose). And so, production of the beetle moved from Wolfsburg to Mexico when Golf production commenced.

This was by no means the end, perhaps just the beginning of the end. Production continued in Mexico until the end of the century and in 1992 it was voted ‘Car of the Century’. Few other cars can boast such huge sales, long production period whilst having such an unusual design.

The Beetle was one of the most successful cars of all time. It just happened to be the brainchild of one of the most evil men in history. I wonder if any of those hippies driving around preaching peace and love ever felt the irony of driving around in car conceived by a genocidal maniac.

Credit: Imogen Thomson

Credit: Imogen Thomson