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

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Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle Page 47

by Andrea Hiott


  Chapter 28

  28.1. “almost no free exchange of commodities, persons and ideas”: Hartrich, 110.

  28.2. “Here was a situation that was not ever going to”: George Marshall and the American Century.

  28.3. ——— “We needed everything”

  28.4. Dictators of democracy: Hartrich explains it like this: “ Demokratur, a postwar addition to the German language, expressed the cynical reaction of the Germans to the political contradiction they perceived between what the Americans preached and what they practiced. Formed from Demokratie and Diktatur, it focused on America’s dilemma of ‘dictatorship by democracy’ ”: 95–96.

  28.5. “unless we exterminate or move twenty-five million”: Loewenstein, 168.

  28.6. “The American people want to help”: U.S. Embassy: online at http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/burtstutt5688e.htm.

  28.7. “did not coincide with what the German encountered in his daily existence under Allied military-government rule”: Hartrich, 91.

  28.8. ——— “democracy will only be acceptable to the Germans when”: 98.

  28.9. ——— “Napoleon sought to impose democracy”: 98.

  Chapter 29

  29.1. Motivational Research: Ernest Dichter and the Institute for Motivational Research started inviting the customers to something like group therapy sessions where they talked about the products and said what they liked and disliked. This was the first “focus group.” It was a mix of “mining the unconscious” and also “active consumer input.” Dichter, a prominent student of psychoanalysis who emigrated to the United States in 1937, began to connect the dots between basic drives in the human psyche to wider behavioral trends and decisions of the market as a whole. Universities such as Columbia in NYC and the University of Michigan developed their Social Research departments around this time too. Men like Rensis Likert, Robert Merton, and Paul Lazarsfeld studied ways of understanding sociological issues through things like focus groups and questionnaires. In 1941, the National Opinion Research Center was established, a social research organization that would go on to conduct national polls in everything from economics to mental health. And by the time Bill was writing his letter at Grey in 1947, the American Association of Public Opinion Research would have been created too.

  29.2. “Our agency is getting big”: All following quotes from Bill in this chapter are from Bill Bernbach’s letter to Grey. 15 May 1947.

  Chapter 30

  30.1. It’s better if they can: The words of Porsche and Ferry in this chapter come from stories told by Ferry himself in We at Porsche as well as from stories told in other books from the 1950s and 1960s such as Small Wonder and The Amazing Volkswagen Story, and also from other conversations and archival digging. These stories often get repeated, and the paraphrasing changes. I’ve tried to present the cumulative effect of these differing stories.

  Chapter 31

  31.1. Phyllis Robinson would later write Clairol’s famous “It lets me be me” ad. She was also the first woman copy chief on Madison Avenue.

  31.2. “a nice little guy, very creative”: Willens quoting Ned Doyle, 19.

  31.3. “agency bean counter”: interview with Lois, Hiott.

  31.4. “having with me partners who do what I don’t do well”: Bill interview, DDB News.

  Chapter 32

  32.1. “One way of life is based upon the will of the majority”: Truman speech, 1947.

  32.2. These quotes are often attributed to Stalin and have been for many years. I have no idea how to trace them back to where or when he said them.

  32.3. The argument for export: Another line of reasoning that was made at the time was that exporting Volkswagens, if only for a limited time, would help prevent the market from being overtaken by American models. The claim was made that people needed cars, and giving Volkswagen a two-year window, under British control, to export cars to Switzerland and Sweden, could ultimately be a good thing for the British motor industry as well, as it would give them time to evaluate the needs of the European market and to adjust their own production ability.

  Chapter 33

  33.1. Nordhoff’s first day: The contract is dated for January 1st, but the 5th was officially his first day after the Christmas break.

  33.2. “Hold on a minute now”: VW: Ivan Hirst, 89.

  33.3. “warmth of contact” and “close but cold”: Ivan Hirst, 90.

  Chapter 34

  34.1. Nuremberg Trials and the role of Henry L. Stimson: One very strong voice in opposing the Morgenthau Plan was lawyer and statesman Henry L. Stimson. In opposition to the punitive measures of the Morgenthau Plan, Stimson fought hard for proper judicial proceedings. His plans for how to hold German war criminals accountable eventually led to the Nuremberg Trials.

  34.2. “Who else is to be held responsible”: Speer, ITR, 516.

  Chapter 35

  35.1. “industrial feudalism”: Mommsen and Grieger, Volkswagenwerk, 976; minutes of discussion concerning employment of the Director of Human Resources of 18 December 1947 (VWCA 98, no. 11); quoted in The British and Their Works.

  35.2. “cradle to grave paternalism”: London’s The Times.

  35.3. “work comrades”: Edelmann, 161.

  35.4. “I am firmly convinced”: Notes from company meeting on October 1, 1949; The British and their Works, 51.

  Chapter 36

  36.1. These quotes by Bill are in many of his speeches in various forms, and also have simply been passed down by word of mouth in advertising for decades. A list of the most popular of them can be found here on DDB Worldwide’s website as a pdf: http://www.ddb.com/pdf/bernbach.pdf

  36.2. “There was a spirit of high adventure”: Willens, 13.

  36.3. “We did it to see Bill’s eyes light up”: Willens, 28.

  36.4. “Two people who respect each other”: Fox, 253.

  Chapter 37

  37.1. The Cisitalia: This car became so expensive to create that it was not finished until the 1950s, and only after a long, complicated journey. It was never raced.

  37.2. “If I’d created it myself”: according to Ferry Porsche.

  Chapter 38

  38.1. Social Market Economy: This form of economics was often called Ordoliberalism because the first ideas of it were published in the journal Ordo, the economic journal associated with the Freiburg School.

  38.2. “like economic heresy”: Hartrich, 141.

  Chapter 39

  39.1. “competition for the soul of Germany”: Economist quoted by Hartrich, 117.

  39.2. “The truth of the matter”: George Marshall’s speech, 5 June 1947.

  39.3. Possible buyout of VW plant: The company was still up for bids, in a sense. The British did not want to own it; they wanted it to go to Germany again, they did not want it to be broken up and used for its designs and parts. For that reason, when France expressed interest in owning the factory, the British resisted and deferred. The Australians were an option, but as the Cold War progressed, they realized it would be too distant and too much of a gamble for them. The Russians and the Americans were both taking serious looks. The Cold War was already coming to life, and thus going to the Russians was avoided too. The most serious negotiations were with Ford. B.I.O.S. Final Report No. 768.

  39.4. “What we’re being offered here”: Brinkley, 545.

  Chapter 40

  40.1. Oberst and Erhard dialogue: Hartrich, 4.

  40.2. “It doesn’t go; it flies”: Nordhoff speech, from audio CD Der Kaefer in Wunderland.

  Chapter 41

  41.1. “transformed the German scene from one day to the next”: Hartrich,132.

  41.2. ——— Where were those eggs: “The reaction of the public was mixed: pleasure at being able to once again find something to buy, and anger at those who had withheld their food from the market places. One hapless farmer’s wife sampled the accumulated wrath of the hungry city dwellers when she arrived in the Frankfurt main station with two baskets of fresh eggs on the second day of currency
reform. She was immediately surrounded by a crowd of hostile women … pelted by eggs”: 132.

  41.3. “was to instill pyschologically”: Vernon Walters, George Marshall and the American Century.

  41.4. VW Bus: At the time in Germany, there had been growing need of a delivery-type vehicle, one that could carry large loads. With all the reconstruction and hauling of people and parts in Europe, it was an obvious need, but not one that had been attempted in such a version before. Ben Pon himself had come up with a plan for such a vehicle, a truck based on designs of the Volkswagen that could carry a load of up to 750 kg. Pon’s ideas were just sketches, but he had presented them to Colonel Radclyffe in 1947 and the idea had been buzzing around the factory since then. Detailed designs and sketches for such a vehicle came into existence once Nordhoff was at the helm. The same ideas of streamlining that Porsche had used with the original Volkswagen were incorporated into these new designs. The scooped-out nose gave the vehicle a low drag coefficient (0.44 compared to the Volkswagen’s 0.39, which was quite good for the larger design) while at the same time providing more room for the driver and the passenger. Such a Beetle-based streamlined design also meant the car would need less fuel and have twice the acceleration value of any similar-sized truck. The first models of Type 2, the transporter or VW Bus as it’s now known, were ready and unveiled in November of 1949.

  41.5. “brocaded felt slippers”: Nelson, 269.

  41.6. “nonfunctioning blinkers”: VW archive, Changing Lanes.

  41.7. ——— “I would like to request with all possible urgency”

  Chapter 42

  42.1. “really burning issues”: Changing Lanes.

  42.2. “master of equivocation” and wording of British decision: Turner thesis, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Wolfsburg, 22248.

  42.3. Nordhoff letters to Hirst and Radclyffe: Ivan Hirst, 95–97.

  Chapter 43

  43.1. “In Manhattan last week”: Time. September 1954.

  43.2. “Say something meaningful”: Lore Parks, vice president and copy supervisor at DDB in the 1960s said this in a speech she gave on 15 October 1966.

  43.3. Take Helmut Krone: In his own words, “I’d like to propose a new idea for our age: until you’ve got a better idea, you copy. I copied Bob Gage for 5 years. I even copied the leading between his lines of type.” From the September 1968 edition of DDB News.

  43.4. “He had the capacity for infinite pain.”: Challis, 239.

  43.5. “A German Son”: Challis.

  43.6. About Bauhaus spirit: The Bauhaus was the defining European movement of the 1920s, alongside the Dutch de Stijl school in Holland (Piet Mondrian). This led him to discover the work of the Turkish and Russian Constructivists of the 1930s, the work of men like Fehmy Agha, who soon became the art director of Vanity Fair and Vogue, then toward the art and design of men like Lester Beall and the infamous Alexey Brodovitch. Brodovitch had started his career in Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe and eventually come to the United States to teach a whole new kind of education in design, not to mention transforming the look and feel of Harper’s Bazaar, pulling in artists from all over Europe, Russia, and Ukraine, men such as A. M. Cassandre, Irving Penn, Cartier-Bresson, and a man who would later play a role at DDB, Richard Avedon.

  Chapter 44

  44.1. “There some 9,000”: Autocar, 3 February 1950.

  44.2. Bielefeld market research institute: from Changing Lanes, 140.

  44.3. “Only now do I have the feeling”: Edelmann, 100.

  Chapter 45

  45.1. “What’s wrong with that kid?” Lois.

  45.2. “He’s nasty”: George Lois interview, and all following George Lois quotes from NYC interviews unless otherwise stated.

  45.3. More about Krone: In 1957, he had begun work on a then relatively unknown new instant photograph camera company called Polaroid, and alongside Robert Gage, it would be DDB’s ads that made Polaroid into a household name.

  45.4. Julian Koenig’s brother, a talented filmmaker, was blackballed during the McCarthy era on claims that his art took too communist an approach.

  45.5. “splendid way to build a society”: the remaining quotes attributed to Julian are from my interviews with him.

  45.6. “It’s a disaster working with Julian”: Challis, 59.

  45.7. “and it happens just like that”: Bill interview, nurturing talent.

  Chapter 46

  46.1. “I think it’s very Catholic”: Patti Smith to Michael Silverblatt, KCRW, 5 March 2010.

  46.2. 80 percent were refugees: New York Times, 1955.

  46.3. “That was a blessing for us”: Hartrich, 219.

  46.4. The Swiss registration figures … From 18 April 1956 issue of Motor magazine, in the article titled “The Volkswagen DeLuxe Salon: Road Test”

  46.5. More on Ivan Hirst: With the dissolving of the Allied High Commission, all the army officers who had been stationed and working there were now out of jobs and expected to go home. This was very hard on many of them, after being here for ten years or more, with no real roots. Hirst found it difficult too, and he was not yet 40 years old. He’d been well taken care of by the British with a good job in Hamburg and a nice home. He wasn’t sure what to do now, and again he thought about the Volkswagen plant. He wrote to Heinrich, perhaps hoping Nordhoff might offer him a job. Hirst was always welcome to visit, Nordhoff said. Hirst found Nordhoff frustrating, and even as he respected him, his anger toward him would grow throughout his life. They exchanged Christmas cards each year, but not much else. As Nordhoff rose and rose, and as Wolfsburg began to be thought of as “his city,” as he brought it to life, he also talked less and less of the British and men like Hirst who had helped so much. The press made him the new father of the company, and it was only to Porsche that he ever gave credit; he rarely mentioned Ivan Hirst. Hirst and his wife, Marjorie, ultimately moved back to his parents’ home in Manchester and started over again in the country of their birth. But great men always get their due. Years later, Volkswagen lovers would seek him out and he’d get the thanks he deserved.

  46.6. “Today, everywhere in Germany”: BBC On This Day, May 9.

  46.7. Der Spiegel calls Nordhoff the king: Nelson, 133.

  46.8. “social capitalism”: Edelmann, 166.

  46.9. “We got a lot of publicity”: Small Wonder, 174.

  46.10. ——— “I had a big bill at the Roosevelt Hotel”: Nelson, 174.

  46.11. “No, this is no automobile,” the man said, as Nordhoff would later tell it, “I’ve never seen one like this.” Nelson, 175.

  46.12. “The VW didn’t look anything like anything—animal, vegetable, or automobile”: Brinkley, 587.

  Chapter 47

  47.1. George’s dialogue here from interview. Hiott, 3 December 2009.

  47.2. “He probably created”: Walter Cronkite on Eisenhower, from documentary Dwight D. Eisenhower: Commander in Chief. At 1:15:30.

  47.3. “In this book you’ll discover”: Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders.

  Chapter 48

  48.1. “dream job”: These thoughts taken from interview with Carl Hahn in 2010.

  48.2. Carl Hahn: Curiously, it would be Hahn’s idea of “Europeanization” that would later mature into the global reach of what is today the Volkswagen Group.

  48.3. “… the world is now facing” : Hartrich, 56.

  48.4. “I couldn’t understand what he was saying”: Luftbruecke, documentary.

  48.5. Nordhoff description: Reader’s Digest, 1954.

  48.6. Nordhoff article: “Comeback in the West”: Time magazine, 1954.

  48.7. “It has gained an unmistakable”: Road & Track, 1956.

  48.8. “the car that has come up fastest”: Time magazine; “Renault on the Go,” 6 January 1958.

  Chapter 49

  49.1. “People presented me”: Carl Hahn interview Hiott. All following CH dialogue unless otherwise noted.

  49.2. Hahn and VW had tried another, bigger agency before DDB, and it hadn’t worked
out.

  49.3. “I still don’t, to this day, know”: Krone interview, DDB News.

  49.4. “I was wondering what was going on in Bernbach’s head because it really had Nazi connotations to it, the car, and I didn’t think it was something we should do” Krone, Challis, 61.

  49.5. “I don’t have to tell you why”: George Lois interview, Hiott. All following GL dialogue comes from these interviews.

  49.6. Helmut Schmitz is another important name in this story, as he became the German counterpart at DDB, helping to revolutionize German advertising. Schmitz was there in Wolfsburg when Krone and Bill went too, and his relationship with them would last for years and years.

  49.7. “This is an honest car”: Railton, 172.

  49.8. “I definitely remember” Challis, 61.

  49.9. Bob Gage, rather than taking over art direction for the VW, assigned it to Krone. In Gage’s words: “He was right for it.” Gage also admits he thought the car was ugly and Krone “thought it was beautiful.” Challis, 60.

  49.10. Some saw it as blood money: At the time of negotiations between Israel and West Germany, a bomb was sent to Adenauer—a man gave it to two children on the street and asked them to deliver it to Adenauer’s office, but they took it to the police instead. It blew up at Munich’s police headquarters, killing one police officer. Adenauer chose not to make a big deal out of it, and to a large degree the whole event stayed out of the press. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s prime minister at the time, appreciated Adenauer’s response and it deepened the relationship between the two states.

 

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