Thanks to our SA library system all being computerised and one big linked system, I started hunting down some VW books I wanted and found a book about Joseph Ganz, a german jew who was the editor and wrote for the automotive magazine Motor-Kritik. From this book it leads to the story that he came up with the idea that a light weight rear engine, swing axle vehicle was the perfect way to bring affordable motor transport to the german people. His first design, the Maikäfer (‘May-Beetle’) even got the attention of Adolf.
A interesting read for anyone interested.
He may not have designed the Volkswagen we know but it seems he influenced its creation.

Except that Porsche had already designed air-cooled, rear engined vehicles for Daimler in the late 1920s, and Zundapp and NSU after that before the VW project.

Ganz had some interesting designs but the idea that he directly influenced the later VW design, or that Porsche 'borrowed' his ideas, is something of a stretch. It's the same suggestion that Porsche also 'copied' from Hans Ledwinka of Tatra, or that the VW engine was actually designed by Henry Moore of NSU (?!) You can take these claims with a grain of salt.

Apart from being rear-engined and having four wheels, the MaiKafer and the VW had little in common (see the photo). It seems to be part of a modern-day effort to somehow diminish the work of Porsche and his design team. Ganz was a Jew and Porsche was not (Porsche was not a Nazi either), so it may be politically motivated I suspect.

Ganz ended up living in Australia and worked for Holden for a while in the 1950s. He died here in 1967.

I agree Phil, I think all of these early engineers had their own ideas, some of them parallel, others possibly poached from each other. I think Ganz as a journalist possibly pushed his own barrow which at least brough ideas out to public notice. I do wonder how practical a car with almost no carrying capacity and a 400cc single cylinder or twin cylinder engine would be in everyday life, at least with the Beetle you can carry the family and some luggage, not just pack your toothbrush.
I would never say Porsche was not the designer of the Volkswagen as we know it, and without him, and even Adolf, we wouldn't have ended up with the car we all love. Even then, without the influences of Ivan Hirst and Heinrich Nordhoff we probably would have missed out as well.

Yes, and I think Hitler's significance is way overplayed too. He wanted a cheap car for the 'volk', and Porsche was already halfway there with several previous designs. Sure Hitler paid for the VW's development through the KdF organisation, annxed the land required and led the foundation stone ceremony in May 1938. But that was really about it. He began mobilization for the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia the week after and, I am sure, never thought about the VW again. Hitler also funded both the Mercedes and Auto Union GP teams, and built the Autobahns, and funded Mercedes and BMW to make aircraft engines. Yet journalists can never get away from the VW-Hitler thing. Really, as you say, it was the British we owe for the VW's survival after 1945, and Nordhoff's after 1949.

Car designers have always shared ideas; Ferdinand Porsche himself said of Hans Ledwinka that 'sometimes I looked over his shoulder; sometimes he looked over mine.'

I wonder whether Ganz ever made enquries about working for VW Australia at Clayton?

Now that would have been somewhat ironic Phil, guess we'll never know.
There's a comment in the book about how Ganz and Porsche knew ach other and respected each others engineering philosophies. Admitedly that could be just from the authors view but it would be nice to believe.

I think if anyone deserves credit its Ivan Hirst, basically without him there would be no VW at all.

I do too Governer, it certainly wouldn't be any more than another small numbered odd car that faded into history if he hadn't seen the need for it in the days after the war in Europe ended.

I have this book

http://www.bentleypublishers.com/volkswagen/history/ivan-hirst-historical-not...

A great read authorised by VW

Interesting bloke.

Interesting bloke.

That political title says it all.

As we've already said, Ganz was not the engineer behind 'Hitler's' Volkswagen. Ferdinand Porsche was. Ganz was the engineer of his own 'people's car' - the Maikafer - before Hitler even came to power.

And why mention his Jewish faith unless you are making a political 'anti Nazi' statement? It would not have gained a mention if he'd been Buddhist, or Presbyterian, or Hindu. You don't need to stretch history with Joseph Ganz if you want to take Jewish credit for the Volkswagen. The American advertising agency DDB (Doyne Dane Bernbach) that created the great US VW ads in the '60s was founded by Bill Bernbach - who was Jewish. So was their main copywriter Julian Koenig, who wrote the 'Think Small' and 'Lemon' ads.

As too were probably quite a few of the people who worked in the factory after the war I'm guessing. I agree that the over use of the "Jewish" in the title is typical of the political shock method. I'd say his being Jewish may well have been a part of the treatment he recieved from the Nazis at the time but I'd also tip that some in the industry disliked him for his "my way is right, your way is wrong" attitude in the articles he wrote. From the way I read it he had a very one eyed manner, even if his ideas were quite sound.

I found it interesting near the end of the book mention is made that Heinrich Nordhoff traced Ganz to Australia in 1961 and asked for his help.

"...was writing to ask whether he was interested in "helping us out a bit with our work at the Volkswagen factory." He wrote that he felt it to be "most definitely a deficiency that though Volkswagen kept careful track of specialist journals both German and foreign, "there is absolutely no critical assessment of these publications at all."

I reckon this was probably more of an acknowledgement of Ganz ability to assess technical engineering journals and the ideas in them than a nod to his original volkswagen designs. Possibly also it was a way to get Ganz on board at a time when Tatra were suing Volkswagen for use of pre war patents, due to Ganz knowledge of the earlier legal wranglings involving Tatra. If he had of been healthy enough to return to Germany I wonder how long he would have stayed at Volkswagen.