Abstract

Hitler supported car manufacturer Ferdinand Porsche’s idea to produce a Volkswagen [People’s Car] – a car affordable to the majority of the population – since he hoped to use it for propaganda purposes. In 1938, the “Society for the Planning of the German People’s Car” [Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des deutschen Volkswagens] and the German Labor Front [Deutsche Arbeitsfront or DAF] opened a new factory near Braunschweig, where the new car, now called the “Kdf-Car [“Strength through Joy Car” or “KdF-Wagen”], was to be built. The plans did not stop at a factory, however; an entire city was built for the factory workers: the “City of the KdF-Car, Wolfsburg.” The car was presented to the public in September 1938 at a price of 990 Reichsmark. The “Strength through Joy” organization issued savings cards to encourage potential buyers to collect savings stamps toward its purchase. This poster advertises the KdF-Car savings program: at the suggested savings rate of 5 Reichsmark per week, participants were supposed to receive the car after about four years. Overall, 330,000 people participated in the KdF-Car savings program, with 60,000 of them managing to save the required amount in full by 1941. In the end, however, even successful savers never received their cars, since the factory had been converted to military use in the meantime and produced nothing but military vehicles.

The poster reads: “You must save 5 Marks a week if you want your own car.” The smaller type at the bottom advises people that information on the price of purchase and payment methods can be provided by all factory heads and branch offices of the National Socialist organization “Strength through Joy” in the Gau of Munich-Upper Bavaria.

Poster Advertising the KdF-Car (1939)

Source

Source: “You have to save 5 marks a week – if you want to drive your own car!”
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