The Josef Ganz research project was started by the Dutch journalist Paul Schilperoord in 2004 after he first read about Josef Ganz in a 1980 issue of Automobile Quarterly. He was simply fascinated by the suggestion that a Jewish engineer could have laid the foundations for the Volkswagen Beetle - universally known as a project originating from Ferdinand Porsche and Adolf Hitler. Five years of research into Josef Ganz has unearthed a wealth of unknown material about the origins of the Volkswagen.

This first publication - entitled Het Ware Verhaal van de Kever: hoe Hitler het ontwerp van een Joods genie confisqueerde - will at first become available in the Dutch language. In this book, Paul Schilperoord tells the personal and professional life story of the prominent engineer and journalist Josef Ganz (1898-1967) who was the founding father of the immensely popular Volkswagen Beetle. The book is based on a vast amount of previously unknown historical sources and photographs - the result of five years of extensive research.

Dipl.-Ing. Josef Ganz (1898 - 1967) was the engineering father of the Volkswagen Beetle - the most famous and enduring car ever built - and laid many of the foundations for lightweight modern motorcars.

Josef Ganz was born in a Jewish family with a Hungarian mother and a German father in Budapest on July 1, 1898. At an early age, he was fascinated by technology and, after relocating to Germany and serving in the German army during the First World War, started a mechanical engineering study. During this time, he became inspired with the idea of building a small people's car for the price of a motorcycle. Josef Ganz made his first Volkswagen design sketches in 1923, designing an innovative small lightweight car with a mid-mounted engine, independent wheel suspension and an aerodynamic body, but lacked the money to build a prototype...

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