There has probably never been a conductor who has had a greater influence on the world’s political history than Richard Wagner through Hitler. They had many things in common: Wagner wanted to become a politician, and Hitler wanted to become an artist. It was due to Wagner that in his younger years Hitler endeavored to write a Wagnerian opera, Wieland the Smith, an opera that Wagner had started but never finished.
In the 1930s, Hitler’s obsession with Wagner inspired him to initiate a formal prohibition and destruction of all degenerate art (Entartete Kunst), which was not in accordance with the Wagnerian aesthetics and canon, as Hitler understood it. In addition to Jewish authors and others who were not in favor of the regime, the prohibition affected the whole of avant-garde and modernism, and in music (Entartete Musik) all of jazz, primarily due to its “primitive” African-American roots.
In 1932, while in one of his ‘Wagnerian’ meditations on power, pleasure, work, and the economy, Hitler also sketched the first outline of the automobile that later came to be known as the ‘people’s car’. In his efforts to modernize Germany he was inspired by the American automobile producer Henry Ford. In order to reduce unemployment in the Reich and build modern infrastructure, he developed a public works program by constructing the worlds first super roads – the German Autobahn. With the objective of halting the recession and stimulating German industry, he wanted to develop a car which the average German could afford. The work order for the prototype was awarded to Ferdinand Porsche in 1934. Soon after that, the Porsche 60, which was launched publicly under the official name the KdF–Wagen (Kraft durch Freude – ‘power through pleasure’). Subsequently it gained the name Volks–Wagen, or Käfer (Beetle). In this manner a new, modern German automobile brand began to develop, and the construction of the first Volkswagen plant was entrusted to the German Labour Front (DAF). After the Second World War, the Beetle actually became the most popular people’s car in the world. In the 1960s it became a cult object, a pop icon, a symbol of freedom and modernity, and the Volkswagen brand became the basis and model for the rest of the automobile industry.
Извор:
http://www.laibach.org/volkswagner/ 
