was again under threat from the Gestapo and Swiss government officials who claimed the Swiss auto project as their own. After the war, a small number of Swiss autos were built by the Rapid car company. Ganz took the Swiss to court. After five years of court battles, Ganz left Switzerland in 1949 and settled in France. Here he worked on a new small car, but could no longer compete with the Volkswagen. In 1951 Josef Ganz emigrated to Australia. For some years he worked there for General Motors – Holden, but suffered ill health after a series of heart attacks in the early 1960s. In 1965 the Federal Republic of Germany sought Australian Government permission to bestow on Josef Ganz the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. However under regulations existing at that time in relation to foreign awards to Australian citizens, the request was denied. Josef Ganz died in obscurity in Australia, residing at Edgewater Towers, St Kilda, Melbourne. Literature Paul Schilperoord, The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz: The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler's Volkswagen, RVP Publishers, New York 2011, References External links Joseph Ganz Archive Joseph Ganz Foundation https://web.archive.org/web/20081016055947/http://www.schouwer-online.de/technik/bungartz.htm http://www.bungartz.nl/hist-bungartz.html BMW Car Designers Josef Ganz in the overview of automotive designers working for BMW. Ganz: How I Lost My Beetle - documentary 1898 births 1967 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland German automotive pioneers German automobile designers German automotive engineers German male journalists German male writers Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni 20th-century German journalists German Jewish military personnel of World War I Imperial German Navy personnel of World War I