Let’s go back to the 1930s. A rising star in the German political scene is watching out for his country and sees a future boom in the  automotive industry. He wants to get in on that action and decides his country needs to make its own car and reap the profits of it. So, he seeks out  Ferdinand Porsche, an upcoming car designer who would set the standard for rear-engined sports cars. How did this one politician start a world war and kill hundreds of thousands of people, but also save countless more?

In his younger days, Adolf Hitler wanted to be an artist. After that was vetoed, he turned to politics. He was an extremely charismatic character and quickly rose to positions of power in Germany. In 1937, he officially unveiled the new state-owned automobile company called Volkswagen or The People’s Car. Hitler had commissioned a young Ferdinand Porsche to design the Volkswagen. Hitler had a very strict and specific list of requirements: cheap, reliable, easy to maintain, and capable enough to still be the vehicle of choice in rural Germany.  The idea was a German car for the German people. It was quite a struggle for Porsche to juggle all of these requirements, so he may have based his work off of another car a little bit.

In 1939, the finished Volkswagen was unveiled at the World Auto Show. There, a small Czechoslovakian car company called Tatra took notice of a lot of similarities between their flagship car and th

e Volkswagen. Later, they decided to sue the German government over copyright infringement of their car. Rather than settle the lawsuit, Hitler decided to invade Czechoslovakia and thus begin WWII.   

Now, we skip ahead to the 1950s.  Automakers are going ham with their vehicle designs with minimal regard to safety. If a car model begins to get a bad reputation for being “unsafe,” big companies will pull the car then re-release it under a new name the next year. Automakers were going as far as to put spikes on the steering wheel in order to look cool. 

In 1959, the Volkswagen Beetle became one of the best-selling cars in America, and a little ol’ company called Chevrolet was working on their new Beetle rip off. It was to be a small rear-engined, air-cooled car with a swing-arm rear suspension.  If you’re one of the three people who read my last article, you already know what car this is. The same three people will probably read this one, but I’ll explain anyway. That car is the Chevy Corvair.

The Corvair was rushed into production in 1960, and some corners may have been cut. The car had quite a tendency to roll over and kill everyone (kind of like Hitler). This was fixed by 1964, but the damage to the Corvair name had been done. This horrible car was the beginning of the end for mobile coffins.

In 1966, a young lawyer named Ralph Nader published his book Unsafe at Any Speed, which tackled big issues like, how unsafe all cars were. But it was especially targeted at the Chevy Corvair. Nader’s book was a bestseller, and it single-handedly convinced the American public that all cars were death traps. 

Nader’s book also made the government take notice of these, and they decided to implement regulations over all cars sold in America. Many other countries soon followed suit and set their own safety standards.

So, you’re wondering now, What does any of that have to do with Hitler saving lives? Well, Hitler created the VW Beetle, which Chevy copied with their Corvair. Then, Ralph Nader took a ride in it and decided to write a book. This book went off the charts and convinced governments to set safety standards for all vehicles, drastically reducing the amount of deaths in automobiles. Therefore, while Hitler may have killed millions of people in the Holocaust, he has indirectly saved many more and will continue to for years to come.