Adolf Hitler ‘stole idea for Volkswagen Beetle from Jewish engineer’

Adolf Hitler, who has always been given the credit for sketching out the early concept of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle in a meeting with car designer Ferdinand Porsche in 1935, stole the idea from a Jewish engineer and had him written out of history, a historian has sensationally claimed.

The Nazi leader’s idea for the Volkswagen, or ‘people’s car’, is seen by many as one of the only worthwhile achievements of the genocidal dictator.

However, Paul Schilperoord’s book, ‘The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz - the Jewish engineer behind Hitler’s Volkswagen’, may change that forever.

Hitler stipulated that the vehicle would have four seats, an air-cooled engine and cost no more than 1,000 Reichsmarks - the exact price that Ganz said the car would cost.

Three years before Hitler described “his idea” to Porsche in a Berlin hotel, Ganz was driving a car he had designed called the Maikaefer, or May Bug.

The lightweight, low-riding vehicle looked very like the Beetle that was later developed by Porsche, who is still considered the foremost car designer in German history.

Jewish inventor Ganz had been exploring the idea for an affordable car since 1928 and made many drawings of a Beetle-like vehicle.

Hitler saw the May Bug at a car show in 1933 and made sketches, and within days of the meeting between them in 1935, Ganz’s car magazine was shut down and he was in trouble with the Gestapo.

The journalist and inventor left for Switzerland and died in Australia in 1967.

He is not mentioned in VW’s first corporate history or in the Story of Volkswagen exhibition in Wolfsburg.

“So many things were the same in Hitler’s sketches,” the Daily Mail quoted Schilperoord as saying.

“Hitler definitely saw his prototype and I’m quite sure he must have read Ganz’s magazine.

“It’s quite clear Ganz had a big influence on how the idea was developed by the Nazis.

“‘Ferdinand Porsche drove Ganz’s prototype in 1931. I found a lot of evidence that all similar rear engines in the 1930s can be traced by to Ganz.

“Even the price was the same. Porsche said doing this for 1,000 Reichsmarks was not possible but was forced to make it happen by the Nazis,” he added.

Meanwhile, Porsche’s image is at stake, with some critics claiming he was a war criminal.

However, VW admits to producing military parts and using slave labour, Porsche was never tried for war crimes.

Volkswagen has put the doubt over the car’s origins down to the fact that many people at the time were talking about the concept of a small and low-priced car.

It claims that through Hitler, Porsche found the funding that Ganz lacked and was able to make something real out of what was a popular idea.