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1939 Belgrade Grand Prix


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#51 Radoye

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Posted 31 January 2014 - 18:03

Yep that's it. :)



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#52 Tuboscocca

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Posted 09 December 2014 - 15:24

Michael, i have not received a response yet to my inquiry on the kontakt page. I'm not sure how often is that being checked or who is in charge of it.

 

But the snail mail address and telephone numbers for the Society i posted above are valid (i checked), and would be my best bet to get in touch with Mr. Djordjevic. Some years ago i had some contacts with him on an unrelated matter and he really is a great guy, willing to go to great lengths to help a fellow motorsport enthusiast out. And there likely is no person alive today that knows more on the subject of the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix than he does.

..almost a year!!

managed to locate copies of the Belgrade Grand Prix 1939 book(let) and the Touringcarbook!! Both in South of France!!

 

The Belgade GP book is A4 100+ pages softbound. Very interesting photos from practice, race, support races for two- and fourwheelers..lists , memorabilia etc..Only the language, they even translate the (German) names..

The bookshop has had only vey few (or just one?)--I was very lucky!!

 

Best regards Michael



#53 dmj

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Posted 12 December 2014 - 18:19

It's a shame I haven't seen this thread before, as I have both mentioned books and could easily get more copies for anyone interested, as well as a few other car related books published in countries of former Yugoslavia.

 

To solve some of the questions posted I'd have to check my copy of the book, and I borrowed it to a friend. Some things I can add from my head:

 

Mazaud was definitely registered for the race but never showed in Belgrade due to political circumstances.

Boško Milenković - I wrote an article about him, don't know if translation will be good enough but you can see it here: http://autoportal.hr...i-dan-2-11.html

 

And I have to slightly disagree with comments about communists trying to erase the race from the memory. There were articles published about it but not many of them, as simply it wasn't important enough. Sport exploits of Yugoslavia before WWII were openly discussed and celebrated (like semi-finals of national football/soccer team at 1st World Championship 1930.) but Grand Prix wasn't really so important. If there was a miracle success of a Yugoslavian driver it would be celebrated. But in reality it was just showing up of 4 world class cars, not much of a race, not much of a drama. History made it the end of an era and thus somewhat important but if war started a few weeks later it would forever be written down just as a minor race, nothing really special.



#54 Mark Ballard

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Posted 14 December 2014 - 13:03

I found this on another forum, which might be of interest

http://www.bugattibu....php?f=1&t=4668



#55 Tuboscocca

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Posted 14 December 2014 - 14:06

I found this on another forum, which might be of interest

http://www.bugattibu....php?f=1&t=4668

Mark and from your link, to this:

 

http://staribeograd....alemegdanu.html

 

Michael



#56 tsrwright

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Posted 16 December 2014 - 03:28

Certainly the British press (apart from photographer George Monkhouse) don't seem to have been present. Neither Autocar nor Motor reported it at the time: I don't think Motor Sport did either. Rodney Walkerley of The Motor was in London, preparing to join the army and I would guess that Robert Fellowes (aka Spy George), who had substituted for him at Bern, was also back in Britain by then. Without
 

 

I see that eventually in Light Car of March 1941 The Blower reported that the 'obscure Grand Prix that took place somewhere in the Balkans the day war was declared'  was in Belgrade and not Bucharest and was 'the Grand Prix of Yugoslavia'.

 

I am still looking for a decent quality photo to publish of this event; suggested sources and the national library having been of no help so far. If George Monkhouse was there, where would his photos be?



#57 fuzzi

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Posted 16 December 2014 - 06:24

Anthony Pritchard's "Silver Arrows in Camera" (published by Haynes in 2008) contains photos of the Belgrade race. The book made use of the extensive collection of photographs held by Audi and Mercedes Benz. Both teams travelled with their own photographers and the quality of the images are magnificent. Those of Belgrade with the cars leaping over the crest of a hill on a confined cobbled road are something else.

 

I was lucky enough to spend two days going through the CDs from the collections to help select those used in the book. I kept on feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rising as we moved from image to image. :drunk:

 

Get in touch with them Terry, you might get lucky.


Edited by fuzzi, 16 December 2014 - 11:15.


#58 Vitesse2

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Posted 16 December 2014 - 22:53

I see that eventually in Light Car of March 1941 The Blower reported that the 'obscure Grand Prix that took place somewhere in the Balkans the day war was declared'  was in Belgrade and not Bucharest and was 'the Grand Prix of Yugoslavia'.

He'd probably been reading the report publshed in The Motor in January 1941, which I believe was based on a precis of the report in Politika. I have scans of it, but can't seem to post them here.

I am still looking for a decent quality photo to publish of this event; suggested sources and the national library having been of no help so far. If George Monkhouse was there, where would his photos be?

I now suspect that the photos in Monkhouse's book were from the MB archives, rather than his own.

 

Mazaud was mentioned earlier - he was definitely nowhere near Belgrade, as earlier in the week he was reported to be at La Baule, practising for the also cancelled GP there.



#59 Roger Clark

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Posted 18 December 2014 - 09:14

Monkhouse writes that he stayed with the family of Erica Seaman after the German Grand Prix. There he met Ernst Udet who was third in command of the German Air Force under Goering and Milch. Udet told him that he should keep his Bentley full of petrol, and if, one morning Udet should bang on his bedroom door at around 5 or 6 o'clock, Monkhouse should leave immediately, not say goodbye and get out of Germany by a prescribed route. The call came on the morning of August 2. The prescribed route was via Strasbourg; Monkhouse arrived in England on August 4.

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#60 tsrwright

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Posted 18 December 2014 - 09:21

Thanks for the photo clues which I'll follow through. Those leaping Mercs certainly look good enough to give some variety to a book on Coopers. I don't have ready access to Motor at the moment so would appreciate that Jan 41 mention by email if that is convenient.



#61 Vitesse2

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Posted 18 December 2014 - 12:46

If I ever had your email address, I seem to have mislaid it, Terry!



#62 tsrwright

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 02:09

Anthony Pritchard's "Silver Arrows in Camera" (published by Haynes in 2008) contains photos of the Belgrade race. The book made use of the extensive collection of photographs held by Audi and Mercedes Benz. Both teams travelled with their own photographers and the quality of the images are magnificent. Those of Belgrade with the cars leaping over the crest of a hill on a confined cobbled road are something else.

 

I was lucky enough to spend two days going through the CDs from the collections to help select those used in the book. I kept on feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rising as we moved from image to image. :drunk:

 

Get in touch with them Terry, you might get lucky.

 

Julian, I managed to get a useable but grainy shot, (typically) with all the scenery cropped out from 'Press Communications
Mercedes-Benz Classic' but attempts to get a choice or the whole negative haven't been successful. For obscure reasons I need others from them so have you or  anyone got a direct archivist contact there who has access to the actual collection rather than what little (?) the press office may have to hand.

 

For similarly obscure reasons I am also looking for the same at BMW if anyone has a name.

 

Richard, I pmd my email address re that Motor article on the Belgrade race but it is not a secret and is tsrwright$gmail.com

 

Terry



#63 fuzzi

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 17:34

Hello Terry

 

Tony Pritchard contacted Lothar Ranz, Unternehmensarchiv at Audi Heritage at Ingolstadt and Dr Harry Niemann, former Leiter Unternehmensgescichte/Konzernaarchiv (who has since moved on) and his colleague Stanislav Peschel at Daimler-Benz at Unterturkheim. He was well-known at D-B which helped a good deal, but not at Audi, though I suspect that the Audi Heritage people did not want to be seen to be dragging their feet as far as the project was concerned. Please don't ask me to translate the job titles - I do not have more than two words of German and one of those is "Bier".

 

The result was CDs of top class images from both firms and it was interesting to compare the images from each; D-B sent a team of photgraphers with top class equipment to each event and Auto-Union had a single photographer - who I don't know, but he was a man of some talent. We spent a glorious three days going through the CDs and the hair on the back of my neck still rises when I think about about those days.

 

Sadly I don't know what happened to the CDs after Tony's untimely death. :( Tony worked upstairs in his home and the weight of his books and files had already started to cause structural problems to the house. An investigation by a structural engineer led to Tony's widow being advised to relieve the structure of as much weight as possible and his reference collection had to be cleared out as quickly as possible. A lesson for a lot of us. 

 

Hope this helps with the search.


Edited by fuzzi, 02 January 2015 - 17:42.


#64 Tuboscocca

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 17:55

Hello Terry

 

Tony Pritchard contacted Lothar Ranz, Unternehmensarchiv at Audi Heritage at Ingolstadt and Dr Harry Niemann, former Leiter Unternehmensgescichte/Konzernaarchiv (who has since moved on) and his colleague Stanislav Peschel at Daimler-Benz at Unterturkheim. He was well-known at D-B which helped a good deal, but not at Audi, though I suspect that the Audi Heritage people did not want to be seen to be dragging their feet as far as the project was concerned. Please don't ask me to translate the job titles - I do not have more than two words of German and one of those is "Bier".

 

The result was CDs of top class images from both firms and it was interesting to compare the images from each; D-B sent a team of photgraphers with top class equipment to each event and Auto-Union had a single photographer - who I don't know, but he was a man of some talent. We spent a glorious three days going through the CDs and the hair on the back of my neck still rises when I think about about those days.

 

Sadly I don't know what happened to the CDs after Tony's untimely death. :( Tony worked upstairs in his home and the weight of his books and files had already started to cause structural problems to the house. An investigation by a structural engineer led to Tony's widow being advised to relieve the structure of as much weight as possible and his reference collection had to be cleared out as quickly as possible. A lesson for a lot of us. 

 

Hope this helps with the search.

Only a small help:

Unternehmensarchiv= company archive

Leiter Unternehmensgeschichte= head of 'company history'

Konzernarchiv= company archive

 

Prost Neujahr from Michael


Edited by Tuboscocca, 02 January 2015 - 17:55.


#65 Michael Ferner

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 20:03

Auto-Union had a single photographer - who I don't know, but he was a man of some talent.

 

Julius Weitmann?



#66 Tuboscocca

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 20:37

Julius Weitmann?

Michael, I don't think so..

according to 'a' webpage he joined the Marine and was in military since 1925..

 

In jenem Jahr war der im November 1908 in Schwäbisch Gmünd geborene Verfechter von Mittel- und Großformat-Fotos längst in der Redaktion auto motor und sport mit seinen dynamischen, oftmals spektakulären Motorsport- und Autobildern etabliert.

Sein Lebensweg hat jedoch gänzlich anders begonnen. 1925 trat Julius Weitmann mit 17 Jahren in die Deutsche Marine ein und wurde in den letzten Wochen des Zweiten Weltkriegs Presseverbindungsmann der Großadmirale Raeder und Dönitz.

 

But who could be the photographer of Auto Union, and are the MB photographers known??

 

Michael



#67 Tim Murray

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Posted 02 January 2015 - 20:43

I believe the name of the Audi archivist is Lothar Franz. In his Auto Union Album 1934 - 1939 Chris Nixon said that most of the photos in the book were taken by German photographers; the only one of these he named was Kurt Wörner.


Edited by Tim Murray, 02 January 2015 - 20:45.


#68 fuzzi

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Posted 03 January 2015 - 09:11

Touche. :wave:



#69 jj2728

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Posted 03 January 2015 - 20:02

There are 3 photos from this particular race in Monkouse's book: Mercedes Benz Grand Racing 1934-1955, pages 98/99.

A leaping Nuvolari in the number 8 Auto Union, Brauchitsch leading Lang in their Mercedes and Brauchitsch leaping. Additionally there is a caricature drawn by Udet of the author.