Stay up to date with recent events, TV and radio features, newspaper coverage, podcasts, and project developments related to the legacy of Josef Ganz.
On November 19, 2025, author Paul Schilperoord was a guest on Chris Abramson’s podcast Note The Past to talk about his book The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz – The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler’s Volkswagen. The conversation touched upon a whole range of subjects, from early automotive innovation and development of a people’s car to […]
On April 5, 2025, the documentary Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle was shown at the Rex cinema in Bern, Switzerland. The screening drew an engaged audience and was followed by a compelling discussion featuring NZZ journalist Daniel Di Falco, automotive historian and author Paul Schilperoord, and Josef Ganz’s relative Lorenz Schmid. The event shed […]
Arte France published a wonderful report on Josef Ganz on 29 May, which is available in German and French at the following link (available until 28/08/2024): German: https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/115571-107-A/stadt-land-kunst/French: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/115571-107-A/invitation-au-voyage/
In May 2022, a great event in honor of Josef Ganz took place in Bern/Switzerland, the concert “Über ds Chrüz” with Swiss blues singer Philipp Fankhauser, composer and conductor Sebastian Schwab, british conductor, organist and pianist Wayne Marshall and the Bern Symphony Orchestra. A world-class event – and Josef Ganz right in the middle of […]
An unforgettable event took place in May 2022 in the beautiful venues of the time-honored Casino Bern in Switzerland. In the unique concert format “ÜBER DS CHRÜZ” (see below), Swiss blues singer Philipp Fankhauser, composer Sebastian Schwab and conductor Wayne Marshall presented, together with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the “Ode to Josef Ganz – the […]
In May 2022, I was a guest on Beyer Talk – the video podcast from Beyer Chronometrie, where Josef Ganz’s picture from 1936 was recreated at the end of 2021. The exciting talk with René Beyer was recorded at the company Rapid Technic AG in Killwangen. Josef Ganz created the “Silberfisch” with Rapid. The company […]
On 24/25 September 2021, the time had come for the road trip with the restored and registered Standard Superior Type 2 from 1933: I drove from the garage “Frank’s Originale” in Kriens, Lucerne, to the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. In front of the oldest watch shop in Switzerland, Beyer Chronometrie, where Josef Ganz sat on the […]
Ab 17. Juni in Heidelberg / Germany Read “Festival will mit Vielseitigkeit glänzen“ 17.6.21 Update – movie presentation and dance show Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung / Nr. 110 am Samstag/Sonntag 15./16.5. – click to read the article Watch the trailer of the event: Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an Ein Beitrag geteilt von UnterwegsTheater (@unterwegstheater)
On 12.8.2020 Lorenz Schmid presented the Josef Ganz story on WDR 5 radio in the programme “WDR 5 Profit”. Since we have not yet reported on it, we are doing so here. Have fun! Original text (wdr.de):Der VW-Käfer hat verschiedenste Väter. Manche erstreiten sich die Vaterschaft gerichtlich, einer wird völlig vergessen: Josef Ganz, Ingenieur, Jude, […]
The movie event at the Swiss Museum of Transport on 12 September 2020 was a great success, sold out within the Covid-limitations. In the brand new movie theater of the museum the guests enjoyed the wonderful 85-minute documentary from Suzanne Raes and took the opportunity to ask her and the Josef Ganz relative Lorenz Schmid […]
On 12 September the documentary film about Josef Ganz will be screened at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne. The 85-minute movie by director Suzanne Raes, “Ganz: How I lost my Beetle”, is based on the books of Paul Schilperoord. At this event the German version will be presented, with the English version played […]
Deutsche Version unten… In the book “Eine Familie in Deutschland – Am Ende die Hoffnung” by Peter Prange, published at the end of 2019, Josef Ganz plays an important role. His friendship with Georg Ising, first documented by Paul Schilperoord in 2009, is vividly described in the novel by the German bestselling author Prange. The […]
Sunday, June 14 at 21:00 on RTS2 the film “Ganz: How I lost my Beetle” will be shown in the short version of 55 minutes in French. On Friday, June 12, the film has already been discussed in the format “Histoire vivante” on RTS La1ère, with the sociologist Pierre Lannoy of the Université libre de […]
The Standard Superior Type 2 from 1933 can now be admired in the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne! More information on www.verkehrshaus.ch.
Michel Borzykowski and Ilan Lew have published the book “Objets transmissionnels – Liens familiaux à la Shoah” (2019, published by Slatkine, Geneva). In this work, with a foreword by Boris Cyrulnik and former Federal Councillor Ruth Dreifuss, the authors portray people of the second and third generations after the Holocaust in text and images, together […]
The story of Josef Ganz was presented in detail in SonntagsBlick and on Blick.ch, the most visited news website in Switzerland. Read the full article online – also check out the nice picture gallery: https://www.blick.ch/auto/classic/der-vergessene-vw-kaefer-erfinder-woran-josef-ganz-zerbrach-id15911495.html
The story of Josef Ganz is presented in the news of the Swiss channel RTS at prime time! Watch it online now: https://www.rts.ch/play/tv/redirect/detail/11155864?startTime=1736
On April 28 the movie premiere of the documentary “Ganz: How I lost my Beetle” By Suzanne Raes took place at the Louwman museum in Holland. Around 200 invited guests enjoyed the movie for the very first time in a great atmosphere, honoring Josef Ganz’s achievements in automobile industry. After the movie premiere the restored Standard […]
This is the first post of Lorenz Schmid’s blog on josefganz.org. Together with author Paul Schilperoord, Schmid is one of the owners of this website and a relative of Josef Ganz. Find out more about Lorenz on the bottom of this page. Recently the movie trailer of the documentary about Josef Ganz was published and […]
Josef Ganz documentary release with premiere at the Louwman Museum After years of work we are very proud to announce that the documentary film Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle by director Suzanne Raes is ready for release! From the 2nd of May 2019 the film can be seen in theatres throughout the Netherlands. Following […]
We have been a little bit quiet in our communication, but only because we were working very hard to finalize the restoration project. After a couple more trips to firma Mebero s.r.l., Dr. A. Bilciurescu in Cluj – Rumania, and sourcing the last missing original parts, we are very excited to report a 95% completion […]
The new exhibition Neuer Norden Zürich – Kunst im öffentlichen Raum shows around 40 artworks which deal with the transformation and development of the city living space. In addition to specific local historical aspects, the area of Schwamendingen and its impact on the neighborhoods is the central theme of the exhibition. One of the artworks is Josef Ganz […]
Dear all, It has been a few months since our last update, and we are well into the New Year, but there is much news to report! Firma Mebero s.r.l., Dr. A. Bilciurescu in Cluj – Rumania has made a lot of progress. First of all, the basic running chassis for our 1933 Standard Superior […]
The Louwman Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands, has opened a permanent exhibition that highlights the development of the Volkswagen Beetle – strongly recognizing the contribution of Josef Ganz. The exhibition starts with the German economy car Hanomag Kommissbrot of the mid-1920s and continues with the Ganz-designed Standard Superior and Rapid “Swiss VW”. The accompanying […]
We are very excited to report that Firma Mebero s.r.l., Dr. A. Bilciurescu in Cluj – Rumania is making good progress with the restoration of our 1933 Standard Superior. A small setback established at our last visit was that the original 400cc engine required more work than we had anticipated. In part this was because […]
Specialty model car manufacturer AutoCult from Germany has released a special collectors’ set entitled “The Road to the People’s Car”, including four 1:43 scale models of pre-VW cars and prototypes and a book. The models include the 1931 Mercedes-Benz 120H prototype, 1933 Standard Superior Type 2 (based on the patents of Josef Ganz), 1933 Tatra V570 […]
26 July 2017 will be the 50th anniversary of Josef Ganz’s death. He passed away in his hometown of St Kilda. Later this year, Port Phillip council will honour him in a plaque at Edgewater Towers, the St Kilda apartment block where automotive engineer Josef Ganz lived for a number of years up until his […]
Specialty model car manufacturer AutoCult from Germany has just released a 1:43 scale model of the 1946 Rapid “Swiss Volkswagen”, which will be made in a limited edition of 333 pieces. This car was developed by Josef Ganz in the period 1937 – 1939 following his escape from Germany to Switzerland. The “Swiss Volkswagen” featured a central backbone […]
Crowdfunding project aims to rebuild the original «Volkswagen» of Jewish engineer Josef Ganz https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/restoring-josef-ganz-s-1933-vw-beetle-forerunner/x/15995917#/ The Hague, the Netherlands / Bern, Switzerland – Unique crowdfunding project aims to restore the original «Volkswagen» developed by Jewish engineer Josef Ganz and presented before Adolf Hitler at the 1933 Berlin motor show. Fast forward five years: Hitler introduces the […]
In 1933, at the Berlin motor show, Jewish engineer Josef Ganz presented a revolutionary “Volkswagen” before Hitler. Fast forward five years: Hitler introduces the KdF Volkswagen to the German people while Ganz is erased from history. Our aim is to rebuild Ganz’s original 1933 “Volkswagen” – and give him back his well-earned position in automotive history. […]
The new exhibition “Wolfsburg Unlimited. A City as World Laboratory” at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg attempts to rethink Wolfsburg from an artistic perspective: as a testing ground for our present and future with powerful and sometimes irritating messages from the past. “Wolfsburg Unlimited” is concerned with sounding out this very special city’s stories and histories as […]
In 1961, Josef Ganz moved into a small apartment in Edgewater Towers, Melbourne’s first large scale modernist apartment block, right next to the beach in the suburb of St. Kilda. On Saturday, July 25th, the building will be open to the public as part of Open House Melbourne. Edgewater Towers was designed by the Ottoman born Jewish […]
We are very happy to report that the Dutch film funding agency (Het Filmfonds) has agreed to support the production of the documentary How I Invented The Volkswagen with the substantial amount of 120,000 euro. Dutch production studio Submarine is currently funding this project, which is planned for realization starting in the fall of 2015. The feature […]
Last night, Top Gear presentor James May opened his exhibition James May’s Cars That Changed The World at the London Classic Car Show 2015. One of only 13 cars on display this weekend is a 1934 Standard Superior, presented in the form of an original rolling chassis, which was developed by the Standard Fahrzeugfabrik in Ludwigsburg […]
The original 1934 chassis of the Standard Superior, owned by author Paul Schilperoord of The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz, is currently on its way to London. The chassis will go on display as part of the exhibition James May’s Cars That Changed The World at the London Classic Car Show 2015, which will be held […]
The new edition of the Dutch book Het Geheim van Hitlers Volkswagen by Paul Schilperoord was succesfully launched yesterday at the Louwman Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. All 339 seats of the theater were taken by the enthusiastic crowd, including many Beetle owners and enthusiasts, interested to hear his presentation about the fascinating story of […]
On June 1, 2014, author Paul Schilperoord will introduce the new edition of his Dutch book Het Geheim van Hitlers Volkswagen with a presentation about Josef Ganz at the prestigious Louwman Museum in Den Haag, the Netherlands. The presentation will start in the museum’s theatre at 11:00. During the day, the Pre 67 Vintage Volkswagen Show will […]
Author Paul Schilperoord was a guest last night at Autoline After Hours for an interview & discussion about his new book The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz with David Kiley from AOL Autos and presentor John McElroy.