Then and Now...

Very short post today.

Who was the motoring enthusiast who proclaimed...?

"If one formerly attempted to measure the standard of living of a population by the number of kilometres of railway line, in future one will apply the kilometres of roads suitable for motor traffic".

For a clue, he was the boss of the man who demanded....

"I want to hear nothing, I want to see nothing, I want to know nothing...I know what is going on, but you don't need to tell me about it. Don't ruin my nerves. I need my confidence to be able to work."

The car fanatic was Adolf Hitler and the see no evil, hear no evil advocate was Joseph Goebbels. As soon as they got into power in 1932 they pushed hard for the Volkswagen (the people's car) and the Volksempfaenger (the people's radio set), respectively. The Nazis actually instituted a whole program of cheap Volksprodukte, from sewing machines and refrigerators, to gramophones, bikes and even tractors and apartments.

The idea was to provide an artificial boost to the living standards of the vast majority of Germans who had to accept low wages in order for the German economy to be able to service WW I reparations debt. With the exception of the huge success of the "people's radio" necessary for propaganda, the rest of the Volksprodukte were ultimately failures because the Nazis were busy investing in a more direct instrument for raising living standards: the Wehrmacht.

Any similarity with current events and conditions is purely coincidental.