The VW Complex

The film is a documentary about the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. The beginning is of course the present time: after a view of a giant industrial complex, the camera comes to rest on a pile of scrapped cars. Then clips from the news of 1935, with Hitler at the automobile exhibition. A few years later Dr. Porsche built the first "Beetle" model. Bitomsky follows in his film modern factory production of the VW with his camera and microphone.

But, however, it is not an industrial film - it goes well beyond the mere facts. Bitomsky also takes up the role played by the VW factory for the National Socialists armament production, and refers also to the prisoners who had to keep up production during the war years through forced labour. And so in the end the Volkswagen factory appears as an exemplary case of German industrial and cultural history, and the car itself, from the first Beetle to the newest models, both technical product and myth, becomes a revealing example of the history of German values.