Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle

by Andrea Hiott

  This is something that perhaps many of us can understand. Even if one disagrees with the politics and practices of one’s country, one still has faith in the overall place, and one can’t help but believe that things will take a turn for the better, somehow.

  By all accounts, when war broke out, Ferdinand Porsche was in a state of shock. He had not believed the war would come, even though, in the Volkswagen town and factory, there had been numerous red flags. The elite housing of the Steimker Berg—the first area finished, and the one where the Nazi officials were to live—came equipped with reinforced basements in case of air raids, and bunkers had been added for the same reason. In addition, the Volkswagen factory’s floors and walls had been specifically reinforced with heavy concrete at a great deal of extra time and cost in order that they would be able to withstand bombing.

  Even so, at the VW factory, Ferdinand was certainly not the only man stunned when the Second World War began. The factory itself had no specific war plan, and none of the major players in the town had ever discussed what they would do in the case of a war: Their only concern was with building People’s Cars. All the design, all the construction, all the plans for housing, all the relocations, all the hiring, all the money that had gone into the factory—all of this stalled now as Nazi officers tried to figure out what to do with the place. For the first year or so of the war, up until 1940, it was more or less idle—everyone approached each day with the sense that the war would end soon and the hope that any day now they’d start making cars. Then, the German armaments department began to pressure the factory into doing small tasks for the military, simple things like fixing old vehicles or producing needed parts. But as the war continued, that pressure grew greater. Soon the factory was on the verge of being an armaments plant.

  Porsche was furious about this upheaval, and was not afraid to make that fact known. He refused to cooperate when he was told that the factory’s assembly lines needed to be rearranged to better aid the production of armaments. When a Nazi general came to visit him to talk about these new plans, suggesting that perhaps Porsche could dismantle the lines meant to make People’s Car parts and hide them in the woods nearby—Ferdinand exploded. He often threw his hat on the ground and stomped on it when he was mad, but this time he was too angry even for that. He simply refused to deal with the man, demanding to speak to no one but Hitler himself. Eventually he took one of his cars out to Hitler’s Obersalzberg retreat in the Alps.

  Until that moment, Hitler and Porsche had not discussed the war, though it wouldn’t be long before the two of them would be meeting to talk about military vehicles and tanks. Still, in 1940, Hitler continued to give Porsche the impression that the war would be a quick one and that it would not disrupt all the Volkswagen plans they had made together. Perhaps Hitler was simply trying to please Porsche, or perhaps he really believed that idea himself; perhaps he didn’t expect the war would hinder Volkswagen production or stop them from following through on their plans. In any case, on the day Porsche visited him in the mountain retreat at Obersalzberg, Porsche reportedly asked: What am I supposed to be building? A car for peace or a car for war?

  I believe we’ve only ever discussed the Volkswagen together, Hitler said.

  Porsche: So I can assume that this plant is being built only for the Volkswagen?

  I gave you the assignment for the Volkswagen! Hitler reiterated. Everything else follows from that!

  The exact words of their conversation2 are unknown, of course, though the above is reportedly what Porsche related upon his return. In any case, Porsche was satisfied after his impromptu meeting with Hitler. He zoomed back to the factory and told all the Nazi generals there to go and see Hitler in Obersalzberg themselves if they had a problem: They were only to build Volkswagens in this town.

  In the nineteenth century, when German-speaking tribes, kingdoms, and states united as an empire under one flag, Prussian war generals interpreted their new imperial colors—three long bars of red, black, and white—using the saying “Durch Nacht und Blut zur Licht,” “Through night and blood1 to light.” Night was falling in Europe. And too much blood would be spilled before it grew light again.

  With Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent Allied declaration of war, President Roosevelt immediately called a meeting with his cabinet and the country’s top military advisors to discuss the United States’ position. On September 3, his voice streamed through the air: “Until four-thirty this morning,”2 he said, “I had hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent a devastating war in Europe and bring an end to the invasion of Poland by Germany.” That miracle hadn’t come. So what was America to do? The horrors of the First World War had not been forgotten, and Congress had recently passed the Neutrality Act saying war would never again happen unless it was to defend a threat to America’s own soil. The act had been signed into law in 1936, and renewed and strengthened in subsequent years. Now, in 1939, Roosevelt and many in Washington’s conservative Congress were determined to stick to that pact and not get involved.

  According to a military poll taken at the time, 94 percent of Americans were against entering the Second World War. This time no slogans of “making the world safe for democracy” were going to work, and yet it was exactly the idea of democracy that was under threat. As much as any Western nation might have wanted to be neutral, separating itself from Europe was no longer a true political or economic choice. Markets and nations were intertwined, and what hurt Europe eventually hurt America. And if Europe fell into the hands of a dictator, the consequences felt in America would indeed be vast. This was not as easy to see in 1939, however, and Roosevelt and his advisors hoped that by staying out of the war they would benefit from the needs and increased demands of Europe’s wartime economy without having to get directly involved or risking American lives.

  The United States was in the midst of its own fierce inner conflicts at the time after all, and those conflicts were largely taking place through the medium of mass communication. Likewise, the new balance of power in Europe was in large part due to innovations in mass communication. Hitler made that clear. As Marshall McLuhan wrote in The Mechanical Bride: “That Hitler came into political existence3 at all is directly owing to radio and public-address systems …” Hitler’s power was his voice and the image he presented, and radio and print made it possible for Germans to hear that voice, to experience collective images and rallying cries. The blurring between real news and “news as entertainment,” and between public relations and persuasion and manipulation, made it a confusing time to form a true opinion. In the States, this blurred communication battle was one between the government and private enterprise, not a new battle but a battle that had new tools. The Depression had weakened people’s belief in capitalism and the products being sold, and because programs like the New Deal had put the economy into government hands, those businesses now found themselves trying to “win back” the public at large.

  Corporations wanted to restore consumer confidence in buying and selling again, which was something the government was also trying to do, but neither side understood that they were on the same team. Corporations made commercials warning of the perils of Big Government; members of the government warned of the perils of Big Business (sometimes also called Big Money and caricatured by men like Huey Long as “corrupt oil giants and millionaires”). It wasn’t as simple as the Democrats (represented by Roosevelt) being against oil executives and rich capitalists and the Republicans (or industrialists like Hearst, Rockefeller, and Mellon) being on the other side of the coin. In fact, it was all mixed up, and people were constantly switching sides. Underneath all the various criticisms of both corporations and government, however, all the groups professed a desire to see the same end, prosperity in America, and each of them blamed the other for putting the country in danger or damaging that prosperity. The media became the arena in which all these battles raged. And at the center of it was Edward Bernays. His clout had risen
throughout the twenties, and with the crash of the thirties, he found himself working with American businesses to try to revive customer trust.

  It was in this spirit that in 1939 Bernays became an advisor for General Motors, helping to dream up the Futurama ride and the transportation zone at the New York World’s Fair. His work with GM was geared in part toward reidentifying democracy with capitalism in a positive way. The Fair’s popular GM transportation zone presented a vision of the future that linked progress to industry and the free market. But Roosevelt was also interested in using public relations to find better ways of connecting with the voters and their needs, though he was not a fan of the Bernays style of PR. In contrast, Roosevelt and his administration identified with a man named George Gallup.

  During the 1930s, Gallup (and others) had started a new branch of public relations, one that he thought spoke more to the rational side of the human psyche. Rather than trying to figure out irrational desires and then covertly speak to them, one could simply ask the people what they needed and wanted and they would get a straight answer. Of course Bernays considered his style of public relations rational too, but his style was based on using rationality to speak to the irrational or unconscious desires of the masses. Gallup wanted to speak rationally to those masses, and he devised new methods of doing so. It was the beginning of surveys and polls. In these lists of questions, men such as Gallup were careful to try not to manipulate desires; the emphasis was on avoiding emotion rather than trying to stimulate it. It was more like science, they said; it relied on research and data.

  Public relations was easily mixed up with advertising and with news: Men like Bernays, for instance, used advertising and newspapers as part of their public relations campaigns. And the surveys and research done by men like Gallup were used to make advertising campaigns or to create material for political campaigns. All this created a very blurry battleground for the public’s loyalty and attention. Depending on what station one tuned in to and what publications one read, the American government was either saving the country or it was leading the country toward becoming an authoritarian state; big business was either manipulating you and stealing your money or it was bringing all kinds of beneficial products and opportunities into your life. It was difficult to know what sources of information could be trusted. As Roosevelt said in another radio address, “You, the people of this country,4 are receiving news through your radios and your newspapers at every hour of the day. You are, I believe, the most enlightened and the best informed5 people in all the world at this moment … At the same time … it is of the highest importance that the press and the radio use the utmost caution to discriminate between actual verified fact on the one hand, and mere rumor on the other … Do not believe of necessity everything you hear or read. Check up on it.”

  The world had to be wary of its sources of information. But the world had to be wary of government as well. In Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels could be heard openly praising Edward Bernays and his use of propaganda, but he could also be heard praising Roosevelt’s unprecedented government intervention through programs like the New Deal. In America, however, the government’s overall intentions were not the same as those of the NSDAP, nor were the corporations’ use of public relations and propaganda. In the States, while each individual group had its own agenda, the overall direction was one that championed checks and balances; thus while people were certainly greedy and power-hungry at times, there was a greater chance that those inclinations would be caught and culled before they could grow too large. But in Germany under the Nazi Party, there was no questioning of the government, and the government was now in charge of the businesses as well. There were no checks and balances. Still, it was the intentions rather than the methods that differed when it came to German and American use of the media. Hitler and Goebbels believed that the people were blind creatures who had to be manipulated into doing what was best for them, but to a certain extent, so did American men like Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays. Roosevelt supported yet another view, namely that the people can think clearly and participate rationally in government by telling their leaders what they need and want. Hitler and Bernays thought new forms of mass communication spoke to the irrational side of humans. Gallup thought it could speak to the rational side. Both were right.

  Meanwhile, Hitler’s armies were sweeping through Europe as France and Britain tried to fend them off. The German tanks known as Panzers swarmed like ants. London was hammered with bombs. One by one, countries began to fall to the Nazi army. Yugoslavia surrendered. Greece surrendered. Norway surrendered. And once Mussolini joined his troops with Hitler’s, France was forced to surrender to Germany too. Now Britain found itself the last European bastion for democracy. In retrospect, it looks unavoidable that the United States would enter: How could they let a totalitarian regime conquer all of Europe? But even with the defeat of France, Americans still hoped they would not have to become entangled in a world war again. In 1939, Roosevelt had assured the country that the United States would remain neutral, but he’d also said “Even a neutral6 [person] cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.” Now it was a year later and Europe was weighing much heavier on the mind of his administration, and he asked the people to help, not by sending their sons to fight, but by sending money and supplies instead: “Tonight over the once peaceful roads7 of Belgium and France millions are … running from their homes to escape bombs and shells and fire,” Roosevelt told the country in the spring of 1940; “They stumble on, knowing not where the end of the road will be … each one of you that is listening to me tonight has a way of helping them. The American Red Cross, that represents each of us, is rushing food and clothing and medical supplies to these destitute civilian millions. Please, I beg you, please give according to your means … give as generously as you can. I ask this in the name of our common humanity.”

  Now the whole world was debating the importance of democracy and the new threat posed by Hitler. One of Bill Bernbach’s favorite writers was the British philosopher Bertrand Russell,8 a prominent intellectual in both the United States and Britain at the time. Russell had been an outspoken pacifist during the First World War. For his views, Russell had been thrown in jail and fired from his job, but he stood strong by his beliefs. Now, twenty years later, Russell was not afraid to change his mind, knowing that what was right yesterday might not always be right today. As the Second World War hit, he urged the United States to intervene, saying that Adolf Hitler had shifted the balance. Sometimes war was the lesser of two evils, he said; if Hitler were allowed to conquer Europe, it would forever damage democracy everywhere. But it wasn’t a matter of rage; it was a matter of action. “It is a waste of time to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is a waste of time to be angry at a car that won’t go,” Russell wrote. It was necessary that words mean something, he said; strong action must back them up.

  That strong action did eventually arrive, but not as anyone had expected. It was December 7, 1941. The Weintraub advertising offices where Bill Bernbach would soon work were as sober as any other office in New York City on that cold Monday when people returned to work with the knowledge that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. Suddenly the United States had been jolted out of its isolationism. They had not gone to the war, but the war had come to their doorstep. “We are now in this war,”9 Roosevelt told the country that Monday, “We are all in it—all the way.”

  Sometimes public opinion really does change in a day. All the squabbles and competition and mistrust between corporations and government, between workers and corporations, between citizens and state now had to be overcome for the good of the country: The foundation they all shared had been attacked. To win the war, it would take private business, government intervention, union support, and the lives of millions of citizens. “Private industry will continue to be the source10 of most of this [war] material … Private industry will have the responsibility of providing the best … most efficient mass product
ion.…” Roosevelt said. What days before had seemed like giant problems, now no longer looked so monumental. People were ready to do whatever it might take for freedom, as the threat to democracy and their country became immediate and real. Taxes were raised. Price and wage controls were introduced, and nearly every sector of production turned toward aiding the troops. Civilian car production came to a halt and the great factories in Detroit were retooled for war. (Even Sloan and Ford reluctantly joined in and agreed to produce equipment for the war.) Unions made a no-strike deal with the government. Immigrants flooded in, welcomed as some of the country’s best assets, many of them working as scientists and engineers for the United States military, others helping to fill factory jobs as men went off to fight. Women stepped out of their homes to assume new roles, providing a large push in the nation’s factory and business force. And young men joined (and were conscripted) into the U.S. army in droves. Everyone’s work mattered again.

  Bill Bernbach was one of those men drafted shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked. But aside from a little taste of training camp, he wouldn’t directly experience army life. He was deemed too weak for military purposes. Due to an astonishingly high pulse during his examination at boot camp, he was sent to the sick bay for a few days so that “whatever drug he must have taken could wear off.” But Bill hadn’t taken any drugs. Days later when he was released from his confinement, his heartbeat was still the same, a ridiculous 148 beats per minute. Bill was dismissed and sent back home. The world had another path in store for him.

  Albert Speer’s very first position in the Nazi Party was as head of his local chapter of the National Socialist Motor Corps, a paramilitary drivers’ organization—part AAA roadside service, part sports club—that Hitler formed in 1931 as part of his platform toward election. Many of Hitler’s closest acquaintances and some of the earlier Nazi Party members were a part of this organization, a crew that would later be known as Hitler’s “chaufferska.”1 The point of the National Socialist Motor Club was to train people to drive well and to engender attachment to the automobile. It also assisted people when their cars broke down. At the time of its formation, Albert Speer was only in his twenties, still with baby fat and the soft features of a boy. He was also the only person in his area of Berlin (known as Wannsee) who owned a car. Speer was hesitant about the Nazi Party at first, but he was impressed the first time he saw Hitler speak and eventually grew so enamored with the party that he joined. In later years, Speer would be considered one of Hitler’s closest associates, someone Hitler believed had an artistic soul close to his own. At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer would testify: “I belonged to a circle2 which consisted of other artists and his personal staff. If Hitler had had any friends at all, I certainly would have been one of his close friends.”