Mick Hartley

Keeping the German connection, here's another piece from Der Spiegel, on the murky history of Porsche. Unlike Volkswagen, the Stuttgart-based company has never really confronted its Nazi past, claiming their history effectively started in 1950 – but it ain't so:

It was only a small engineering office during the war, the company claimed, with 50 to 100 employees. Just a glance into the company's own archives, however would have been enough to dispel that myth — one graphic, from 1944, shows 656 employees. And it was routine for companies of this size to use forced laborers. Porsche, though, has always denied that fact.

[Company historian] Landenberger has only recently begun to admit to gaps in the company history — [journalist] Viehöver's revelations are catching up with him. They concern the Stuttgart engineering office's role, which so far has received little exposure, and how the automobile dynasty was able to save the wealth it had accumulated during the war, carrying it over into the "economic miracle" that was postwar Germany. 

The decisive factor in Porsche's rising star was that Adolf Hitler took a liking to Porsche….

Photo gallery here.