Details man !

I'm watching the indy 500.

funny name for a ww2 German based company


To be clear, my grandfather was a forced laborer in Germany, All i care about is knowing exactly what the deal was with Porsche.

It's just a historical anecdote at this point and in no way do I care how this relates to My fun car or the present day company.

But if anybody is going to make statements about it, I'de like to know the details about what company we are talking about.. So I can at least read up about it.

WW2 german history is a pretty vague discussion because they destroyed a lot of record..
So if you are stating he flat out owned the factory, i'de like to know which one.

To my knowledge he ran the Volkswagen Factory in Wolfsburg, which Hitler had wanted to call Porsche factory, which he refused.. And to my knowledge he didn't "own" that factory... And he did write to Hitler to get the workers fed better.

Now you can argue if he did so out of pity, or altruism.. or simply because of wanting better results out of the workers. No idea.. or argument from me there.

I'm just curious to know which factory that he owned, used slave labor and what they made..

As far as I can tell he was the majority owner of the VW factories starting before ww2, as per the wiki; this factory was originally founded to produce the Peoples car, but was soon transformed to build the Kublewagen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Porsche

Since being engaged by the National-Socialist authorities in building the Volksauto, Porsche was praised as the Great German Engineer.[3] Hitler considered Czechs subhuman[10] and Porsche was in 1934 urged to apply for German citizenship.[3] A few days later, Porsche indeed filed a declaration giving up the Czechoslovak citizenship at a Czechoslovak consulate in Stuttgart.[18] In 1937, Porsche joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party[19] (becoming member no. 5,643,287[20]) as well as the SS.[21] By 1938, Porsche was using the SS as security members and drivers at his factory, and later set up a special unit called SS Sturmwerk Volkswagen.[20] In 1942, Porsche reached the rank of SS-Oberführer.[22] During the war, Porsche was further decorated with the SS-Ehrenring and awarded the War Merit Cross.[23] As the war progressed his proposed solutions to new developments became more complex and Ferdinand Porsche gained a reputation in certain circles as a "mad scientist" especially with Albert Speer (mainly due to his new found affinity for "pointy" designs).[24]

A new city, "Stadt des KdF-Wagens" was founded near Fallersleben for the Volkswagen factory, but wartime production concentrated almost exclusively on the military Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen variants. Mass production of the car, which later became known as the Beetle, began after the end of the war. The city is named Wolfsburg today and is still the headquarters of the Volkswagen Group.

As to the slave labor, there is plenty on the web; of course it is disputed but there is information that Porsche has agreed that at least a limited number were used under H's regime.

https://www.dw.com/en/porsche-to-investigate-forced-labor-under-hitler/a-4783359

"Porsche has already admitted to implementing forced labor at its factories under Hitler's rule. So far, Porsche has admitted to using only minimal slave labor. It has acknowledged that 50 people had been subjected to forced labor. They were said to be Poles, Russians, Dutch, Flemish, Belgian, Czech, and Italians."

And I'm kind of done with this discussion. It's Memorial Day and this is exactly the wrong kind of discussion to be having today. Reading up on the German side of WWII has made me want to get out of the house and go reflect on the good things that we as Americans enjoy on this holiday when we remember the sacrifices that our descendants made so that we could live in peace.

I like Porsche cars. I like Japanese electronics and cars. I love America more than both of those things and this rabbit hole has made me realize this more than I have in a long time.

Oh, and that was the best Indy 500 in years!

weird, all i can find is that VW was founded and owned by the German Labor Front, a Nazi organization.. pretty much state owned.


https://www.volkswagenag.com/de/group/history/chronicle/1937_1945.html

Posted without comment.

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It starts off real nice with subtitles that have nothing to do with the audible voice of Hitler..
None of it is really a secret of Volkswagen.. it's even listed on their own website.

The one German I ever talked to about the subject of Dr. Porsche and his relationship with Hitler said something along the lines of, imagine you are an engineer and designer of cars and can't even build a car yet, only do designs for other companies. You want your company to grow to the point where it could have the resources to build a car but that is just a dream. Then along comes the head of the state of a powerful state. Hitler summons you to the office and says I want you to build me a people's car. The Porsche company had only done designs of equipment, and of course with the military spending money, they ask for designs of tanks, and war related equipment. Now Hitler says he is a huge pile of money, I want a people's car and I want it right away.

Do you tell Hitler, nope, I don't like your politics so forget it. Knowing full well Hitler can just wave his hand and throw you in a labor camp or have you executed on the spot. Of course the status and money is appealing, but the power of Hitler and his loyal followers is overwhelming.

Would you have told Hitler, no?

We likely will never know the full truth of how it happened.

They didn't mention that the French also considered Ferry Porsche a war criminal as well. Curious thing, that French logic.

Word. Hear, hear!

And thank you.

Well, I wasn't looking to have the only focus of this thread be the elder Ferdinand's affiliation with the Nazis. It is a fascinating part of his career, but it seems impossible to really know his mind during that period of his life.

For me, it's interesting his early fascination with electric vehicles, leading up to his creation of the world's first hybrid. Then, his time with Mercedes-Benz, the Beetle, and even the military projects. There's enough material here for the likes of Ken Burns to make an awesome series. I was hoping something like this existed.

France had Algiers and others, Brits had India and others, Belgium had the Congo, everyone has skeletons.
Hugo Boss, Mitsubishi, and other big wartime companies are still around.
WW2 is actually closer to the American Civil War than present day.

The amazing thing is men of that time designed all of these wonders on paper, offices sometimes lit by oil lamps, measured with metal sticks, and worked in unheated wooden shacks.

I'm not aware that something like that exists. (Why on earth not? Probably because of the breadth and depth of the subject and the difficulty of doing it right.)

In lieu, I wrote a piece last year about Porsche and MBZ T-80 land speed car. The Auto Union/MBZ era is a fascinating piece of history that doesn't get a lot of attention:

https://view.publitas.com/fitzhugh-media/southwest-star-magazine-2020-2nd-issue/page/42-43

I'll recommend Origin of the Species again. It is focused around the birth of Porsche as a company, but has amazing details around the origin story and the path to the start of the company.

Keep a watch out for an upcoming book set from Randy Leffingwell that traces Porsche's racing origins back to the beginning of the beginning. It is a multi-year project and done with the benefit of Porsche archive material.

If you find yourself in Austria, stop by the Porsche museum in Gmund.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622498795.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622498986.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622499187.jpg

United States Civil War: 1861-1865
|
74 years
|
WWII: 1939-1945
|
76 years
|
Present Day: 2021

2/150 = 1.3% = true statement, but just barely so.


Gas lighting: Invented in 1799
Electric incandescent light bulb: Invented in 1878

I would say that unless you're talking about America's War of Independence, they were not using oil lamps, and probably had heat too. Not sure if they used metal sticks.

The electric bulb may have been in the big cities, but it was a LONG time before the remote countryside had electricity. It was the 1930s to 1940s for many farmers in the USA to get electricity. With Electricity they could have indoor plumbing with a water well.

My dad was born in 1930 in a house inside of Oklahoma City city limits, in the heart of "packing town" just a mile from the feed lots and packing plants and their house had no electricity or running water. Not until they moved to a better area of town in 1939 did they get electricity and running water.

very true - it was that socialist FDR and his REA that got the electrons out there