Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche - Second World War

Second World War

During the war, the Porsche family was completely dedicated to designing motorized weaponry, like tanks, for the Germans. To avoid the aerial bombings of Stuttgart, Ferry Porsche was forced to bring some of the design departments to Austria, to two locations, Gmünd/Carinthia and Zell am See, where the family had a farm. Nonetheless, he stayed personally in Stuttgart, managing the business.

Meanwhile, Porsche senior withstood at Wolfsburg, working for the Germans until the end of the war. The production of compact civilian cars at that factory had been halted, to produce small military jeeps called Kübelwagen.

Though, after Hitler's fall, the French government requested formally to Porsche family to build a French version of the compact Volkswagen, in November 1945, even by bringing the pieces of Wolfsburg's facilities which had survived.

Some French nationalist sectors, led by Jean Pierre Peugeot, resisted this though. Surprisingly then, during an official appointment at Wolfsburg, both Porsche's father and son as well as Anton Piëch, a Viennese attorney who was Louise Porsche's husband, were arrested together as criminals of war, on December 15. Without any trial, a bail of 500,000 francs was officially asked for each of the Porsche's. It could be afforded only for Ferry Porsche who moved then to Austria, in July 1946. His father was taken instead to a harsh medieval prison at Dijon.