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Fri Jan 22, 2010 8:28 am

“The year was 1945, the month was May, and Germany had just capitulated. Scarcely a month had passed since Allied detachments had swarmed over the Bavarian Alps west of Salzburg.
[……], the British military authorities who were now touring the narrow roads and quiet villages of Carinthia had no reason to think that they would find anything out of the ordinary in a village as remote as Gmünd. [……] Several citizens, however, suggested that the British officers pay a visit to the sawmill that stood on the edge of the town, in the Malta valley. There they found, clustered around the one-story sawmill and a small outbuilding, a strange assortment of vehicles: various models of the Volkswagen, the “people’s car” ordered built by Hitler. The collection included a rare convertible, military models, and a claustrophobically streamlined coupe. Inside the buildings the British found the biggest surprise of all: the chief designer, the core of the engineering staff, and much of the records and equipment of one of Germany’s most respected engineering firms: the Porsche KG. […...]”

(Porsche: excellence was expected- by Karl Ludvigsen, 1977)

The above story has got me really intrigued! Several books about VW and Porsche cover the first encounter of the allied forces with Porsche and his arrest later in 1945 very briefly but who exactly were these British (or where they American like Chris Barber wrote in his book?) soldiers who stumbled upon this ultimate barn find? Which cars did they find? Did they document there find and did they make any pictures? What happened to the cars and the records?

Some of the answers are known like what happened to the “claustrophobically streamlined coupe”(the Rekordwagen or Berlin-Rome car): apparently the roof got chopped off of one of the cars (yes there were two!) by the soldiers and the car was used for joyriding and eventually scrapped :( (all of it?). According to Chris Barbers book Porsche got keep the other Rekordwagen which was later sold to Otto Mathe. More info here http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=348107.

I guess a lot of the other cars where just used by soldiers and officers until they broke down.

Bernd Wiersch wrote an article in Käfer Revue about the prototypes in which he refers in detail to the inventory lists that were made by Porsche during and right after the war. Check the posts by whitewalls in the VW38 thread( http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3...;start=780 ). Could the last list be the summation of the vehicles found in Gmünd?

I know it will be impossible to get all of the answers but it sure would be fantastic to get some more pieces of the puzzle!

Sorry for the long post. :D

Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:37 am

They were almost certainly Americans. Austria was liberated by the Sixth Army Group, under the command of Gen. Devers, USA.

I've been having trouble finding Gmund in my atlas. but the area from apporximately Innsbruck to the west was liberated by the Seventh Army under General Patch, and the area around Berchtesgarten (including Hitler's residence) was very famously liberated by troops in the Third US Army under General Patton.

In addition, some troops from the Fifth US Army under Gen Truscott made it into extreme Southern Austria on May 6 (the day of the surrender), but they didn't make it much further north than the Brenner Pass.

Some troops from the British Eighth Army under Gen. McCreery also closed up to the Brenner Pass.

According to the Occupation Plan, all of Southern Germany was in the US zone; Northern Germany was in the British Zone; this is of course why the British ended up with the Ruhr and Wolfsburg, even though most of the Ruhr was initially liberated by the troops of the US First Army under the command of Gen. Hodges.

In addition there was recently a documentary on teevee about a special US unit who went racing around Germany after the Ruhr was surrounded and the front in the West more or less collapsed (except for isolated pockets such as Kassel).

They were specifically tasked with finding and detaining German scientists and technicians, and they were often well ahead of the main body of US forces; but I cannot recall any details as my wife and daughter had some kind of crisis while this was on and I was not allowed to concentrate on it to any useful degree. I think it must have been on PBS, as I do not have cable.

It may well have been troops from this unit who initially found Dr. Porsche, and if that were the case, there may well have been a cover story circulated about it, as the escapades of this unit were classified for many years after the war.

Sat Jan 23, 2010 4:34 am

this story reminds me on a strange picture someone showed in another topic overhere at the samba ..
you saw some pre models kubelwagens ,a sport model and some other military vehicles..maby its connected to this story ?

i should try to find it

Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:55 pm

This one?

Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:57 pm

yes thank you ..thats the pic ..

Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:41 am

Could it be, ferry, that that pic (thanks Undis for posting it) was taken during the trip from Stuttgart to Gmund in winter 44/45?

Thanks Hammarlund for sharing so many details on the allied troops in Austria and Germany and I would love to see that documentary you mention. Hope your wife and daughter are ok! :? :D

It could be very plausible that this special unit you talk about was the one that found Porsche. However, I saw a documentary on National Geographic the other day about the so called Monument Man: a group of army man who had a background in art and their task was to find and return stolen or confiscated art after the war. What was made clear in the documentary was that literally millions of pieces where stolen and unfortunately a lot was destroyed before the allied forces arrived but also a lot was trashed or stolen again by allied troops out of frustration or just for fun. So I guess a couple of odd looking vehicles did not get the most proper treatment either, hence the chopped Rekordwagen. :cry:

BTW, here is a map of Austria right after the war. You can see Gmünd right in the British occupied area.

I went through a couple of books I have on the history of Volkswagen and Porsche and came up with the following score regarding whether the British or US troops found Porsche:

Ludvigsen (Excellence was expected) – British, May 1945 at Gmünd
Barber (Birth of the Beetle) – American, May 5th 1945 at Zell am See (at Porsches Lake house about 200 km from Gmünd)
Hopfinger (Beyond Expectation) – British, 1945 at Gmünd
Nelson (Small Wonder) – British, Gmünd
Nitske (The amazing Porsche and VW story) – Allied Troops, British at Gmünd (where most of the cars were found) and US troops at Zell am See (where Porsche was found and some of the special cars like the two Rekordwagens)

So there seems to be some confusion about whether Porsche was found at his workplace in Gmünd or at his home in Zell am See.

Several sources say that Porsche was eventually arrested and moved to Frankfurt by US forces at the end of July 1945. This is also the moment when the last inventory list was made (July 28th).

According to Barber the last list includes the vehicles from Gmünd and Zell am See and contains a total of 26 cars:

11 KdF wagens (vw38 or vw39?)
2 convertibles (Ferry’s with the Roots supercharger? the cornerstone one? See pics below)
5 wood or coal burners (KdF wagen running on wood or coal)
5 Kubelwagens (including a delivery van)
2 Commander cars
1 Rekordwagen

This is probably one of the convertibles pictured at the Gmünd sawmill.

Could this be the other convertible that was located at Zell am See or Gmünd(pictured here with major Hirst)?

Since this list was made after the allied troops found Porsche and his vehicles I guess most people involved knew the cars had some sort of value. But the question remains: what happened to them?

Am I making any sense?

Just to make clear: by no means I am an historian or anything like it I just think this is fascinating stuff and I rely on books and articles and the old trustworthy Internet to get my information. :D

Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:04 am

One car was found by the english at Gmünd: a black one, the body of this car was sold 3 years later with a chassis of car no. 1 and engine of car no. 2 to Otto Mathé. Another car was found by the Americans at Zell am See. Zell belongs to the Salzburg area and this area was under American government after WW2. The guys from the american rainbow division drove the car and according to some eye witnesses cut a small (not the whole roof) hole in the car. This car was also dark, maybe dark blue or black. The remainings of this car were also sold to Otto Mathé as spare parts for his other car.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:10 am

great information here, thanks to all who contributed!

Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:53 am

PROTOTYP wrote: One car was found by the english at Gmünd: a black one, the body of this car was sold 3 years later with a chassis of car no. 1 and engine of car no. 2 to Otto Mathé. Another car was found by the Americans at Zell am See. Zell belongs to the Salzburg area and this area was under American government after WW2. The guys from the american rainbow division drove the car and according to some eye witnesses cut a small (not the whole roof) hole in the car. This car was also dark, maybe dark blue or black. The remainings of this car were also sold to Otto Mathé as spare parts for his other car.

Thanks for adding the info PROTOTYP. I came across this pic of the type 64 at Goodwood (GB) in 2003.

This is the Mathe car, right?

Do you have any information on the other cars that were found or what happened to them?

Tue Jan 26, 2010 5:28 am

Yes the car in you picture is the only complete surving 64. It was owned by Mathé. The whereabouts of the three cars seems to be as this:

One car was destroyed before moving to Gmünd. Car Nr. 2 was used by the americans and dismantled soon after. Car Nr. 3 was repaired from daily use and the body was restored and updated by Pinin Farina during 1947. The car was used by Porsche Gmünd at the Hofgartenrennen Innsbruck as a demonstrator and soon after that sold to Mathé with the remains of the other prototype cars.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:59 am

Thanks for clearifying the whereabouts of the Type 64. My question actualy regarded the other cars like the KdF Wagens and the two convertibles that where found right after the war. Any info on those?

Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:15 am

Thank you, MDKG, for pointing out to me something I had never noticed before: the British did indeed have a small zone of occupation in Austria, lying along the Italian and Yugoslavian borders.

Does your book by any chance say which British unit originally occupied this area? If they moved in from Italy, it was almost certainly Eighth Army; but they could have been transported across the American Zone, in which case it was probably a real culture shock for any British Officers who were sporting beards when they passed through Patton's command...

This is significant because many of the officers and men of the Eighth Army, due to their experiences with the highly mechanized Afrika Korps, had more familiarity with and appreciation for the Volkswagen than any other outfit in the British forces.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:49 am

I believe that the famous 101st Airbornes E company (of band of brothers fame) occupied Zell am See during this period. They are a well documented unit so if Dr. Porsche were found in Zell am See the story would probably be out there some where. This leads me to think he was probably in Gmünd at the end of the war.
Also why would all of those cars be kept at his personal house? Zell am See is around 70 miles away from Gmünd. You would think they would keep the important design prototypes at the workshop where they were working.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:56 pm

Quote: Zell belongs to the Salzburg area and this area was under American government after WW2.

What a coincidence. Just today I talked to an older friend who was in the Seventh Army and he told me about what it was like occupying the Salzburg area!

In fact, he tipped me off to something. One of Goring's Mercedes, a closed car, was captured at that time. His G.I. buddies had a grand time driving it around until General General Patch heard about it and ordered the Mercedes brought to him...IF the picture in question shows the mass exodus from Gmund to Zell am see in the late winter/early spring of '44 '45, that big civillian saloon we see off the side in the ditch may well be the same car.

I mentioned this thread (which is how the subject of the Mercedes came up), but he didn't have any useful information.

Quote: Also why would all of those cars be kept at his personal house? Zell am See is around 70 miles away from Gmünd. You would think they would keep the important design prototypes at the workshop where they were working.

To save them from the Russians!!!! By late winter of '45 it was the goal of almost every high-ranking German, civilian or military, to (a) salvage as much as possible, and (b) surrender it to the Allies instead of the Russians. The Third Ukranian Front was threating eastern Austria as early as mid-March of '45, when the last big German offensive in this area turned into a rout and most of the Hungarians serving with the Germans surrendered to the Russians.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:09 pm

Zell am See was not only the place were Porsches private house was located. They also had a lot of storage place there at the Flugschule. (Flying school) This was the place where for example type 64 no. 2 was stored.

To destroy your illusions - the picture with the black car convoi was made in 1941.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:23 pm

:D god i love thesamba. 8)

Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:25 pm

Thanks for the contribution guys.

It would have been too good to be true PROTOTYP if that picture was taken during the move from Stuttgart to Gmünd. Would you care to share how you would know this pic was taken in 1941?

Some more searching gave me this site:

http://www.aboutmycar.com/category/car_history/history_of_makes/porsche/porsche-history-1639.htm

Some unknown author writes the following quite specific details (the English is a bit crooked so it might have been translated ):

Quote: In May, 1945 American 42 division of 7th Army entered Austrian town of Zell am See. Its troops consisting mostly of prisoners that had been promised amnesty however on earth casually in flying school territory one Porsche 60К10 of two existing for that moment. After inaccurate and killing driving for several days without checking oil lubes they wrecked that precious Porsche. The last model of Porsche 60K10 survived those times now rests in private collection.

Hammerlund, would be great if your friend can recall any of this?

Unfortunately Ludvigsens book where I got the map from does not say which unit occupied the Gmünd area but I reread some parts and further on Ludvigsen says that Porsche and his family were in Zell am Zee when found by the British which is in contradiction with the intro of his book (see start of this thread). However he did interview Ferry Porsche himself back in the 70s to get his information.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:40 pm

The only useful thing I can tell you is that when I talked to him earlier today he mentioned that at the time they reached Salzburg, there were many former American POWs whom his outfit had liberated attatched to his unit.

An American infantry division at this time had about fifteen to twenty thousand men. What would be really useful is to know the brigade, batallion, and company designations of the outfit that found the Porsches. We might get lucky and find some surviving individuals of that company.

But we don't have much time...

I'm sorry to hear the photograph is not of the evacuation to Zell am See. I certainly can see no reason, though, why the photograph couldn't have been made in 1941.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:24 pm

I'm guessing that the plates give it away the dark car didn't get a permanent plate until later in the war as it was used as test mule by the Stuttgart offices. see the earlier pix with Versuchswagen etc on the back.

Further note on the important "prototyp" cars being hauled around etc. The most interesting for the Porsche group of 'prototypes' were the vehicles with new engines in them that Ferry had been working with, not the out of date racers that had been built for one race, and then used as mules for a while to test all sorts of basically undocumented things. We do know that the nose was changed on the black car before its accident with the sedan (see Barber's pix) and as Protoyp says there were various engine and chassis swaps since the Third car or Mathe car,/ body ended up on the chassis of car 1 (38/41) and nothing is known about the end of the chassis of car 3 was. (There is some confusion on this in Barber's book, which might be cleared up by info from Prototyp's notes above that parts left over from other car 1 and car 2 as well as potentially engine parts from engine # 38/46?, the 4th engine built as a back-up - If parts were saved earlier then they would have shipped all or none of the extra parts available to Mathe. That might have included parts from the Ex GI romp with car #2. This had been done right around Zell am Zee where the Porsches lived.

Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:41 pm

Hammarlund wrote: What would be really useful is to know the brigade, batallion, and company designations of the outfit that found the Porsches. We might get lucky and find some surviving individuals of that company.

Maybe this helps: Wikipedia "confirms" Shadds earlier statement about occupation of Zell am See in 1945:
Quote: 1945 - City serves as a base for Company "E" of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division

Not sure if they found the Porsches though.