hown here admiring an engine at the 1939 International Motor Show in Berlin with henchmen Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler used the expo to introduce the first working model of the Volkswagen. Years before, Hitler had announced plans to create the affordable, fuel-efficient “People’s car” that would cost about as much as a motorcycle. While nearly 340,000 Germans put money down on the cars, no civilian in the Third Reich ever actually received one. Of the estimated 700 Volkswagens produced before Germany’s defeat, most went to the Führer himself and the Nazi elite.