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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler's Volkswagen by Paul Schilper The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz (EN) The astonishing biography of Josef Ganz, a Jewish designer from Frankfurt, who in May 1931 created a revolutionary small car: the Maikäfer (German for May bug). Seven years later Hitler introduced the Volkswagen. He not only ‘took’ the concept of Ganz’s family car, he even used the same nickname. To this day the VW Beetle or Bug is considered one of the most important of all automobile designs. It incorporated many of the features of Ganz’s original Maikäfer, yet until recently Ganz received no recognition for his pioneering work. The Nazis did all they could to keep the Jewish godfather of the German compact car out of the history books. Now Paul Schilperoord sets the record straight. In a biography that reads like a spy thriller, he tells how Ganz was imprisoned by the Gestapo, until an influential friend with connections to Göring helped secure his release. Soon afterwards he was forced to flee Germany while Porsche created the Volkswagen for Hitler using many of his groundbreaking ideas. Ganz was hunted by the Nazis even beyond Germany’s borders and narrowly escaped assassination. After the war he moved to Australia, where he died in 1967. This biography is a great read for anyone interested in World War II, Jewish history, the evolution of car design or simply the life stories of extraordinary individuals. Author: Paul Schilperoord Translation: Liz Waters Publisher: René van Praag Publishers (RVPP) Language: English 6 x 10 inch | 352 pages | hardcover + paperback | 150+ color and B&W photos & illustrations ISBN: 978-1-61412-201-2 1st print: December 2011 | 2nd print: February 2012. This highly readable book convincingly argues Ganz’s influence on the Beetle. Book Report: A less-than-professional opinion of Paul Schilperoord’s The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz: The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler’s Volkswagen. It was all fun and games until the death threats started. The local newspaper is so thin that in a downpour it wouldn’t keep you dry very long. You could swat a yellowjacket with it, but the result would just be one pissed off yellowjacket. You could have it read by the time you walk back from the end of your driveway. For this last reason I’ve resorted to the online version while I wait for my coffee to reach sippin’ temperature. By the time I’m actually sipping, I’m usually caught up on local events and have moved on to the broadsheets. But one Friday morning couple of weeks ago I had downed two and a half cups, hot, and was in high dudgeon by the time I clicked “submit” in the “readers’ comments” section of the local site. I had been reading about a group of local cyclists who were harassed by a driver. There’s much more to the story; but this sort of thing happens from time to time, and those of you who know me as an avid cyclist will not be surprised to learn that it is always of great personal concern to me. The thing that got me so fired up was not so much the article itself, nor the general tenor of the others’ comments. It was simply the fact that the comments were so damned predictable. “Bikers” should ride on the sidewalks. (Unsafe anywhere, and actually illegal in town.) They look like a bunch of morons in their brightly-colored spandex. (As if camouflage or golf attire were haute couture .) They need to register, pay taxes, and pass a test. (I figure, for every car trip I’m not taking, I should get a refund on the taxes I’ve already paid because — surprise, surprise! — I’m a driver too!) They’re arrogant. (So?) In my response, I addressed these points and more. I was a staunch defender of my rights. I waxed eloquent (in my own mind, at least) upon my conviction that the freedoms we claim to value so highly in this country should include the simple act of being able to ride a bicycle without cowering in fear. As long as I’m law abiding and courteous, I asserted, I expect the same from drivers. If this is too much to expect from the citizens of this town, this state, this country — and if I’m someday struck and killed by an angry or careless driver — then you can bury me with what’s left of my bike. I clicked “submit,” closed my laptop, and drove up to Asheville with my wife for the weekend. I’m fully aware that my first mistake was reading the asinine comments in the first place. Anyone in need of even further evidence of our collective inability to conduct a considerate, civilized, and intelligent sharing of differing opinions need only visit any online “community” whose individual members are permitted to hide behind the anonymity of a “username.” Joining the fray, of course, made me no better than the rest of them — even if my opinions on the matter happen to be the correct ones to have. Checking the browser on my smartphone for responses once we got to Asheville was probably not a good idea either. The overall gist was that numerous readers seemed all too eager not only to oblige me in my burial wishes, but to expedite the necessity thereof. One even cut to the chase and promised not to bother himself with washing my blood from the pavement. Another ventured to guess that I must be “one of them Subaru- driving liberals,” proving himself to be perceptive, if nothing else. I’ll never know if there were any who came to my defense because I’d had enough. I surrendered. I shut my phone off for the remainder of the weekend and tried not to think about it. Of course I have this luxury. And I don’t know that you could really call these anonymous taunts “death threats.” Something tells me that none of us would be so self-righteously bold sitting around a table, sharing a meal and a beer. But Josef Ganz knew about death threats in a very real, very threatening way. He did not have the luxury of shrugging it off as silliness and getting on with his life. Newly released in January was the English translation of Paul Schilperoord’s 2009 book, The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz: The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler’s Volkswagen. Of course you can guess where the author is going from the title alone. But that doesn’t take anything away from the telling. Tradition tells us that Ferdinand Porsche’s design team, at Hitler’s direction, came up with what would become the Volkswagen Beetle. This book does nothing to dispute that, per se. But Schilperoord’s years of research into how, exactly, that design came about led him to a man who died in 1967 in Australia — broke, broken, and mostly forgotten. The narrative of Ganz’s life is, as stated, quite extraordinary. Ganz’s heyday — short-lived as it was — was in Germany in the early 1930’s. As early as 1922, the newly-minted engineer was calling for a small car with an air-cooled, rear-mounted, horizontally-opposed engine and swing-axle suspension. Much of his impetus came from a sense of national pride. A decorated German naval veteran of World War One, Ganz feared that his country’s automotive industry was getting left behind by American pioneers such as Henry Ford. He saw a lack of innovation, as the same stodgy automakers continued to manufacture the same underwhelming designs, which were only affordable to the elite few. Clearly, what was needed to get Germany back on its feet was a massive program to produce a reliable, economical, and affordable “people’s car.” I’ll save you the math: 1922 was ninety years ago, almost three decades before the first Volkswagens came ashore in the United States, and over eighty years before the last of the original Volkswagens rolled of the line in Mexico. Josef Ganz’s challenges to convention were easily ignored until he became editor-in-chief at Motor-Kritik, one of the most influential automotive publications at the time. Not only was he in a strong position to advocate tirelessly for his ideal “people’s car” (the term Volkswagen , in the generic sense, was bandied about with ever-greater frequency), but he and his staff pulled no punches in their often brutally honest critiques of the latest designs coming from the established German automakers. There were a few — like BMW, Daimler-Benz, and Adler — who recognized the inspired genius for what he was, and each employed Ganz as a technical consultant while his work at Motor-Kritik continued. At Adler, he was given free reign the create a prototype for a Volkswagen, which Ganz called the “Maikäfer” (or “May Bug”). True to his ethos, it was an air-cooled, rear-engined, swing-axle design. It never went into production, but he drove it as his personal car for years. The Maikäfer, 1931. Later, Ganz utilized several of his many patents in design work for Standard Fahrzeugfabrik to create the Standard Superior, which actually did have a successful production run — for two years, at any rate. Like the Maikäfer, the Superior adhered (for the most part, as it was not a one- man effort) to Ganz’s requirements. It is also interesting to note the striking similarities between this car and a certain, slightly later design — from a very well-known engineer — that would become an international icon and be manufactured in record-setting numbers.