GERMANY: Motors and Purge

Among Adolf Hitler’s most passionate admirers are Germans who make motor cars. A zealous motorist, the Leader, in one of his first acts as Chancellor, started forcing motor sales by exempting new cars for two years from the crushing luxury tax which burdens pre-Hitler cars in Germany. Thus started a nationwide scramble to trade in old cars on which the tax for two years in some cases would exceed the value of the vehicle. Last week without alluding to this “forced sale” technique, the Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment proudly announced: “Sales of motor cars in Germany for the year ending in June exceed by 90% those for the previous twelve-month.”

The cream of Germany’s motor boom was in sales to Nazi Party locals which lavishly bought cars “for official business” until checked by the blood purge and Herr Hitler’s bullet-backed injunction: “The true Nazi must lead the simple life!”