how do people feel about the flying swastika

[Bruce]

[KTPhil]

Oh, jeez, I thought we had settled this...

[Floating VW]

I don't think it's any more fair to judge Dr. Porsche and his VW for using Nazi logotypes than it is to judge Michael Jordan for wearing Nike tennis shoes, or Lewis Hamilton for driving a Mercedes. As far as the car itself is concerned, Hitler and the DAF were nothing more than sponsors with deep pockets (and hidden agendas), and I imagine Dr. Porsche saw them as nothing more than an essential, albeit highly annoying, means to an end. I imagine Jordan and Lewis think of their sponsors in the exact same way. And I'd be willing to bet that if NSU had been able to offer Porsche the money he needed to get his "Everyman's Car" project off the ground back in '32, but told him he'd have to wear a purple felt hat with a peacock feather in it and use a pink leprechaun riding a flying pig as his logotype, he would have said, "Ja, das ist gut!"

In this case, I say hate the game, not the player.

Here's something I came across a while ago that I thought was interesting: While the Beetle was still in its research and development phase, even before it was known as the KdF-wagen, it was, indeed, referred to by Dr. Porsche and his team as the "VW". However, they didn't mean "Volkswagen", as this was still a general term for any type of vehicle that could be afforded by the common man. Porsche's use of the term "VW" meant "Versuchwagen", or "Test Car". So, VW 801 was "Test Car no. 801" (VW 801 was actually destroyed during testing, along with its brothers VW 802 and VW 803, but all three were present at the famous cornerstone laying ceremony where Hitler gave his speech).
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"It's time you started treating people as individuals, rather than mathematically predictable members of an aggregate set, regardless of how well that works."

[busman78]

Wonder what the odds had those three test VW's not been destroyed in testing of surviving WW2 intact.

[Helfen]

[quote="Floating VW"]I don't think it's any more fair to judge Dr. Porsche and his VW for using Nazi logotypes than it is to judge Michael Jordan for wearing Nike tennis shoes, or Lewis Hamilton for driving a Mercedes. As far as the car itself is concerned, Hitler and the DAF were nothing more than sponsors with deep pockets (and hidden agendas), and I imagine Dr. Porsche saw them as nothing more than an essential, albeit highly annoying, means to an end. I imagine Jordan and Lewis think of their sponsors in the exact same way. And I'd be willing to bet that if NSU had been able to offer Porsche the money he needed to get his "Everyman's Car" project off the ground back in '32, but told him he'd have to wear a purple felt hat with a peacock feather in it and use a pink leprechaun riding a flying pig as his logotype, he would have said, "Ja, das ist gut!"

In this case, I say hate the game, not the player.

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Although Porsche had wanted to build his own Volks Auto you must remember it was Hitler who came to Porsche to have Hitler's Volks Auto designed and a factory designed and built. You are right in that the term Volkswagen was a generic German term many German auto companies used describing their own version of a people's car. If NSU for example offered to Porsche a place to build a car Hitler most likely wouldn't let them do it, besides Porsche had already done the VW project car for Zundapp / NSU called the type 32. Because of money issues NSU lost interest.
Porsche then got a assignment from the German government to design the VW Beetle. The beetles fathers are Hitler and the German government and Porsche. The beetle as we know it could not exist without either party being absent. As far as the name goes, it was Porsche who was shocked to learn the name of the car was to be called KDF Wagen, produced at KDF Stadt.

[Floating VW]

[Helfen]

[Jon Schmid]

[static]

[heimlich]

They all used forced labor. All the men were off at war. Towards the end of the war teenage boys were forced to fight. They had no one left to work except the forced laborers. There are many companies who were made wealthy off of the people in concentration camps. At least VW paid and created a museum so that we will never forget.
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[Helfen]

[mikeandkirsti]

Kraft durch Freude spinning swastika that inspired the KdF-VW logo