Part 2: The Volkswagen Beetle's Jewish Engineer

By Michelle Shocklee

Last month I wrote about the well-known history of the Volkswagen Beetle, my little dream car. Today I want to share the story of one of the engineers who was instrumental in the development of Hitler's "People's Car" yet received no credit. 

To recap: In 1930s Germany, Hitler was in power. Proud of Germany's new highways system, he wanted every German to have access to an economical car. Ferdinand Porsche and Hitler had become chummy so it wasn't a surprise when Porsche was given the task to design what would eventually become the Volkswagen Beetle, or VW Bug. As I said in my post last month, the VW Bug went on to become the fourth highest-selling vehicle of all time. 

Josef Ganz in 1933

(Photo: Paul Schilperoord)

Yet that isn't the whole story. Let me tell you about a Jewish engineer named Josef Ganz.

Josef Ganz was born in 1898 to a Jewish family living in Budapest. In 1916, his family moved to Germany and became German citizens. Josef even joined the military and fought for Germany in World War I. From an early age, Josef was fascinated with technology. After the war ended, he studied mechanical engineering, and it was during those years of study that he dreamed of designing a small car that would sell for the price of a motorcycle. Ganz made many sketches of small, light-weight cars, but he had no money to build a prototype. Instead, he wrote about them in articles that were published in automobile magazines. 

Because of his prolific and fascinating writings, shortly after his graduation in 1927, he was hired as the new editor-in-chief of Klein Motor Sport. Ganz continued to be critical of heavy, unsafe and old-fashioned cars and promote innovative design and his concept of a car for Germany's general population. Interestingly, one notable contributor to the magazine was Béla Barényi, a young engineering student who designed cars with a similar concept. In 1953, Mr. Barényi proved in court that his original designs and ideas had been used by Porsche to develop the VW Bug and he is now sited as one of the early engineers of the famous car. 

Mr. Ganz, however, was not so fortunate.

Josef Ganz in the Maikäfer prototype, 1931 (Wikipedia)

Things went well for Josef at first. In 1930, he collaborated with motorcycle manufacturers Zündapp, Ardie and DKW on a prototype of his idea. That prototype was followed by a second, the Maikäfer, in 1931. News about their success spread and Ganz was hired as a consultant engineer at Daimler-Benz and BMW where he was involved in the development of the first models with independent wheel suspension.

In the summer of 1932, director Wilhelm Gutbrod of the Standard Fahrzeugfabrik in Ludwigsburg approached Ganz to discuss the possibility of developing a small ‘Volkswagen’ or People's Car, based on his 1931 Maikäfer prototype and his various patents. An agreement was soon reached and a first prototype was constructed and tested in the fall of 1932. Although Hitler expressed an interest in the car after seeing it at a car show, his anti-Semitic views were gaining ground. Hiring a Jewish engineer to design the people's car was out of the question. Ferdinand Porsche was soon charged with developing what we know as the Volkswagen Beetle. However, much of what would go into the Volkswagen was either patented by Ganz or heavily advocated for in his magazine.

Josef Ganz with his Standard Superior  (Photo: Paul Schilperoord)

What happened to Ganz, you ask?

In 1933 he was arrested by the Gestapo on false charges of blackmail. He fled Germany and settled in Switzerland. There he worked on the Swiss auto project similar to what Porsche was working on in Germany, but Hitler's war on the world once again put Ganz in danger. Even the Swiss government turned on him and claimed his work as their own. After the war, Ganz battled the government in court for five years with little to show for the effort. He moved to France and worked on a new car, but it couldn't compete with Volkswagen. He finally settled in Australia where he worked for General Motors. In 1965 Germany attempted to honor him and sought Australian Government permission to bestow on him the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, under regulations existing at that time in relation to foreign awards to Australian citizens, the request was sadly denied.

Josef Ganz died in 1967 in relative obscurity after suffering multiple heart attacks. Only recently has he been rightfully acknowledged for his early designs used to build one of the most iconic cars in history.

 

Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels and is a Christy Awards and Selah Awards finalist. Her work has been included in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazines, and blogs. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of two grown sons, she makes her home in Tennessee, not far from the historical sites she writes about. Visit her online at www.MichelleShocklee.com

UNDER THE TULIP TREE

*2021 Christy Awards Finalist*

Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland’s dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena. Frankie’s story challenges Rena’s preconceptions about slavery, but it also connects the two women whose lives are otherwise separated by age, race, and circumstances. Will this bond of respect, admiration, and friendship be broken by a revelation neither woman sees coming?

For purchase options, visit www.MichelleShocklee.com

 

THE FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL AUTOMOBILE ROAD TRIP

In 1903, a man named Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson became the first person to drive across the country, from coast to coast. Jackson was seated in a gentleman’s club when he overheard a discussion at another table about the impracticability of automobiles. He made a fifty dollar wager that he could make it across the country in an automobile in ninety days or less.

This may seem silly to us now, because people drive across the country all the time. But Jackson had three huge obstacles against him.

ONE: In 1903, there exited only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire United States, most of those in large cities. What roads there were in between cities were extremely primitive if they existed at all. There were no road signs, no road numbers, no road maps, and no gas stations. In the first decade of the 20th century, a driver had the option of bad roads or no roads at all.

TWO: In 1903, automobiles were still a novelty and most people didn’t trust them. With good reason. Automobiles were highly prone to breaking down. Out in the middle of nowhere with no roads, it wasn’t easy to order parts or find someone who could repair a broken part. People didn’t think automobiles would last, that they were a passing fad.

THREE: No one had ever driven an automobile that far, so people didn’t believe it could be done. Other endeavors to drive across the country in an automobile had been attempted in years prior to Jackson’s trip without success. Proof it couldn’t be done.

So four days after his encounter at the gentleman’s club, having bought an automobile and supplies, Dr. Jackson set out on his historic expedition. He, along with his chauffeur/mechanic, Sewall Crocker, traveled from San Francisco to New York City in a twenty-horsepower Winton automobile he named the Vermont. Along the way, Horatio bought a dog named Bud who enjoyed the trip immensely.

Dr. Jackson and Mr. Crocker left San Francisco on Saturday, May 23. Two other two-man teams left California in the following weeks of the same year. The trio spent more time waiting for parts and to repair the Winton than they did driving. Worn out tires, broken springs, stuck in deep, thick mud. They were even sent miles and miles the wrong way because someone wanted another person to see an automobile. It’s amazing they made any progress at all.

At one point, the Vermont had to be towed by a horse!

Even with all the calamity that befell them, Dr. Jackson’s team was the first to make it, arriving in New York on Sunday, July 26, at 4:30 in the morning, completing the first American cross-country road trip. The approximately 4,500-mile journey took sixty-three days, twelve hours, and thirty minutes.

Between purchasing an automobile, hiring a mechanic, numerous repairs and parts, along with other expenses, Dr. Jackson spent around $8,000 of his own money to make this trip. Though he won the bet, he never collected the $50.

Dr. Jackson’s trek had shown the possibility of the automobile and that it could do far more than people realized and that it was here to stay. He also began a tradition that people for generations to come would follow—The Road Trip.

Within a few years of Dr. Jackson’s trip, an organized movement began in the United States to improve the roads across the nation to accommodate this new fangled device—the automobile. Higher quality driving surfaces were needed as well as a structured system of roadways, updated maps, in general, better ways for people in cars to travel wherever they wished to go.
By 1913, the nation’s first transcontinental motor route, the Lincoln Highway, had been created coast to coast through the center of the country. And by 1915, an automobile had raced across it’s entire length in just fives days time. This never would have happened without adventurous people like Dr. Jackson to forge the open country side before roads existed.

In 1944, Jackson donated his his 1903 Winton, The Vermont, to the Smithsonian Institution.

If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Jackson’s trip, you can watch Ken Burns’s PBS documentary titled Horatio’s Drive.

Dr. Jackson’s story so inspired me that I had to write a story of women making this same sort of trip. You can read their adventures in my novella “ZOLA’S CROSS-COUNTRY ADVENTURE” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection.

Happy Adventuring!


The MISSADVENTURE BRIDES Collection
Love Is One of Life’s Greatest Adventures
Seven daring damsels don’t let the norms of their eras hold them back. Along the way these women attract the attention of men who admire their bravery and determination, but will they let love grow out of the adventures?

Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure, a 1904 road-trip. Zola Calkin sets out on an adventure to be the first woman to drive across the country. Will the journalist tasked to report her presumed failure sabotage her efforts? Or will he steal her heart?

#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. Coming in January 2019, Courting Her Prodigal Heart (Book 3 in the Prodigal Daughter's series). She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-four years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:
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Early Automobiles

By Gabrielle Meyer

The first vehicle known to move under its own power (in recorded history) was 1769 in Paris. The first patented internal combustion engine was created in Paris in 1860. Several variations of motorized vehicles were built and driven in the following thirty years, but it wasn't until 1891 that motorized vehicles were being built in the United States, in Connecticut.

While the internal combustion engine was being perfected, people were also experimenting with steam powered automobiles in the United States as early as the pre-Civil War era. These tended to be heavy and cumbersome.

Duryea's First Car

The Duryea sold for $1,250
in 1898

Things started to really heat up in 1893 when brothers Charles and Frank Duryea built the first gasoline powered car in America. The first time it ran on a public road was September 21, 1893 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Using an old horse drawn buggy, which they had purchased for $70, they installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine.

In 1896, the Duryea brothers built thirteen motorized wagons, creating the first automobile manufacturing company in the world.

Ford's First Car

1893 marked the year Henry Ford had an engine running, but it was 1896 before he built his first car. At the end of 1896, Ford sold that car for $200 and used the money to build another one. In 1899, he formed the Detroit Automobile Company with the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit and other wealthy Detroiters. The company was dissolved in January 1901 and it wasn't until 1903 that Ford would offer another car for sale.

Ransom E. Olds at the tiller

The engraving to the left shows Ransom Eli Olds at the tiller of his first powered car. This automobile was built in 1896, but the Olds Motor Vehicle Company of Detroit was not in production until 1899.

In 1899, the Curved Dash Oldsmobile sold for $650. By 1901, the company had sold 600 vehicles. In 1902 they sold 2,500, 1903 it was 4,000 and in 1904 they sold 5,000. Though Duryea was the first manufacturer with his 13 cars, Ransom E. Olds was the first mass producer in the United States.



Charles Duryea in the winning auto

The public was fascinated (and skeptical) with the idea of a horseless carriage. A notable event happened in November 1895 that helped to improve public opinion. The Chicago Times-Herald held the first automobile race in the United States and they awarded $5,000 to the winning team. Six vehicles participated, but only two finished the 54-mile trek from Chicago to Evanston and back. It was only 38 degree outside and it had just snowed. Charles Duryea took first place with an average of 7 mph, and made his name common among automobile enthusiasts of the day.

After 1899, automobiles became a more common sight in America, but there was still much progress to be made. Ford's assembly line began operation on December 1, 1913 to create the Model T, and the rest is history.

Your Turn: Are you surprised that self-propelled automobiles have been around for so long? Did any of this history surprise you? I was surprised to discover there were earlier producers than Ford, were you?

Gabrielle Meyer
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A Very Merry Oldsmobile (& Giveaway)

Curved Dash Runnabout Oldsmobile
1904

 If you entered a trivia contest to match these names with the product they're associated with, I’m sure you’d have no problem: Walter P. Chrysler, Louis Chevrolet, David Dunbar Buick, Kiichiro Toyoda, Louis Renault, or Ransom Eli Olds. You might also guess Henry M. Leland by the process of elimination, although his last name wasn’t Cadillac.

As you can see, Henry Ford wasn’t the only innovator of the manufacture of cars in the early 19th Century. He just happened to be one of the most well-known and touted.

Ransom Eli Olds

I got a bit acquainted with Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950), American inventor

Ransom Eli Olds

and automobile manufacturer, through fiction research. Mr. Olds claimed to build his first steam car in 1894 and first gasoline-powered car in 1896. He later designed the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile.

This car was the first commercially successful American-made automobile. It was also the first to use a progressive assembly system and foreshadowed modern mass-production methods.

The original Oldsmobiles appeared in 1901 in Lansing, Michigan and the early models reached their peak of sales in 1904 with 5,000 owners. Later, he also developed the REO brand of cars.

When his cars steadily lost ground to competitors, after 1915 Mr. Olds turned most of his attention from the automobile business to activities such as marketing a lawn mower he invented and land speculation in Florida. An all-around talented man, as are most inventors and innovators.

My Merry Oldsmobile

"Come away with me, Lucille,
in my merry Oldsmobile"

“Come away with me, Lucille, in my merry Oldsmobile,” were lyrics to a popular waltz song (1905) with music by Gus Edwards and lyrics by Vincent Bryan. Wikipedia states the song’s chorus “is one of the most enduring automobile-oriented songs.”

The song was often used in older cartoons, especially in a car scene. The song has been played on Main Street USA at Disneyland. Bill Murray revived the old song for a "follow the bouncing ball" cartoon in the 1930s. 

Some of the verses were slightly suggestive by standards at the time. General Motors altered the lyrics and used the song as a marketing jingle for several decades. I'm sure R.E. Olds appreciated all of these marketing ploys.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What was the oldest Oldsmobile you’ve ever ridden or driven? Was there a particular memory attached to this event? What did you like most or dislike about this car brand? Did you figure out how Mr. Olds came up with the naming of the REO models?

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About Author & Giveaway Offer…

Wind in the Wires
A Trails of Reba Cahill Novel
Book 1

Janet Chester Bly has written and co-written 32 books with her late husband, award-winning western author Stephen Bly. She and her three sons completed Stephen’s last historical novel for him, Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot. Read about the story here: http://www.blybooks.com/category/finishing-dads-novel/.

New release Wind in the Wires, Book 1, Trails of Reba Cahill, is her first solo adult novel. It’s a contemporary (set in 1991) western mystery. It’s a road adventure with a touch of romance. It’s Cowgirl Lit. Comment on this post to enter drawing for free paperback (U.S. only) or PDF file copy for anyone.
Or download now: http://amzn.to/1tnpHpr
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