Motor Schau March 1939 with KdF Car Transparency Booklet

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NAZI VOLKSWAGEN PHANTOM TRANSPARENCY BOOKLET

AN EXTREMELY RARE TRANSART
TRANSPARENCY BOOKLET WITH
PHANTOM VIEWS OF THE FIRST
KdF CAR OR VOLKSWAGEN,
AN INSERT IN THE VERY, VERY
RARE MARCH 1939 BERLIN AUTO
SHOW ISSUE OF THE NAZI CAR
MAGAZINE MOTOR SCHAU

PLEASE NOTE: this is one of several USM Books webpages listing very rare and historically important Nazi Volkswagen or KdF Wagen material. At the bottom of this page you will find links to other Volkswagen related web pages.

As most people with an interest in Third Reich history know, Hitler’s concept of a Kraft durch Freude (KdF or Strength Through Joy organization) Volkswagen car called for a small, cheap, economical if underpowered car that could be purchased by the masses, “just like the brilliant example of car ownership we see in America” as the Nazi Führer put it in 1936. The little beetle shaped car was designed to hold four people and to be able to attain 100 kilometers per hour (66 mph) on reasonably level paved ground, the operational speed of Hitler’s Reichsautobahn.

The public announcement of the long-awaited arrival of the first Volkswagen was an enormous media event in Nazi Germany. Radio, television, the newspapers and consumer magazines covered it as extensively as possible. The Berlin Auto Show began on 17 February 1939 and ran through 5 March 1939. The March 1939 issue of ,,Motor Schau’’, the big, oversized 10 x 13-3/4 inch Nazi trade and consumer car magazine introduced the KdF Wagen to readers in a most unusual way.

Inserted into a heavy diecut cardboard page between pages 192 and 193 of the March magazine was a beautiful 8-1/4 x 11-3/4 inch, 20 page brochure produced by TRANSART AG of Berlin. Produced for Volkswagen-Werk GMBH in Berlin, the center pages are clear transparencies or “cells” like those used in movie animations, featuring full-page, full-color phantom views of the Volkswagen.

Cell 1 was a 3/4 front view from over the top of a standard Volkswagen “Limousine”. When one turns the page he sees the inside of that part of the VW on page 2 and the people seated in the Volkswagen on page 3.

So it goes until page 7 shows only the chassis of the VW from the top and page 8 shows the chassis from the bottom. The front cover of the book is beautifully embossed with a picture of the KdF Wagen in front of the KdF swastika in a gear “sunrise” emblem.

Over the years people have seen examples of the brochure but had no idea that it had been an in-pack advertising promotion in the March 1939 issue of Motor Schau magazine. Motor Schau was founded and published by Adolf Hitler’s good friend Jakob Werlin, who not only advised Hitler on the purchase of automobiles but also often accompanied him to the annual German Auto Show in Berlin (Internationale Automobil und Motorrad Ausstellung Berlin) and other motor related events.

Werlin was one of the five directors of Daimler-Benz and described himself in his own magazine as a, “collaborator with the Führer in the question of the motorization of Germany”.

Because this example of the TRANSART Volkswagen transparency brochure spent the last 67 years in the magazine it originally came in, it is in superb original condition.

White spots on our photographs of the transparencies in this brochure are reflections, NOT blemishes on the transparencies. The transparencies are in perfect original condition and are followed by four pages of technical data regarding the KdF Wagen.

This extremely rare March 1939 issue of Motor Schau magazine has 124 spectacular pages of full-color and black & white automotive content. That content includes articles on a visit with Dr. Porsche in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen (mentioning the SS guards at the gate), the Volkswagen motor, new speed records set on the Reichsautobahn near Dessau, fine cars, luggage fitted to new automobiles, an aircraft for flying into the stratosphere, German omnibus construction, etc., etc.

There are gorgeous advertisements for Mercedes-Benz, Auto-Union, Opel, Steyr-Daimler-Puch, Hanomag and Maybach cars, Triumph, Zündapp and NSU motorcycles, Arado aircraft and countless other automotive and aviation products.

The magazine and its insert are available only as a single lot - they will not be separated.

Other than two small pieces of reinforcing paper added to the top and bottom of the spine of the March 1939 Motor Schau magazine by its original owner, the magazine and the insert are in excellent original condition.

This 1939 Motor Schau magazine with super rare
KdF transparency insert is **SOLD**.

Other original Third Reich KdF Wagen material offered on the USM website:

- KdF car purchase agreement material for KdF Wagen number 1149.

- The rare 1939 KdF glove box-type manual ,,Der KdF Wagen von A bis Z’’ .

- An original KdF Sparkarte application form.

- Additional Motor Schau magazines from 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

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