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In 2017, Dutch production studio Submarine started on the realization of the feature documentary Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle by Dutch director Suzanne Raes. This documentary tells the compelling and never-before-told story of Jewish engineer Josef Ganz, who invented Adolf Hitler's dream: the Volkswagen Beetle, and who ultimately lost everything except his life.
Josef Ganz, the eccentric editor-in-chief of the controversial but hugely influential trade journal Motor-Kritik, amazed Germany by appearing in a revolutionary tiny car in 1931. This car, his brainchild, is part of his dream for the German people: a Volkswagen that anyone can afford. Josef Ganz shared his dream through Motor-Kritik and, in 1933, proudly presented the first basic Beetle-model before the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler at the Berlin motor show. After that, it was only a matter of time before the new government, whom Ganz initially supported fervently, would fulfil his dreams. But in Hitler's dream there was no place for him, the Jew. In order to filch Ganz's invention away from its creator, a history of intrigue, espionage and slander campaigns was set in motion.
Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle is a production of Submarine, in co-production with Lichtblick Film, NTR and WDR. The film was made with the support of the Dutch Film Fund and the Dutch Film Fund Production Incentive, Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Media Fund, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and CoBO.