chapotraphouse

Following the Nazi takeover in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler’s former drivers, a part-time inventor and loyal party comrade who had spent time in prison for participating in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, had started producing bicycle reflectors, to improve the visibility of riders on the roads at night.

Fastening small pieces of glass to bicycle pedals that would reflect the headlights of oncoming cars.

In 1936, Hitler’s SchutzStaffel (SS) formed a joint-company with the inventor, using his name – Anton Loibl GmbH – sometimes shortened to ToLo. With SS help, Loibl applied for and received a patent for his bicycle reflector design. In his capacity as police chief of the Reich, Himmler then issued a new ordinance on road traffic, in November 1937, that made these bicycle reflectors mandatory for all bicycles on German roads.

The SS company would oversee the marketing of Loibl’s invention and use part of the revenue to fuel Himmler’s research projects.

[...]

Although the activities of the Ahnenerbe came to an abrupt end in 1945 – the section of the traffic order which relates to reflectors, introduced by Himmler in November 1938, is still part of Germany’s street law for bicycles – the Straßenverkehrszulassungsordnung.

There's another post in here about how germany has taken the nazi traffic laws - explicitly introduced to be unimaginably pro car - and just took it wholesale, and no one knows this and how it hinders any and all progress until the enduring, underlying logic is fixed because it is explicitly pro-car.