As Tesla is attacked by anti-fascists some wonder why Nazi-connected Porsche and Volkswagen get free passes
Elon Musk is a terrible person, no doubt, but Ferdinand Porsche was a Nazi war criminal who designed Panzer tanks, self-propelled guns, the Beetle and luxury cars that bear his name to this day
Ninety-one years ago German automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche was tapped by none other than Adolf Hitler to design an everyday car for hardworking middle-class Germans, something inexpensive and mass-produced.
Porsche created a "wagon" for the folks. The Volkswagen Beetle.
These days people are keying Teslas, protesting and damaging dealerships, even torching superchargers. Elon Musk is rightly being excoriated by most of the world for sucking up to Donald Trump pre-election by donating hundreds of millions, now being rewarded with a senior profile where the richest man in the world is in charge of helping fire people, ruin lives, and dismantle the U.S. economy.
His fascist tendencies only grow as the days go on. He has been embraced by neo-Nazis after his infamous Nazi salute at a rally. He embraced a far right party in Germany with ties to neo-Nazis. Then he retweeted a post claiming that Hitler, Stalin and Mao didn't murder millions of people. It was the bureaucrats.
👇 @TheAliceSmith pic.twitter.com/0XnBtwJSMq
— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) March 13, 2025
Elon Musk's fascist credentials and inability to resist apologizing for Hitler and the Nazis grows by the day. Meanwhile, many people are pointing out that several other carmakers with a direct connection to Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s are somehow getting a free pass.
No one is torching Boxsters or Jettas yet as far as carmakers go, nothing is closer to Hitler and Naziism than Porsche and Volkswagen.
Porsche a war criminal
At the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War, Porsche chose Czech citizenship. As his popularity grew with Hitler, this was a problem as the Nazis considered Czechs to be subhuman. It's not clear if it was Hitler himself or propagandist Joseph Goebbels, but one of them made Porsche a naturalized German citizen.
He designed the Volkswagen Beetle and then the Mercedes Benz SS/SSK was the last car designed by the Nazi sympathizer before he formed his own company.
Porsche wasn't just a member of the Nazi Party, he was named an honorary Oberführer, a paramilitary rank. In the war he was involved in the production of tanks, a self-propelled gun, and the Panzer super-heavy tank in addition to other weapons systems.
On Dec. 15, 1945, French authorities arrest Porsche, his son Ferry and his son-in-llaw Anton Piëch, as war criminals. Ferry was freed after six months but Ferdinand and Piëch were imprisoned in Baden-Baden, then Paris, then Dijon.
"The legal basis of Piëch and Porsche's imprisonment was principally Ferdinand Porsche's contribution to his country's war effort and personal friendship with Hitler," that from a New York Times story in 1998.
None of this absolves Elon Musk for his horrible behaviour in recent weeks and months, but the overt targeting of the car company where he is CEO and the single largest shareholder is interesting.
Musk doesn't design the cars, he didn't found the company, but he is the boss and he's the money behind Tesla. And he's turning out to be a fascist.
Porsche is the automotive engineer who designed the Volkswagen Beetle, more than one model of Mercedes-Benz, and is the namesake of the luxury car company that bears his name. And he was a Nazi. He designed weapons that killed untold numbers of Allied troops. And he was a war criminal.
Why do Porsche and Volkswagen and Mercedes and Audi get free passes?
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Paul J. Henderson
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