![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/01_111698040.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
Most people who have ever owned a Volkswagen Beetle or, say, an early, split-windshield VW bus or even a Karmann Ghia will swear that those uncomfortable, relatively bare-bones vehicles were among the favorite cars they’ve ever driven. They’re not for everyone, of course — but for a certain breed of driver, the old-school VWs offered a rare combination of economy, ease of maintenance (this writer, stranded far from any garage, once repaired a busted accelerator cable on a ’67 bug with 12-pound-test fishing line) and, most importantly, personality that so many other mass-produced automobiles lacked.
The story of Volkswagen, meanwhile, is among the most fascinating and, in some regards, most troubling of any car manufacturer in existence. One well-documented example of VW’s paradoxical history: in its early days, during World War II, Volkswagen used slave labor (the company has admitted as much) to build vehicles for the Nazi war effort; decades later, the archetypal Volkswagens, the Beetle and the T1 bus, would become the four-wheeled symbols of the “peace and love” movement of the 1960s. From Hitler to hippies: not many other companies, automobile or otherwise, can lay claim to that sort of stranger-than-fiction corporate narrative.
Here, on the anniversary of the founding of Volkswagen on May 28, 1937, LIFE.com offers a series of photos made by Walter Sanders at the company’s famous Wolfsburg plant in 1951. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany himself, who fled his native country the same year VW began making cars, Sanders captures in these pictures of the factory and the factory workers a nation in the process of recreating itself. Here, in black and white, is a portrait of the labor and mechanization that would again make Germany (well, West Germany, anyway) one of the world’s most powerful economies before the end of the century.
[MORE: See all of TIME.com’s coverage of Germany.]
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/01_111698040.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/02_112233968.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/03_111697975.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/04_111698101.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/05_112233909.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/06_111698098.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/07_112233937.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/08_111698037.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/09_112233915.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/10_112233936.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/11_111697934.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/12_111698023.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/13_112233954.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/14_00744773.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/15_112233951.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/16_111697982.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/17_111698006.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/18_111697961.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Scene at Volkswagen's main plant, Wolfsburg, Germany, July 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/19_111697926.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Wolfsburg, Germany, 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/20_111697987.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![People gathered around a VW bus, 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/21_111698080.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![People gaze at photographer Walter Sanders through the open roll-top of a VW bus, 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/22_1199194.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![A young woman and man enjoy themselves beside a VW cabriolet, 1951.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/23_111697990.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
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