I was watch documentary on the Rise of the Evil NAZI empire. Back before 1938, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (aka NAZI) leader - Adolf had a grand plan to put German workers back to work after the great recession which apparently hit Germany even harder than the US. One phase was to build the entire Autobahn road system by hand. Problem was there weren't many cars then to use it so he had Ferdinand Porsche design the People's Car. He build a huge VW (larger than Ford ever had) factory at government cost. Adolf told Ferdinand that cost would be 990 DM (which was about a German workers 2 month earnings). Ferdinand was not thrilled at prospect of failing - he did say it could not be accomplished (so I'm sure there were short cuts made!). If you note early VWs are all one color with no chrome and no optional accessories. 990 DM was still steep so you bought stamps on a monthly basis and put them in a book - miss 1 month's advance payment and you start over at zero. Adolf though the long straight concrete Autobahn highways could also be used for military landing fields. That never happened BUT Allied bomber followed it to major cities when weather conditions were not ideal - so it actually back fired militarily.
