Re: VW/Audi setting up fund for slave laborers (news)

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

"Brandon Hull" <brandon@cardinalventures.com> wrote:

>This press release just triggered a recollection of a piece in "Automobile
>Quarterly" describing the history of VW in occupied Germany following the
>war.  The gist of the story was that VW's plants, distribution networks and
>personnel had been completely eradicated.  A small cadre of British
>officers, as part of the Allied effort to jump start the German economy,
>recognized the market potential of the Beetle and re-started VW from
>scratch.  As I recall, the article concludes that these guys were
>responsible for the existence of what today is one of the world's great
>automakers, without taking any equity or salary beyond their military pay.

That, and the historic comment made by Ford upon an offer to buy the VW
operations, post-war, being that it was 'not worth a damn'... I wonder what
their official view on that matter is nowadays...

Tom