Hitler and Mercedes Bentz

This is an intresting fact that I learned today. Hitler's favorite car was a Merecedes Bentz. Bentz is the man's name who designed the car. Mercedes is the name of one of Bentz's associates's wife. That wife was Jewish. So did Hitler know that he was riding around in a Jewish named car?

 

Tim, I don't want to rain on your parade, but Karl Benz (not Bentz) did build cars, but not Hitler's.

Benz associate (or key customer in the early years) was Emil Jellinek, and Mercedes was the name of his daughter, not wife.

Mercedes is not a jewish name, and even if it would be, and even if Hitler would have known that, he wouldn't have cared a bit.

Cheers,

 

Of course Mercedes is a Spanish name. The car made this name popular, even though it is wrongly pronounced all over the world now (Germans say Mer-zeh-des, pronouncing the middly syllable).

 

Ah yes... and Emil Jellinek was no associate of Carl Benz, but of Gottlieb Daimler, the founder of the Daimler (resp. Mercedes) car producing company. This was long before Daimler & Benz merged. At least Timothy is right that Hitler's favorite car was a Mercedes-Benz.

[ 11. December 2003, 05:29 AM: Message edited by: KnightMove ]

 

Andy is right, Mercedes was the daughter.

Bentz...hahahahahah!!! sorry! It WOULD have suited hitler though

 

Hmmm, a small apology to Timothy, despite the false details, his story has a true core:

Emil Jellinek was a Jew, even the son of Vienna's chief rabbi. So was probably his wife Rachel. Thus indeed Mercedes was a Jewish girl.


"In 1881, Emil Jellinek, son of a Leipzig [wrong: Vienna - KM] rabbi and eventual financier of early Daimler cars, left Tetuan, North Africa to take over a French insurance company office in Vienna. Jellinek had grown wealthy dealing with North African imports, mostly tobacco which is grown along the Algerian coast, and had also met his wife, nee Rachel Goggman, in Oran, Africa where she was born on 29 April, 1854. Rachel gave birth to Mercédès Adrienne Manuela Romana in Baden (or Vienna, according to Guy Jellinek) on 16 September, 1889. ...

Jellinek became even wealthier after buying some Alpine Montan AG stocks ( which Camillo Castiglioni, who owned BMW, would acquire in 1921) which took off, allowing a new wing to be added to Villa Mercedes. Rachel Jellinek, who once threw her husband across the room, died of cancer in 1893, the same year Emil’s father died. His mother, Rosalie, died in Baden on 2 August, 1892. Emil had three children from his first marriage: Adolf, Fernand (both born in Algiers) and Mercedes; four from his second: Didier (1900-1984), Guy, René and Andrée (Maja). His second wife was Anais Engler, whom he married in 1899. In 1914, when Austria attempted to make their citizen Jellinek pay taxes for properties in Paris and Nice, Jellinek decided to move. "I shall transfer the villa to my children...Baden, which bores me terribly, where I cannot sleep and which is detrimental to my health! I shall send my family to the Semmering or to Ischl. And I shall go from Nice to the sanatorium of Dr. von dapper in Kissingen." While Emil stayed in Bad Kissingen, his family headed for the Semmering, returning after Austro-Hungary declared war on 28 July, 1914 after which they dared not speak French outside the house. Jellinek and the family went to Meran in late 1914, then to Geneva where they stayed until Emil died in 1918. Anais Jellinek was given a Czech passport as the French courts ruled on her nationality after the Austro-Hungarian empire was broken up. Mercedes Jellinek lived in Vienna much of her life, marrying there twice, in 1909 and 1914. Mercedes Weigl (Jellinek) died in Vienna on 23 February, 1929 and lies in Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof. Emile and Rachel Jellinek are buried in Nice, France while Anaise Jellinek, Emil’s second wife died in Neully, France in 1941."
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Lane/4444/

More about Emil and Mercedes Jellinek

But as AndyW has pointed out: Whether Hitler knew this or not, he certainly didn't care.


Ironic the name of Jellinek's rabbi father (and to his honor, Emil's first son): Adolf Jellinek.

[ 11. December 2003, 05:42 AM: Message edited by: KnightMove ]

 

I heard this story from one of my teachers and I was wondering how much of it was true. Thanks for telling me.

 

Just a footnote ; -

http://www.germaniainternational.com/images/mercedesadvertisement.jpg

 

That's spooky. But now I'm thinking, wouldn't Hitler have been the least bit upset about that? I mean...he did accuse the Jews of taking over Germany... maybe he didn't care too much about the automobile industry...

 

Why don't you look if he has got an angry face in his Mercedes?

 

I think if I were being saluted by a LOT of people while driving in a car I was slightly unsure of, I would provide a smile for the crowd. Let's see if we can find a picture of him joy-riding...shall we?
That would be pretty funny to have a picture of Hitler making donuts in some field somewhere and speeding down a road, his head out the window...

 

Oddly enough, although he didn't drive, Hitler loved to be driven at speed around Bavaria in the pre-war years, showing a keen interest in the latest 'go-faster' mods on his various Mercs.

He's always sit in the front passenger seat and would stop for picnics with members of his entourage such as photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, who pictured Hitler on some of these outings grinning and wearing a leather flying-type helmet....

 

My assumptions weren't as outrageous as I thought...

 

But after all, I really would like to know whether Hitler knew this, even though I am pretty sure that the answer is no. Mercedes-Benz certainly did not bandy this around, and this is far from well-known even today - so would it be at that time?

 

Slight Aside: I have always found it fascinating, the history of major industries and companies in Germany through the Reich and what happened to them. Mercedes, Porche and Volkswagen are some of the obvious ones, but there are a lot of other interesting companies that do not publicise their history. For example, A failed business owner who had already gone bakrupt once, Hugo Boss' clothing industry made its money after Boss joined the Nazi party and after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Boss's business began to flourish when it became an official supplier of uniforms to Hitler's SA and later to the SS.

Sortof explains why the nazis, despite being such a horrific force for evil, were such damn snappy dressers.

 

I wonder why Hitler never bothered to learn how to drive a car. Was he too chicken, or just poorly coordinated?

Yours,
Paul

 

C'mon mate...!!

Not learning to drive a car was all too common at this time. Certainly it was time-consuming as well as expensive. In his early years, Hitler lacked the money, later probably the time, and he did not have any urgent need.

 

Yes - what's the old saying - 'Why have a dog and bark yourself ?'

 

Well, believe it or not Friedrich is like the Führer... He doesn't know how to drive!

I took a two or three lessons when I got my car and that's all the times I've driven it and any other car... And maybe if I try to drive now I'll wreck it...

But why do you need to drive when you have a 24-hours-a-day chauffeur?

 

Hitler had five mercedes. Here is one today.
http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/hilt0400.htm