Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 11 Aug 2013


Taken: 20 Apr 2011

0 favorites     1 comment    168 visits

See also...

VW VW



Keywords

Michigan
Delta township
Beetle
VW Käfer
Excerpt
Germany ~ A memories of a Nation
Author
Neil MacGregor


Authorizations, license

Visible by: Everyone
All rights reserved

168 visits


Beetle

Beetle

Comments
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
. . . For the last sixty years, the German product that has been presented as reliable at a reasonable price, and has come to sum up the German engineering to much of the world, is the V.W. Beetle.

It was Germans who made the first internal-combustion engines in the 1880s, and Germans, notably Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, who built the first working motor cars. Ordinary Germans were not, to begin with, the beneficiaries of this new engineering prowess. Daimler Benz made fine cars, but they were limousines for the rich. . . Page 345

When he came to power in 1933, Hitler was appalled that German car ownership was so low, although the Weimar government had been working to change this and had already started planning the Autobahn network. Morotizing Germany, the Nazis decided, should be a key policy. It would show the strength of the regime, as well, of course, as keeping people happy, and providing that Germany was a match for the United. So Hitler told Ferdinand Porsche to design a robust, easy-to-maintain, reliable car which could be mass-produced for a nation that had very little spare cash. . . . Page 347


Germany  ~  Memories of a Nation
23 months ago. Edited 23 months ago.

Sign-in to write a comment.