“The proper place for all that material is in the cellar”, he insisted. “The loft of this building is much too exposed. It offers no protection at all.”

“I know you’re right, Father”

“Then do something about it and do so right away. I want everything moved to the cellar of the building during the next two or three days. No longer.”

I shrugged, not very happy about this order, but the boss had to be obeyed. So I put the whole staff to work, transferring vast quantities of records from the attic to the cellar of the building in the Spitalwaldestrasse. The job was completed in about five days of back-breaking toil. About 48 hours later, during a comparatively light attack on Stuttgart, a small-caliber bomb came through the side of the building, completely missing the roof. The missile zoomed down harmlessly to the cellar. There it exploded and destroyed all the material we had just stored away with so much care.

Luckily, we had duplicates of most of this technical paperwork hidden in other places out of harm’s way, so what we severed mainly was inconvenience. However, this made me more certain than ever that you cannot control Fate in the slightest degree. No matter how carefully you may anticipate things, they are liable to work out just a bit differently from your expectations, even if you are an expert with a slide rule.

Excerpt from “We at Porsche”: The Autobiography of Dr. Ing. h.c. Ferry Porsche with John Bentley