I really didn’t know that the fortune of VW started from Hitler (I guess it’s common knowledge among Germans)… more from this site (straightdope.com) and here.

From www.straightdope.com:

Hitler didn’t name it but there’s no question he helped create it. Ferdinand Porsche had been working on a popularly priced “people’s car” (whence “Volkswagen”). At a 1934 meeting Hitler told him to make the car an air-cooled four-seater with a streamlined shape “like a beetle.” Your wish is mein command, said Ferd. Hitler announced the new car at the Berlin Auto Show. The Nazis sold VW “subscriptions” and a factory was built, but only a few cars were made before hostilities began. During the war the plant churned out V-1 buzz bombs and a Jeep-like vehicle of a design later sold in the U.S. as “The Thing.” Only after the Nazi surrender did civilian VW production begin in earnest.

-Reda