Center for European Studies

Only a few years after WWII the Volkswagen Beetle became one of the most prominent political symbols of West German society’s economic recovery and its new beginning as a Western and democratic country. This talk tells a different story about what the Volkswagen signified for West Germans between 1947 and 1962. A joke about Jews and a 1960 advertisement will serve as – uncomfortable – stepping stones toward what is usually overlooked. The Volkswagen allowed Germans to transcend the 1945 divide in a very peculiar way: driving the Volkswagen elevated Germans “above space and time” and, much like a ‘public secret,’ kept ideas of Germany alive that were supposed to be dead and gone.

Natalie Scholz is an Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Amsterdam. She works on the cultural history of the political in modern Europe (France and Germany) with a focus on symbolic representations and popular imaginations. In her current book project she explores the political meanings of everyday objects in postwar West Germany.