Outside of Germany, of course, was the idea that Germans were great engineers and their products were of the highest quality actually a thing before WW2? Would people pay more for German goods?
I'm asking because the idea seems these days to reek of the embers of the whole Aryan master race thing.
I was just watching a documentary earlier that answers this a bit.
http://youtu.be/kXP4W9GTh8Q?t=4m7s
Basically, around the turn of the 20th century or so, Germany still had a reputation as turning out cheap and inferior quality products. They gave themselves a major rebranding. This turned around before the rise of the Nazis. The idea of German products being the end result of superior design and mastercraft engineering predates Nazism and their master race nonsense. The Nazis co-opted the idea and ran with it for their own purposes.
The documentary itself is actually quite informative, really gives you a good sense of how important design and design theory are.