[jazzbass]

I've thought a lot about the whole Porsche-Nazi thing. I think most of the books go a little easy on Porsche with the whole "he was just a simple engineer who just wanted to build cars" angle. C'mon - he was a wealthy, well know car designer at the time who did work for the government. While he may not have been an active participant, he didn't exactly go the extra mile to get out of the county or stop what was happening.

The interesting part about this, and so many discussions like them, is that they are by and large BS. Here we sit, 60 years after the fact, and try to put meaning to actions in a time we don't understand using facts we don't have. A lot like the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings debate - some want a version of history where nothing happened, others portray him as a rapist who's image should be eradicated from everything in the US. The reality is somehwere in between. The problem is we tend to deify these people for certain actions and then take it personally when someone reveals their flaws.

If Porsche was a Nazi criminal, why wasn't he tried at Nuremburg? He was jailed by the French on BS charges in hopes of getting the VW designs for Renault. As for me, what Dr Porsche did or did not do doesn't really mean a lot to me. After all, it was his son who started the company and brought us the cars we all love, and I don't really care much about his politics, either. My car was built in 1985 - 40 years after the war. Hell - Henry Ford was a bigger Hitler supporter than Porsche.