65 replies to this topic

[David J Jones]

I am suddenly developing an even greater interest in the 1939 season and the immediate post war situation when racing was resumed

As we know from previous threads Herman Lang would appear to have been declared champion for 1939 in somewhat dubious circumstances. Further it would seem that most people outside this forum are relectant to acknowledge this for some reason or another blindly accepting the statements made without question or independant confirmation.

I suspect that if Nuvolari had scored more points in 1939 that the Championship for that year would have been ratified in 1946/47. The fact that Muller was just another German was held against him.

So I am approaching the topic from another angle which is 'what is it about H P Muller that that the Nazi and motor racing authorities could not accept'? There must surely be something in his background that was held or used against him. So,what do we know of H P Muller?

he was a racing motor cyclist with DKW

he joined the Auto-Union motor racing team in 1936

he was an ever present until Sept 1939

he has I believe been described as being a 'very pleasant person'

Professor Eberhorst is reputed to have described him as being to A-U what Ullenhaut was to Mercedes-Benz

he was involved in motor cycle racing again in the post war years - in 1956 he was in the NSU team


Can we turn up as much on this as the E-type A-U

[Ray Bell]

I seem to have missed something, David, for I don't recall any questionmark hanging over Lang's 1939 Championship. In which thread is this explained?

[John Cross]

Ray,

It was this one:

http://www.atlasf1.c...p?threadid=8247

[KzKiwi]

Born in 1909 on the 21st of November, in the North German industrial town of Bielefeld.

Prior to his 2 and 4 wheel racing exploits Muller had wanted to become a pilot - lack of cash prevented him from achieving his aim. Thankfully, for people like us, he turned his attention to motorcycle and then automobile racing, before the war then intervened.

After the war, where he served his time as a pilot in the German air force, he resurrected his motorcycling career. He won almost every race he entered and became the 250cc champion of Germany in 1947 and 1948. The last race of the 1948 season brought Muller his 150th race victory.

As to why he was never given the recognition that he deserved at the time was this due to a simple points mis calculation/ oversight (it happens!), or is it more sinister.

It is fair to say that you were either 'in' or 'out' of favour in the German period of the 1930's, for several reasons. Was it purely a 'class' difference, much like Caracciola and von Brauchitsch VS Lang in the Mercedes Benz camp, or was it a 'racial' difference (This is why Hans Stuck Senior quietly faded from the scene, although from memory I don't think the Nazis were aware of the Jewish connection). It is also fair to say that you were either 'in' or 'out' with the political situation that was implmented by Hitler at the time, and this was further exemplified after the war with the formation of West Germany and East Germany. A case in point with the last example are the 2 EMW sports car drivers of the early 50's, Arthur Rosenhammer and Jurgen Bertils. Both were strong supporters of the Communist party and , as such, their motor racing activities ebbed and flowed along with the popularity and decisions of the ruling party, regardless of talent(Rosenhammer) or not (Bertils).

Now, back to Muller and to start the ball rolling on this topic. Although born in Germany is it possible that there were circumstances that affected his standing with the Nazi's?. During Hitlers reign there was a Nazi ruling that awarded winning drivers a higher rank in the Nazi driver organisation (the N.S.K.K).The two qualifications that had to be met were:
1) You had to be German, and
2) You had to win a major race (not sure what this constitutes - obviously a National Grand Prix, but what else?)

At the end of 1939 I believe that there was only 4 'official' members of this higher ranking body of drivers, these being Caracciola, von Brauchitsch, Stuck and Rosemeyer). It was 'not acceptable' to turn down this honour if it was achieved, and if declined, imprisonment or 'premature retirement from racing' was the result. This is why Herman Lang is not listed, as his 'political attitude' was at odds with that of Adolfs. As such he was held in prison for several months.

But where is Muller. We know he won the 1939 French Grand Prix for Auto Union and this must surely gain him entry to the higher ranking of the N.S.S.K under the 'major race' ruling - unless of course he is not considered of adequate German stock.

Rudi Hasse (winner of the 1937 Belgium GP) and possibly Ernst von Delius (1937 Grosvenor GP in South Africa)are also missing from the N.S.S.K higher ranked drivers as well. Perhaps I have my qualification points wrong for entry to this select group, for both were born in Germany , and Hasse's win must surely count as a major GP? Or were they excluded from the group as well?

As I said earlier, this is just to start the ball rolling. Go for it Hans![p][Edited by KzKiwi on 10-22-2000]

[Hans Etzrodt]

Com'on. This is all speculation, isn't it?
I can confirm that Hermann Lang's standing in the NSKK was of a higher ranking than H.P. Müller’s. If that fact should have really played a role in the outcome of the ONS Championship, I do not know. The 1939 Championship is a rather old quest for me and I am always on the lookout for new answers and will do so again on my upcoming research trip to icy Europe. Since most sources available to me are already exhausted, I don’t have any illusions about the outcome. But I also learned to never give up. That’s why Nuvolari is my top dog.

Richard von Frankenberg wrote, that Hermann Paul Müller was generally known just as 'H.P.'. Born in 1909, he was the same age as Rosemeyer and Lang. After he became 21, H.P. started racing motorcycles for Victoria and became German Champion in the 600cc sidecar class in his first year. His name was entered as Müller-Bielefeld, his home town. During his early motorcycle years he had his name entered with both first names, Hermann Paul Müller or Hermann P. Müller.

Strangely enough during his Auto Union years, H.P.’s name appeared as Hermann Müller. His second first name, Paul, was not mentioned any more. In German press releases and books, his name was shown as Hermann Müller. That was not his own idea but it came from the top. Korpsführer Hühnlein, leader of the ONS (Oberste Nationale Sportbehörde) German Motor Sport Authority, was of the opinion that two first names would be fitting for an Englishman or American but not for a German. That is how H.P. Müller the motorcycle racer changed to Hermann Müller, the grand prix driver. And if the Korpsführer wanted it that way, nobody dared to write against it. After the war when he raced bikes again, he changed back to H.P. Müller. That’s how I knew his name. To us he was just "H.P." or H.P. Müller, but nobody called him Hermann Paul.

[David J Jones]

Hans

This is not just speculation but is a line of thought to be evaluated. There has to be a reason for what happened

I am irked at not finding a logical answer to the question. The more I look at it the more illogical it becomes. So I feel that investigating the subject from this angle might provide an explanation to the problem.
If it prove unsustainable then at least it is eliminated.

To put the question into simpler terms I just cannot comprehend why the rules were suddenly changed unless.....

As I understand it from the 1939 championship thread, coming into the German GP of that year Lang and Muller were tied (according to a German publication). So for whatever reason when the result of that race and the Swiss GP were known the ONS for some decided to change the rules.

This appears to directly contradicts for some details contained in Lang's autobiography and in his interviews with Chris Nixon.
Further reading between the lines I get the impression that Lang was not overfond of Muller. Surely fellow drivers in those days had more respect for oneanother?

As I have said there must be an identifiable explanation for it. My own attempts to locate pre-war Motoring magazines locally and in my hometown have drawn a blank (they were destroyed in the blitz) so the only hope is for someone to check them and the early post war ones out in London.


Or perhaps someone could contact Manfred von Brauchitsch and ask him - he surely must know?

[fines]

The 1939 EC thread was the one that originally brought me here, courtesy of Hans, yet I haven't even posted to this subject. The reason is quite simple, as I still don't know what to believe!

I think that David's line of thought is quite reasonable, because if the NSKK changed the championship outcome then there simply has to be a reason for it! That's why I still cling to my believe that the AIACR introduced a change of points scoring method prior to the 1939 season. If we cannot find a reasonable answer to this question all the clever work that has been done to explain how this could have happened is more or less redundant.

Incidentally, up until now with Hans' explanation I wasn't very sure about H.P.'s second name as I've also seen him mentioned as Hermann-Peter Müller in one source. He was exclusively known as H.P. in post-war years, pretty much as A.J. Foyt much later.

P.S. Hans, as of yet Europe's anything but icy, we're enjoying a real Indian summer here in Germany

Aloha,

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by David J Jones
This appears to directly contradicts for some details contained in Lang's autobiography and in his interviews with Chris Nixon.

Or perhaps someone could contact Manfred von Brauchitsch and ask him - he surely must know?

Can we please agree here to ignore Nixon's 1939 championship statements for reason of incompetence and fabrication (only 1939!) on his part?

I have no way to contact Manfred von Brauchitsch. But Daimler-Chrysler in Stuttgart would know where to find him.

[Ray Bell]

Are we going to draw straws?
Who is in the best position to make the enquiry and follow through with a meeting?
Surely there is little point in further discussion without going down this path of talking to the only known survivor of the era?
You never know, he might have been right peeved about the situation too, he might have been waiting for years to vent his spleen about this issue.

[Leif Snellman]

Originally posted by KzKiwi
This is why Herman Lang is not listed, as his 'political attitude' was at odds with that of Adolfs. As such he was held in prison for several months.

This must be some kind of misunderstanding as Lang as I know it was prisoned not by the Germans but by the Allies after the war because of his high NSKK rank.

Now I don't think the NSKK rank could have played that much part in the decitions as ALL German drivers had to belong to NSKK and their rank there seems in most cases to have been earned by good results on the track rather than political ambition.
Some of the drivers must have belonged to the NSDAP (i.e. Nazi) party while some didn't (I know that Caracciola did not belong) and some even belonged to SS. (You can see SS runes on the side of a sports car on a picture from the German GP for sportscars) and I think Neubauer turned away a SS officer who wanted to be a GP driver. So the political situation was much confusing and I don't think we should stir blindly at the NSKK ranks any more than trying to find any obscure political reasons to the fact that Keke Rosberg has been awarded with a higher Finnish knighthood than Mika Häkkinen.

By the way, the NSKK officer ranks were as follows:

NSKK-Sturmführer
NSKK-Obersturmführer
NSKK-Hauptsturmführer (Rosemeyer was SS-Hauptsturmführer) = Captain
NSKK-Staffelführer (Lang) = Major
NSKK-Oberstaffelführer
NSKK-Standartenführer
NSKK-Oberführer
NSKK-Brigadefürer
NSKK-Gruppenführer
NSKK-Obergruppenführer
NSKK- Korpsführer (Hühnlein) = General[p][Edited by Leif Snellman on 10-23-2000]

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by fines
...if the NSKK changed the championship outcome then there simply has to be a reason for it! That's why I still cling to my believe that the AIACR introduced a change of points scoring method prior to the 1939 season...
...Hans, as of yet Europe's anything but icy...

• The NSKK, Nazis or Hitler did not change the Championship. Instead it was done by the ONS; we know that already for a fact. However, these political entities could have influenced the ONS (most likely so) but there is no proof. Previously, suggestions had been made to the effect that certain industrial powers could have exerted influence on governing parties also. No proof ditto.
• We already know for a fact that the AIACR did not change the points scoring method. The proof for that is found in the thread about the 1939 championship.
• fines, Europe will be icy by the time I get there in December.

[Michael M]

Instead of searching for political differences between Lang and Müller, why not looking after that of Daimler-Benz and Auto Union?

[KzKiwi]

Originally posted by Leif Snellman
So the political situation was much confusing and I don't think we should stir blindly at the NSKK ranks any more....

By the way, the NSKK officer ranks were as follows:

NSKK-Sturmführer
NSKK-Obersturmführer
NSKK-Hauptsturmführer (Rosemeyer was SS-Hauptsturmführer) = Captain
NSKK-Staffelführer (Lang) = Major
NSKK-Oberstaffelführer
NSKK-Standartenführer
NSKK-Oberführer
NSKK-Brigadefürer
NSKK-Gruppenführer
NSKK-Obergruppenführer
NSKK- Korpsführer (Hühnlein) = General[p][Edited by Leif Snellman on 10-23-2000] [/B]

So then, how did the internal ranking system work within the N.S.S.K? One of the points I was trying to make in my original thread was that Muller (along with Hasse, and possibly von Delius) appears to be on a lower ranking than Caracciola, von Brauchitsch, Stuck and Lang. And yet they ALL won major races.

Surely winning a major race would be one of the gradings within the N.S.S.K list that is described above? Obviously it would below a 'championship' grading, but above most other gradings.

Can anyone expand on the internal ranking system to confirm this?

[Dennis David]

I'm up in Seattle so I don't have any information at hand but Caracciola's lukewarm feelings towards the Nazis were not a secret. Rosemeyer by the way belonged to a unit in the SS rather than the NSKK according to his wife who seemed rather proud of that fact. As I wrote in another thread Nixon states that he interviewed former members of both Auto Union and Mercedes none of who champion Muller’s title claims. Rather according to Nixon they unanimously acknowledge Lang as the champion. (Motorsport Oct 2000) If you look at the record rather than any “so called” point total I see no problem in declaring Lang as that years champion, but then again I have never been very good at statistics.;)

[Barry Lake]

I am now so deeply involved in other areas of research it isn't easy for me to go back to all my old notes on the late 1930s. From memory, however, I always have believed that Lang was clearly the dominant driver of 1939 overall.

I always have felt that it was a great shame he wasn't able to come back as strongly after the war. A Le Mans 24 Hour Race win in 1952 and a too-short burst of glory in the 1954 German GP are not much to show for someone who had so much potential.

Lang is one of many whose careers were ruined when WWII took their prime years and, in many cases, their health. Others, of course lost their lives. How different might GP history have been had someone been bold enough to stop Hitler in his tracks before he triggered that second bout of 20th Century insanity?

[David J Jones]

The question here is not who won the most races in 1939 but what was it that caused the ONS to wish to modify the rules in favour of Herman Lang. It is I believe from the previous thread beyond dispute that Muller outscored Lang and everyone else in the races defined as qualifying for the 1939 European Championship and would under normal circumstances have been the Champion.

So far I believe we have identified two possibles:

Muller was not considered superior to Lang for some some reason.

or

Mercedes were being given some form of preferential status to Auto-Union.

Possible areas where the solution may be found are

The AICAR records - possibly (if they survive)

The ONS records (where were they kept? and if they survive)

Daimler Benz.

Auto-Union records (such as they are)

or Manfred von Brauchitsch (who if I recall correctly might put a different perspective as he did not appear to have a very high opinion of Lang)

Hans - you mention that you are running out of documentary evidence to check - have you a list of areas you have aalready checked out? I am only a beginner at this but I cannot see much point in going over old ground again.
I do agree that Chris Nixon should be discounted at the moment and cannot agree to the MotorSport answer of his being quoted as he could not name a source other to say 'someone ' had told him.
That in itself would be enough for me to wish to discount the opinion entirely.

Another source I could put forward to check are those of the Allied Powers of 1945 - 1948 and also any records taken to the Soviet Union.[p][Edited by David J Jones on 10-28-2000]

[Michael M]

The ONS didnt change their name after the war. It was a joint-venture between the 2 leading automobile clubs in Germany, AvD and ADAC, so they kept the neutral ONS name. Only 2 years ago they merged with the OMK (similar body than ONS, but for motorcycles) to form the DMSB (Deutscher Motor-Sport-Bund). Their e-mail address is dmsb@dmsb.de
Don't know whether they have the old files available, I'm afraid not. However, it is possible that they moved them to the Bundesarchiv (main archive of the German government) at Koblenz.

[Hans Etzrodt]

I know someone who lives not far from Koblenz. How about it, Michael?

[Barry Lake]

I think Hans' suggestion is a good one - look for the original records, if someone has the possibility.
Look at what was uncovered about the Italian bob-sled team of 1936 in this way.

This has nothing to do with hard evidence but the mention of Von Brauchitsch not having high regard for Lang brings to mind the fact that none of the drivers, especially Caracciola, was keen on having an ex-mechanic in the team as a driver. Particularly so, I would think, when the ex-mechanic began beating them.
There definitely was a "class consciousness" present in the team.

I wonder did this carry over to drivers of Auto-Union and also to the Nazi party? Or was it quite the reverse? Perhaps the authorities of the time wanted to promote "the working man made good".
They were highly political times, after all.

Thinking along the same lines, I always have wondered if there wasn't some ulterior political motive behind Dick Seaman being signed to the Mercedes-Benz GP team. Something, perhaps, that would have become more obvious later, had he not been killed.

[Michael M]

If you don't mind I will contact the DMSB (ex-ONS) in order to find out whether and where the files are still existing. Had a German licence up to 1998, so I know that they are a very small team only, most probably with neither the interest nor the time to dig in the past, however, I'll give it a try.

[Hans Etzrodt]

The following sources carry usefull information about the 1939 European Championship:
[*]MOTOR und SPORT, No 30, page 31, July 23, 1939.
[*]Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung No.33. page 1080, Berlin, 12 August, 1939.
[*]Motorpost No 34, page 8, Germany, 26 August, 1939.
[*]Motorpost No 49, page 4, December 9, 1939.
[*]Völkischer Beobachter, Germany, 30 November, 1939. (Daily Nazi Paper)
[*]Lang, Hermann, Vom Rennmonteur zum Europameister, page 185, München 1943
[*]Frankenberg, Richard von, Die grossen Fahrer von einst, page 60, Stuttgart 1967
[*]Kitschingen, Richard, Die Avus Story, page 146 to 147, Stuttgart 1972
[*]Sheldon, Paul, A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Vol.4, Esholt 1993
[*]Higham, Peter, The Guinness Guide to International Motor Racing, London 1995

[*](Nixon, Chris, Racing the Silver Arrows, London, 1986.) 1939 records manipulated by author and therefore untrustworthy!

There are no other books in the English language, which contain worthwhile information about the 1939 European Championship. There is one book about "Hitler's races in Donington" or such silly title, somebody can check this book out; we might be surprised but I believe this to be a shallow book, judging by the title.

Possible sources not yet checked, are:
[*]British Racing Magazines, also "TheMotor"
[*]French Racing Magazines
[*]Italian Magazines
[*]Belgian Magazines
[*]Dutch Magazines
[*]All Newspapers in all countries[p][Edited by Hans Etzrodt on 10-26-2000]

[Marco94]

Five nationalities, numerous newspapers. Hans, when are you planning to to see your wife again? ;-) And when are you planning to come to Europe?

Marco.

[Hans Etzrodt]

I can only check the German language magazines and papers but these sources are nearly exhausted. The rest, mentioned on my previous post, remains open for research but I have no access to these sources.

I'll be in Europe end of November/December. Has anybody the address and phone number of Manfred von Brauchitsch? I still have a few days open and therefore might be able to interview him, if he is available.

[David J Jones]

Hans

I think I have the phone number somewhere for the British Library where, I hope, they will have issues of

The Motor
Autocar
Motor Sport

I will confirm if the issues are available.

I will also make enquiries to see how to find out which official records, if any, were taken into custody by the allied powers at the end of war.
There is also a possibility that some records could have been taken to Moscow and this could also be worth investigating although it could prove time consuming. I will see if I can find how to see if any information is there.

[Hans Etzrodt]

Many years ago, I saw a documentary on U.S. television about the Nazis and their art, treasures and propaganda material. In the Forties, the USA Army collected all this in Germany, transported and stored it away in the USA, somewhere in a large military warehouse shed. Included with paintings, china, weapons and other treasures are all kinds of written documents, supposedly also about motor sport propaganda. Maybe Don can shed some light on this and get access to the secret Third Reich documents from Major Hühnlein.

[fines]

Originally posted by Hans Etzrodt

• We already know for a fact that the AIACR did not change the points scoring method. The proof for that is found in the thread about the 1939 championship.

Sorry Hans, I can't find no proof for that! Am I blind...?

[Dennis David]

Michael,

Get to work on your website. I for one can't wait to read some of your articles in the Mystery Grand Prix!

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by fines

Originally posted by Hans Etzrodt

• We already know for a fact that the AIACR did not change the points scoring method. The proof for that is found in the thread about the 1939 championship.

Sorry Hans, I can't find no proof for that! Am I blind...?

Michael,
Here are three sources I have c/p from the 1939 European Championship thread.
[list][*]MOTOR und SPORT, No 30, page 31, July 23, 1939. (Translated from German)
Grand Prix of Germany and European Championship. The Grand Prix of Germany for race cars will start this Sunday (23.7.) at 11:00..... .....After the Grand Prix of Belgium and France, this is the third round counting towards the European Championship for race cars. Rudolf Caracciola will still have to defend his title as European Champion in the Swiss Grand Prix (20.6.) and the Italian Grand Prix on the Monza track (10.9.). At this time he is with the Frenchman Matra at the last place, while Hermann Lang and H.P. Müller are leading. The exact score of the European Championship 1939 till now is the following: Hermann Lang with Mercedes-Benz and Hermann Müller with Auto Union each 6 points, Georg Meier with Auto Union and Sommer (France) with Alfa Romeo each 8 points, von Brauchitsch with Mercedes-Benz 9 points, Hasse with Auto Union 10 points; the remaining 13 drivers have between 11 and 14 points, among them are Nuvolari with Auto Union 11 points, Stuck with Auto Union 12 points, Rudolf Caracciola with Mercedes-Benz and Matra (France) each 14 points. The airship Graf Zeppelin will visit the Nürburgring at the time of the race...

[*]Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung No.33. page 1080, Berlin, 12 August, 1939. (Translated from German)
The great mountain prize of Germany: ...For Müller, who until now can book the French Grand Prix as a victory and who is at top in the classification for the European championship, there was a lot at stake. ...(by Hans Bretz)

[*]Motorpost No 34, page 8, Germany, 26 August, 1939. (Translated from German)
(Last paragraph from the Swiss GP report) "The only question remaining is which scoring formula will be applied for the European Championship, the plus or minus formula, and who became champion, Lang, Caracciola or Müller!"

My interpretation of these statements:
[*]MOTOR und SPORT shows that the old point system was still in place and that the German GP was the third round of the Championship.
[*]The AAZ statement was published three weeks after the German GP and stated that Müller was first in the championship.
[*]The Motorpost indicates that the championship had been concluded, which I interpret that there were four races as per the AIACR rules.
[*]Therefore: "the plus or minus formula", 23 points for the winner and all that must have been created by the ONS.

[David J Jones]

Hans

Since from Lang's own account of activities in the Mercedes pit at the Swiss GP regarding the attempts to slow him down and speed up Carraciola all these reports make it more of a mystery.

Or am I being too simplistic?

The only scenario I can think of is that an internal German award (similar to the BRDC Gold Star) came into effect and rather than have Lang outscored by Muller in the European Championship the ONS declared Lang German Champion and let the former series lapse by default (due to the war situation)

[Hans Etzrodt]

David,
As they went to the Swiss GP, Müller had 8 points, Lang 13 and Caracciola 15. If Neubauer wanted Caracciola to win this race, Rudi would have ended up with a total of 16 points and Lang, in second place, would have still been ahead with a total of 15 points; that left Müller yet out of the equation. He just had to cruise home to get four points (which in fact he did, coming fourth) with a total of 12 points, winning the 1939 European Championship.

It is astonishing that the AIACR or FIA never commented on this Championship. But the German ONS made an announcement on 30th November 1939, that Lang was Champion with 23 points.

You wrote,

The only scenario I can think of is that an internal German award...

I will come back on this, but first have to find the figures for the 1939 German Championships, which I thought I had seen somewhere in my stacks of photocopies of old magazines and notes. I was never really interested in the German National Championships because they were straightforward. However, the European Championship outcome had been manipulated, therefore still this lively interest amongst the serious researchers.

[Don Capps]

Hans,

I will see what search of some of the archives shows up when I enter "Hühnlein" as the subject. No telling...

[Don Capps]

Hans, David, and All,

Here is something I found when looking for NSKK information at the NARA. I came up with zero on Hühnlein, which was not a surprise. So I went back into my "real" historian mode and started my review of the source materials. That is how I came upon this essay. After reading it you might get the impression that finding NSKK & perhaps ONS documentation could be a challenge. I have had virtually no contact with this part of the NARA, all my work being in other RG's (cool historian talk for Record Groups).

After further mulling it over, I wonder how much use has been made of these NSKK materials at NARA: Some? Lots? None? Also, does this material contain any of the ONS records and documents from the period in question? Ditto for the material in the Bundesarchiv.

I get the idea I might have to brush up big time on my very rusty ability to read German....


National Archives and Records Administration
Archives Library Information Center


A Brief Chronology of the National Archives Captured Records Staff
Robert Wolfe
In late summer of 1961, when the American Historical Association (AHA) microfilm project at the World War II Records Center located at the old torpedo factory in Alexandria, Virginia was winding down, the State Department was transferring to the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) approximately 1,000 microfilm rolls of so-called non-biographic records prepared by the Berlin Document Center (BDC) staff (the eventual NA Microfilm T-580). On the recommendation of project supervisors Oron Hale and Fritz T. Epstein, NARS temporarily engaged Robert Wolfe of the AHA Alexandria team to review and describe that BDC microfilm.

It soon became clear that some 10,000 rolls already received from Alexandria (with over 10,000 additional rolls yet to come), containing records of the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces), the Nazi Party and its formations (such as the SS, SA, and NSKK), as well as of some Third Reich government agencies (such as the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda [Reich Ministry for Public Enlighten-ment and Propagan-da, 1936-1944, Reichswirtschaftsministerium [Records of the Reich Ministry of Economics]; and Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion [Records of the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Produc-tion] was stimulating lively research attention. Recognizing its pressing need for subject-matter expertise on captured German records, NARS offered Wolfe a permanent position in early 1962.

Much of the microfilm of German Foreign Office and Reich Chancellery records, approaching 5,000 rolls (T-120), prepared by the Whaddon Hall Tripartite Project had already been accessioned from the Department of State by NARS Diplomatic Branch, and Wolfe (assisted for some months by Mario Fenyo) was soon providing reference for that microfilm as well. Included in this accession from the State Department were several hundred rolls (T-586) reproducing records of the Mussolini regime (Salo).

In April, 1963, Wolfe was transferred from the Exhibits and Publications Branch to the Diplomatic, Legal, and Fiscal Branch, and given the title of Specialist for European Records. During 1965, the captured records microfilm in the main building, held respectively by the Diplomatic and Military Branches, was consolidated in one location. In late 1965, Richard Bauer, who had been providing reference at Alexandria, moved to the main archives building to assist Wolfe. With Bauer came the captured German situation map collection, still pictures from the Heeresbildstelle (German army photographic agency), and the Heinrich Hoffman studios, as well as audio recordings--most notable of which were wax disc recordings of many of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler's secret speeches candidly describing the so-called final solution of the Jewish question and other Nazi atrocities.

Meanwhile, at Alexandria, a project team supervised by Phillip P. Brower and Donald E. Spencer, consisting at one time or another of Anton F. Grassl, Charles Gordon, Ignaz Ernst, Cleveland Collier, Steven Pinter, John Strekel, and Petronilla Hawes, augmented in 1967-8 by the return of the invaluable George Wagner, between 1963 and 1968 produced approximately 10,000 microfilm rolls for deposit in the National Archives, including 506 rolls of Italian military records, 1935-43 (T-821). In 1966, Mrs. Johanna F. Wagner, a former member of the AHA Alexandria team, joined Wolfe in the main archives building. From this time on, the Wagners contributed an inestimable portion to the Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, Va. and other finding aids to the captured records.

In 1968, after most of the capture German records had been microfilmed before shipment to the Federal Republic of Germany for deposit chiefly in the Bundesarchiv, the Alexandria World War II Records Branch was dissolved, the torpedo plant vacated, and along with huge amounts of US military records, most of the remaining captured records, on paper and microfilm, sent to the main archives building in downtown Washington. The remaining non-German captured records, largely North Korean, were sent to the new Washington National Records Center in nearby Suitland, Md. Spencer, Grassl, Gordon, and Mrs. Hawes, joined Wolfe, Bauer, and the Wagners in the main building; Ernst accompanied the remaining captured records to Suitland.

In two stages between 1967 and 1972, NARS accessioned from the Naval History Division over 4000 rolls of German naval records, the so-called Tambach Records filmed in London by US Navy microphotographers during 1945-6 (T-1022). The first stage, consisting of 1650 rolls of chiefly German Imperial Navy records dating from 1850 to 1922 ("TA" series), were accompanied by an extensive card index prepared by Harry Rilley, who concurrently joined NARS captured record staff. Finding aids for the TA and the post-1922-1945 "T" series were also microfilmed. During the 1980s, two well-received guides to the ever-popular U-Boat logs and related records for the Imperial and Third Reich navies were compiled by Harry Rilley and Timothy P. Mulligan, respectively.

Beginning in 1968, the captured records staff for the first time assumed project responsibility for records of American and Allied provenance closely related to the captured German records: the Nuremberg (Nuernberg) trial records. At that time, Wolfe developed a standard filming sequence--proceedings, prosecution and defense document series, plus administrative records--for the records of the twelve subsequent Nuernberg trials conducted by US military government prosecutors before judges recruited from American state courts. Initially carried out by Charles Gordon, this project was completed by John Mendelsohn with the assistance of diverse archivist trainees.

Besides the standard NARS microfilm pamphlets to accompany the Nuernberg trial series, Wolfe assigned Mendelsohn to experiment with Special Lists, beginning with the only trial of a single defendant, US v. Erhard Milch, as a pilot project, and going on to the most researched of these subsequent trials, US v. Ohlendorf et al., the Einsatzgruppen ("murder commandos") case. During the five years he served as Assistant Branch Chief for Projects in the Military Field Branch at Suitland, Mendelsohn spread the Nuernberg pamphlet pattern--again with the assistance of diverse archivist trainees--to the Dachau trials, mainly of SS concentration camp personnel, but also including trials of the Malmedy massacre of American troops, the Russelsheim lynching of downed American air crews, and the Hademar euthanasia asylum. (In late 1945 and early 1946, Wolfe had been assigned as an official Army witness to the hangings at Bruchsal prison of those condemned in the latter two cases.)

Other related US records accessioned during 1968-70 were the Foreign Military Studies, more than 2000 manuscripts in seven series prepared by German generals and other high ranking staff officers, initially as responses to POW interrogations (including generals Keitel and Jodl before their executions at Nuremberg), and later written on contract with the US Army History Division between 1945 and 1954. In order to assist the memories of the German authors, the German Military Documents Section (GMDS) had shipped tons of microfilm reproductions of thousands of captured German documents, as well as original German situation maps and manuals from Alexandria to Karlsruhe. These studies were designed to fill gaps and throw light from surviving wartime records on strategic, tactical, operational, and technical aspects of the Wehrmacht. Regrettably, with one lone exception, no one seems to have suggested that the German authors of these studies cite the documents they were furnished, although this would have considerably enhanced the historical value of the manuscripts. Until his retirement in 1986, George Wagner arranged these records for microfilming and prepared a finding aid, both tasks being completed by Robin Cookson.

Nineteen sixty-eight was a watershed year not only because of the transfer of the Alexandria staff to the main archives building in March, but because of the National Archives Conference on Captured German and Related Records in November. That conference assembled in the National Archives theater more than 200 participants in the various projects which captured, officially exploited, microfilmed or described such records, and/or who conducted research therein resulting in books and articles, many of which have become classics for the study of Germany in the 20th Century in general, and of the Third Reich in particular. Wolfe, who planned and directed the conference, edited the proceedings and recorded discussion for publication by the Ohio University Press in 1974 (Captured German and Related Records: A National Archives Conference).

Shortly after this conference, Wolfe was asked by the State Department to serve as its archival consultant for the Berlin Document Center, a function which continued through inspection visits in 1969, 1970, 1975, 1988, and 1989. He also served as a member of the State Department delegations which negotiated with a German Foreign Office delegation in Bonn and in Berlin in 1979, and in Washington in 1980, tentative terms for the transfer (ultimately in June 1994) of the BDC to the Federal Republic of Germany after its so-called biographic records had been microfilmed for deposit in the National Archives. After Wolfe's retirement in April 1995, the transfer and description of BDC biographic microfilm has been carried out by Timothy Mulligan.

The captured records staff assembled in the main archives building in downtown Washington continued to work on producing Alexandria Guides (which by 1994 reached 99 in number) as well as finding aids to German navy, Nuernberg trial records, and Foreign Military Studies. In 1971 that staff (now augmented by Mendelsohn) was constituted a separate Captured Records Branch with Wolfe as branch chief. Besides projects, the branch was busy with a burgeoning reference service, by mail and on the premises, resulting from the enduring public fascination with the Third Reich.

Undaunted by this growing work load, in the early 1970s Wolfe undertook reviving the then moribund interest in two aspects of the aftermath of the Third Reich: war crimes trials and postwar military government of Germany. Having assigned the archival projects on the subsequent Nuernberg trials to the eager and diligent Mendelsohn, Wolfe assumed a promotional role. Preceded in October 1972 by an inaugural lecture, which included a documentary motion picture he assembled with the assistance of Mendelsohn and Spencer, he taught a four-week short course on the Nuernberg trials at Wesleyan (Connecticut) University during March 1973. In 1975, he directed a symposium in the National Archives building on "The Nuernberg Trials as History, Law, and Morality," on behalf of the Conference Group on German Politics (which he also served as a member of its Board of Directors). Among the speakers were Telford Taylor, Avery Fisher, Martin Broszat, Hans Mommsen, and Mendelsohn and Wolfe.

Also in 1975. the Captured Records Branch was absorbed as a distinctive staff into the newly-created Modern Military Branch, with Wolfe as branch chief. This reorganization gave new scope to the talents of the captured records staff, and new talent to apply to the captured German and related records. In particular, archives technician Timothy P. Mulligan, whose fascination with and copious knowledge of the history and records of the Third Reich caught Wolfe's attention, was recruited as an archivist for the captured records staff.

The Modern Military Branch benefitted from the special skills of the captured record staff applied to those American record groups or series interspersed with captured enemy and related records, among these the records of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), and intercepts of enemy coded wireless communications released in paraphrase by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Wolfe's recruitment of Mendelsohn and Mulligan was with an eye to an orderly succession, because he knew from his own experience that it took years on the job to develop subject matter expertise in a large, complex body of records. The premature death in 1986 of Mendelsohn, eight years Wolfe's junior, disrupted this plan, but the considerably younger Mulligan has proven more than prepared to assume the task of specialist for captured German and related records.

Other records, not part of the Modern Military Branch but part of Wolfe's personal history, also drew his attention. Having served from April 1945 to late 1948 in the Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS), in 1975 he instigated and negotiated a joint venture of the National Archives with the Bundesarchiv and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, as well as other German archives and institutions, which described and microfilmed OMGUS and related State and War Department records for the use of researchers in both countries. Mendelsohn later served as liaison for most of the three years that more than 25 German archivists and historians worked on the OMGUS records at NARS Washington National Records Center in nearby Suitland, MD.

Three years later, Wolfe directed a conference on postwar military government co-sponsored by the Eisenhower Institute and the American Committee for the History of the Second World War held at the Smithsonian Institution on May 20-22, 1977, the proceedings of which he edited for publication under the title: Americans as Proconsuls: U.S. Military Government in Germany and Japan, 1944-52 (SIU Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1984).

Since the 1978 Martin Green television docudrama revived and mushroomed public interest in the Holocaust, captured records personnel at the National Archives were overwhelmed by researcher inquiries--scholarly, media, and private. In television interviews, papers, articles, and documentary publications, Wolfe and Mendelsohn endeavored to bring to these various categories of researchers, and to the general public, knowledge of captured German and related American records in their custody which substantiate the incredible--and therefore disputed by so-called Holocaust deniers--facts of the "final solution of the Jewish question."

As far back as 1961, while serving on the AHA Alexandria staff, Wolfe became involved in assisting so-called "Nazi hunters," both the Israeli prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, and West German investigators for the prosecution of Nazi criminals. Since then, whether providing records to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) of the U.S. Department of Justice investigating alleged Nazi collaborators who found boltholes in this country, or for Canadian, and recently Australian and British, prosecution of such collaborators who entered those countries, the National Archives captured records staff has sought to serve the ends of justice.

Beginning with the Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan case, New York and other Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) investigators from Ohio and Florida separately sought from the National Archives what amounted mainly to duplicate background information and documentation in order to deport alleged war criminals from several INS jurisdictions. Wolfe suggested that a central operation and cumulative document repository be established, similar to that set up in Ludwigsburg, Germany, to minimize dissipation of INS and NARA efforts. Presumably, as a consequence of that advice and his subsequent assistance to its lawyers and historians, some have dubbed Wolfe the "godfather" of the OSI.

Wolfe was asked to give evidence for the prosecution in a pretrial hearing to establish the chain of control of documents certified by the Bundesarchiv for a war crimes trial in Adelaide, Australia in 1993. Defense counsel had objected that the proffered documents had been out of German control for some 25 years, roughly from 1945 to 1970. It required much research to produce contemporaneous documentation demonstrating the where and when of the capture of the bodies of records in which the documents had been filed by Nazi agencies, the itinerary by which they had reached the United States, where they had been microfilmed, and the receipts signed by German archivists at Bremerhaven certifying their return. Whether the case be a criminal prosecution as in Adelaide, or a deportation case in Cleveland, a broken chain of control (or Roman or Cyrillic graffiti on original documents) taints the evidence.

On October 5, 1992, Wolfe testified as an expert archival witness in a Nazi crimes case tried before the County Court of Duisberg, Germany. When Allied Military Government was replaced by the Allied High Commission in 1949, a provision of the Occupation Statute reserved Allied control over war criminals already convicted and imprisoned by Allied military govern-ment courts, but not over cases not yet tried, as a prerequisite to Allied approval of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In general, the trials conducted by the U.S. War Crimes Branch at Dachau applied precedents derived from the Nürnberg Interna-tional and subsequent American military tribunals established by the London Charter. But Dachau legal and procedural bases were laid out and developed in a 1945 loose-leaf Manual for Trial of War Crimes and Related Cases, to which additions, changes and deletions were applied from preceding cases. In all Allied prosecutions of war crimes both inves-tigation and judicial inquiry could follow as well as precede service of charges, even during the trial itself; but trial could not legally begin before service of charges. On the basis of this archival research, Wolfe recommended that the United States Ambassador to Germany certify that the U.S. Government had no objec-tion to the trial of the accused by a German court for World War II war crimes.

During the 1970s, budgetary constraints affected the National Archives like most other Federal agencies. It was therefore no surprise that NARA senior managers suggested curtailing, if not discontinuing, projects work on captured German records in order to augment staff positions processing American records being accessioned in a steadily increasing flow. As chief of the Military Records Branch, Wolfe conceded such priority was justified, but protests from the Conference Group for Central European History, coupled with the revival of interest in the Holocaust as of 1977-8, averted premature shutdown of a distinct captured German records staff in that Branch, and ensured completion of the Alexandria Guide series.

The beginning of the end of the staff's separate existence came, however, with the re-assignment of Wolfe as assistant director, Military Archives Division. A truncated staff was temporarily revived by his assignment as assistant director of his long sought--but short-lived--Center for Captured German and Related Records, under a supervisor lacking proficiency in German language or records. On Wolfe's retirement in 1995, the few remaining captured German records specialists were dissipated among several functional units, and their responsibilities broadened, thereby to some extent diluting their specialized competencies.

Archivists are enjoined to avoid proffering personal interpretations of records they furnish to researchers, lest their opinions be taken for officially approved. This is most difficult when such documentation is cited in front page stories or prime time news. During the 1980s, Wolfe and his staff enjoyed the excitement and accepted the risks of meeting media demands for a quick fix, while avoiding misquotation, on such headline stories as the extradition of Klaus Barbie, the search for Josef Mengele, the controversy over President Reagan's visit to the Bitburg cemetery, and the Kurt Waldheim affair and its British commando aftermath. Wolfe probably dodged a professional bullet when the U.S. Department of Justice ruled on Constitutional grounds (Article I, Sect. 8, clause 9) that he could not accept a formal invitation to serve on the Austrian-financed International Historians Commission to ascertain the facts of the Waldheim case.

Archivists, however, are not constrained from speaking and publishing their views on professional archival and historical matters, derived from their own records or other sources, provided this is preceded by the prescribed bureaucratic disclaimer that such views do not represent official agency or government policy. The captured records personnel of the National Archives have presented conference papers and published articles and books, over and above hundreds of acknowledgements of the assistance provided by various members of the staff printed in hundreds of scholarly and other works published in the United States and abroad.

Seizure and exploitation of the official records of a vanquished foe, although authorized by the Hague and subsequent international conventions, can be presumed to engender ill will, but it attests to the fair and professional operation of the National Archives captured records staff that Wolfe was awarded the Merit Cross, First Class, of the Federal Republic of Germany on March 15, 1979, and its Grand Cross in 1996, and that Mulligan was presented the "German Friendship Award" at a joint ceremony sponsored by the German Embassy and the German Historical Institute on December 10, 1999, on the premises of the latter institution.

That this chronology is in large part a personal history may seem self-promotion; it happens to be demonstrable fact. For a broader background, consult "Current and Future National Archives Programs for Captured Records" in Robert Wolfe, ed., Captured German and Related Records: A National Archives Conference (Ohio University Press, 1974); Robert Wolfe, "Sharing Records of Mutual Archival Concern to the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America," Special Plenary Session of the Interna-tional Congress on Archives, Bonn, September 21, 1984, in Archivum, XXXII, 292-302 (K.G. Saur, München, 1986); and pertinent records in National Archives Record Group 64.

RWolfe: January/2000

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by Don Capps
...I wonder how much use has been made of these NSKK materials at NARA: Some? Lots? None? Also, does this material contain any of the ONS records and documents from the period in question?...

Don,
Thank you very much for showing this NARA document. I read it twice and then decided to go myself to these sites
http://www.nara.gov/ and
http://search.nara.gov/
Surprise, surprise! After two hours... my only trophy was... guess what? The same document that you showed on your last post. I plan to defenitely spend more time with NARA, but I just cannot do it right now for the next eight weeks. Maybe David might be interested? Or anybody else for that matter? There are no restrictions.

BTW, I very much enjoyed your RVM story today, although I no longer spend too much time in the Fifties and Sixties. But I will store your account on my hard drive, with your permission.;)

[Don Capps]

Hans,

I know only too well how much fun working the RG's at NARA is. It is often very time-consuming when you get into areas such as these since they are not very "popular" and the material is usually not indexed very well. This might be one of those worthwhile projects that will take some time. Indeed, I start seeing what I can do about looking at these records sometime in the near future.

However, we will keep plugging away....

[Dennis David]

Hans,

Have you received my check? I mailed it about a week or so ago.

[David J Jones]

Don / Hans

If I can find some time I will see what I can do to help on the Nara records.

I will see what I can find out at this end - I still just cannot believe how stated facts are blindly accepted - I just read a book by Nigel Roebuck who blindly stated Labg was a European Champion!

Ha s anyone any objection if some of these facts are sent to Motor Sport?

[fines]

Dennis, you're right! I should be updating my website more frequently. I'm spending way too much time at distractions like the Nostalgia Forum...

Also, it's websites like yours that make others like mine pale by comparison. It seems completely out of question to reach standards like that which is enormously discouraging!;)

Hans, I think it all comes down to what you accept as proof. We all know that the AIACR kept the championship scores pretty close to their chest so it would be no surprise to learn that "Motor und Sport" had simply done their own calculations not knowing that the rules had changed already. Also, the same article mentions a fifth round in the championship which has been dismissed by both you and David J. Jones in recent discussion, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched to ignore the article as a whole.

The "Motorpost" article mentioning the "plus or minus formula" dilemma is the best indication yet for me that there was indeed a change of scoring for that year, with the AIACR not willing to give away too much of information until their fall meeting, as usual. Why else should there have been a blank at the end of the championship with regards to the championship scores? If it had been a straightforward procedure why did no magazine publish a summary after the last round? And if the ONS changed the scoring then ditto, why didn't they publish "their" championship results right then? And how come they discuss something like that before the AIACR had come to their own conclusion?

This is still very puzzling and I don't think you can speak of any proof right yet!

[Hans Etzrodt]

DD,
Sorry, I have received no check yet.

[Hans Etzrodt]

QUOTE]Originally posted by David J Jones
...Has anyone any objection if some of these facts are sent to Motor Sport?[/QUOTE] David,
go right ahead.

What do you think about fines point of view. He has a point, doesn't he? Maybe I am too obsessed in trying to find an answer to this question and have become blind. For some reason fines statement does not seem as convincing to me as my interpretation. Since I am too involved in this matter, maybe the independents, more impartial, are in a better position to make a judgment.

[TonyKaye]

It had always puzzled me why the pre-war European Championship was scored in such a strange way, the champion being the one with the LEAST points. The post-war World Championship and every other championship of whatever importance throughout the world always goes to the competitor with the HIGHEST point score, which seems a much more obvious approach. (Yeah, I realize some forms of motorized competitions are won on least penalty points incurred, but the European Championship was not involved with penalties.)
Then only the other day I heard that inter-team cross country running events have always been run on a lowest-score-wins basis. The winner gets one point, second place gets two and so on. The winning team is the one with the lowest aggregate score. Perhaps this was the model for the European Championship. For all I know there may be several other sports which still use this system.
No doubt this works well enough for a single event in which each team has the same number of competitors. But in a championship series all sorts of other problems come into play. Competitors may not compete in all the events, nor may they finish the events in which they start. That's why the pre-war championship had so many additional clauses. That's why it was relatively difficult for the layman to keep track of it.
And maybe that's why they changed the system in 1939! IF they did, of course.
I know it's popular to denigrate Chris Nixon in TNF, but many years ago he wrote an article in Autosport (I think) in which he put forward what he called the 'Olympics' approach. In simple terms, since the object of a race is to win it, the Champion should be the one who wins most races. He went on to reallocate the World Championship since 1950 using this approach. If I remember correctly there weren't too many changes, but Hawthorn's in 1958 was one of them and quite right too!
So whatever we may think of the pre-war scoring system, it is by no means certain that we have the ultimate system 60 odd years later.

[David J Jones]

Hans

I believe Fines raises a good point of view but IF the rules were changed then it would surely be simple to locate the evidence and then we could all rest easy.

However my training in my professional life leads me to only accept those things for fact that have hard copy evidence and to disregard as hearsay those undocumented items.
In this discussion therefore I feel it is not unrealistic for the view you have expressed to be sustained and for all other points of view to be the ones that have to be proven!

Reference the article mentioning a fifth race I am not sure that this is contradictory since I do not know what date the Italian GP was downgraded to a 1.5cc event and in any case war was in progress at the time it due to be run. Anyone have a date for the change of rules on this one?

I am not sure that I subscribe to the notion that the champion should be the one who wins most races as I believe the champion should score the most points in all qualifying races. But maybe this should have a thread of its own....

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by David J Jones
...The only scenario I can think of is that an internal German award (similar to the BRDC Gold Star) came into effect and rather than have Lang outscored by Muller in the European Championship the ONS declared Lang German Champion...

David,
The following is the little I found about the 1939 German Championships. Plus a small snippet about a possible AIACR meeting in 1940.
MOTOR und SPORT, No. 36, page 18, 3 September 1939, (translated from German)
MOTOR und SPORT, No. 43, page 24, 22 October 1939, (translated from German)
German Road Champion for racing cars: Rudolf Caracciola (Mercedes-Benz) with 6 points ahead of Lang (5), third came Müller (Auto Union), then Pietsch (Maserati). The better result in the German GP decided the outcome.
Eifelrennen: Lang 1st – Caracciola 3rd – Müller 7th – Pietsch 9th
German GP: Caracciola 1st – Müller 2nd – Pietsch 3rd – Lang DNF
Vienna Circuit Race: on 17 September, cancelled

German Mountain Champion for racing cars: Hermann Lang (Mercedes-Benz) with 10 points
Kahlenberg, Vienna: Lang 1st – Stuck 2nd – Müller 3rd – v. Brauchitsch 4th
Großglockner: Lang 1st – Müller 2nd – v. Brauchitsch 3rd – Stuck 4th


MOTOR und SPORT, No. 9, page 7, 3 March 1940, (translated from German)
An AIACR meeting has been planned for this year’s Whitsunday in Bern. (Whitsunday for 1940 was on …?…Does anybody know?) The Swiss Automobile Club has already sent invitations to all clubs affiliated with the AIACR and hopes that at this meeting not only the Neutrals will turn up.

[Marcel Schot]

Whitsunday 1940 was on 12 May

[Hans Etzrodt]

Marcel,
Thank's for the date. When in Europe next month, I will check the old papers from that date on to find out what happened at the meeting.

[David J Jones]

Hans

This is getting more interesting. However the proposition of an AIACR meeting in May 1940 will not solve the problem for me - I feel it will only identify what the Nazis wanted done.

I am not sure if France was still free by that date as speaking from memory the Blitzkreig had, or was, taking place and most affiliated organisations were under Nazi rule or had other matters on their mind.

Another line of thought I have had is to contact the FIA but before I did I thought I would consult you to see if you knew if there was a relationship in any way between the bodies?

[Leif Snellman]

Hans,

12 May 1940 was the day Heinz Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps reached Meuse after having overrun Belgium and Luxemburg. I doubt you'll find much about AIACR meetings in the papers!

[Michael M]

Unfortunately the DMSB (ONS) informed me today that they have no pre-war files available anymore, their building had been destroyed during a bombing raid in the war, and the whole archive got lost.

[David J Jones]

If ONS records were destroyed - and if there is no evidence from the AIACR regarding a change in the points scoring system - and I don't necessarily accept a May 1940 ruling in retrospect - then surely Muller must have been champion.

Perhaps we should persue the affiliated bodies for a resolution?

[David J Jones]

I have just read a book review in the current issue of the Motor Sport.

The title of the book is "Driving Forces - The Grand Prix Racing World cauught in the Maelstrom of the Third Reich" It is by Patrick Stevenson. According to the review it is not a stale account of 1930's racing but is a history in terms of those who made and were made by it.

Maybe it will have some mention as regards the topics we have covered so far in this thread and the previous one on the 1939 Championship.

Or am I hoping for too much?.........

Has anyone heard anything about the book?

[Dennis David]

I have the book and it uses a technique used all to often nowadays as it pretends to project dialog and the driver's thoughts in the absence of actual documentation giving the effect more of a novel then an example of historical research. The title should have warned you.

That being said I found some useful ideas for my FICTIONAL account of the period. Then again I'm easy.