life:
The Beetle: From Hitler to Hippies
“Volkswagen,” as most everyone knows, translates as “the people’s car.” Originally, though, the car was named the “KdF-Wagen,” with KdF short for “Kraft durch Freude,” or “Strength Through Joy” — the Third Reich’s officially sanctioned leisure organization. Adolf Hitler commanded Porsche to create the vehicle in the late 1930s in order to stimulate the German economy and, incidentally, to spark engineering advances that Hitler hoped would help drive the Nazi war machine. It wasn’t until after WWII that the car became known pretty much everywhere as “the Beetle.”
Pictured: Hitler admires a VW model as designer Ferdinand Porsche points out, evidently to the Fuhrer’s delight, that the KdF’s engine is located in the back.
