gravedgr

Lucked upon this while flipping channels in the hotel.

buckwheat987

Thanks. Just turned it on.

NA011

The show also repeats @ 1:00 am ET on 11-16-10.

jason952

great, set DVR!

Minok

Autobiography? So Ferdinand is doing the voice-over of his own life?

ADias

I guess not. The series is called Biography and this episode is not very flattering for Ferdinand from a socio-political perspective. I have a copy of that episode since it was broadcasted years ago.

stevepow

If you make Automobiles, then you have an Autobiography, if your are a Biologist, then you just get a Biography...pretty sure that is right.

akacaj

Wish I hadn't seen it.

Minok

So let me guess, Ferdinand was a typical industrialist who didn't get it all right and made some decisions based on reasons other than what we would ideally like?

cbzzoom

I haven't seen this show, but I assume that a large part of the negativity comes from Ferdinand having supplied large amounts of engineering to the Fuhrer. Not just the VW Bug but also engineering for tanks and jeeps and other military machinery.

So if by "typical industrialist" you mean "deeply involved in created the war machine of one of the most evil regimes in history" , then you're right

mdrums

I admit I do not know Mr. Porsche's history and I missed the TV show...so enlighten me...why do you all wish you never had seen the show?

ADias

You need to watch the Biography show and think for yourself. F. Porsche Senior was a great engineer and auto industry tycoon but, according to Biography, and supposedly verifiable historic facts, he benefited from the German war machinery and was a key contributor of same, all the while other German scientists/engineers refused to participate and left.

I do not recall if the TV show discusses it but he was also offered by Stalin the top job of Soviet head of the URSS auto industry and seriously considered it... Ego and self-agrandissement seemed to be first above principle. I guess no one is perfect.

tincanman99

Go do some digging and you will see that some very well known companies were deeply involved with the *****. And not just German companies - GM, Ford, IBM to name a few.

Minok

Precisely, and the same thing every single US industrialist would have done in the same situation. Lets not pretend we are somehow better over here. Our industrialists love to profit from the war machine just as much.

"evil" is not really something that can obviously be assessed by someone there, at the time, from that position. Its easy now, after the fact.

So I cannot hold that against him.

stevepow

Then entire audio recording industry was built on technology from - Neumann Mics, BASF tape, Telefunken, etc - partly with the goal of making Hitler speech recordings so realistic that his location could not be determined by broadcast origin.

"The Neumann mike — the CMV3 — was so widely used by the Fuehrer and **** Party leaders that it acquired a nickname: The Hitlerflasche, or the Hitler Bottle"

Nothing like war to create technology. Nuclear power plants also come to mind as an outgrowth of WWII technology...

...Porsches, Power, and Pristine Beatle masters - good times, yeah?