The story of Josef Ganz was presented in detail in SonntagsBlick on 31 May 2020 and on Blick.ch, the most visited news website in Switzerland. Under the headline „Der vergessene Käfer-Erfinder“ (“The forgotten Beetle inventor”), motoring journalist Timothy Pfannkuchen retraces the life of the engineer – from the twelve-year-old inventor in Vienna to his lonely death in Melbourne. On 1 May 2023, Blick published the story again in its series marking 75 years of VW in Switzerland.
What the article tells
- A child inventor: in 1910, twelve-year-old Ganz was granted a patent for a safety device for Vienna’s electric trams. A newspaper predicted that the young technician would become a famous man.
- The critic: as editor-in-chief of Motor-Kritik in Frankfurt, Ganz attacked the German car industry for building neither affordable mass cars nor modern designs – and sketched his own small car in 1923.
- From prototype to “German Volkswagen”: the Ardie-Ganz prototype of 1930, the Maikäfer of 1931 and finally the Standard Superior, advertised as the “German Volkswagen”. At the 1933 Berlin motor show, Hitler lingered at length at the Standard Superior.
- Persecution and flight: after a month in Gestapo custody, Ganz lost his work for Standard and Mercedes and fled to Switzerland in 1934. In 1938 the Third Reich stripped him of his citizenship and his patents.
- The Swiss Volkswagen: with support from the Swiss federal government, Ganz built prototypes of a “Swiss Volkswagen” for Rapid in Dietikon – until the war stopped the project and he was denounced to the Swiss authorities.
- Olympic gold and expulsion: his new runner suspension helped the Swiss bobsleigh to Olympic gold in St. Moritz in 1948. In 1950, according to Blick, he was arrested and expelled from Switzerland.
- Too late: in 1961, according to Blick, Germany wanted to award him the Federal Cross of Merit (the embassy's note is in fact dated 18 October 1965) and VW chief Heinrich Nordhoff invited him to Wolfsburg – but a heart attack stopped him. Josef Ganz died in Australia in 1967.
The full life story is told in our biography of Josef Ganz.
The film evening at the Swiss Museum of Transport
On 4 September 2020, Blick followed up with a second article: the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne honoured Josef Ganz on 12 September 2020 with a free film evening, the documentary Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle and three of his cars, including the rare 1931 Maikäfer. Read about the evening in our news: Movie event at the Swiss Museum of Transport and And it goes on and on!
Read both articles on Blick.ch: „Josef Ganz: Das Leben des vergessenen VW-Käfer-Erfinders“ and „Verkehrshaus Luzern ehrt am 12.9. Josef Ganz“.
