31 replies to this topic

[cabianca]

Sources on the government support given to Mercedes and Auto Union in the late 1930s vary from less than 10% to huge amounts. Does anyone have an opinion or reference on this subject.

Many thanks,

[Bikr7549]

According to the report by Cameron Earl in Quick Silver (page 65), the German government paid Auto Union 500,000 RM annually, presumably MB got the same. Using a currency converter followed by an inflation calculator that I found on the net this amount comes to $200k in 1938, which is $3.6M in 2017 currency, or just over 3M euros.

 

The Earl report also states that the annual budget for AU was 2.5M RM, or today about $18M, about 16M euros. So the government provided about 1/6 of the AU budget. Earl comments that the MB budget was much the same. Adding the gov supplied funds and the budget comes to $21.6M, or 18.3M euro in today currency. An article on f1today.net from this past March has F1 budgets ranging from Force India at the low end with 110M euro to MB at the other with a budget of 450M euro. A range of 6 to 25 times higher today-technology isn't cheap!

Edited by Bikr7549, 19 May 2018 - 04:12.

[plannerpower]

In The Grand Prix Car (Vol. 1, p.205), Pomeroy says  "A subsidy of £20,000 per annum was offered to both Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union in 1934 ..."

 

In The Racing Car (p.181 of the hard-cover edition, p. 146 of the paper-back), Jenkinson says "It was while these two cars were being built that the Nazi regime took control in Germany, and the Fuhrer himself offered a prize of 500,000 RM (£41,600) to the most successful German racing car to compete under the new International Formula" and on p.182 (hard-cover)/p.146 (paper-back) he adds "Eventually this prize money was divided equally between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union..."

 

(The "two cars" were the Mercedes-Benz and the Auto Union that were designed and built in 1933 and raced in 1934).

Edited by plannerpower, 19 May 2018 - 06:45.

[Vitesse2]

There are some sourced figures for various years quoted on page 308 of Dorothee Hochstetter's book Motorisierung und Volksgemeinschaft (Oldenbourg Verlag, 2005). I don't have time to translate the details right now though.

 

However, a note of caution regarding conversion rates: the RM was extensively state-controlled under the Nazis. From: https://www.richmond.../pdf/hetzel.pdf - page 20

In 1936, Hitler imposed
a price freeze to control inflation ... Schacht, who became
Reichsbank president for the second time in March 1933, maintained the mark
price of gold by imposing foreign exchange controls and barter arrangements
for foreign trade. “Germans who settled foreign debts directly with their cred-
itors were threatened with the death penalty” (Pringle 1998, 71).

Some possibly helpful tables here: http://www.history.u...ts/currency.htm

[Charlieman]

Chris Nixon in Racing the Silver Arrows writes that Adolf Hitler personally proposed the 500,000 RM contribution to a German GP racing team. Mercedes-Benz were officially out of racing in 1933 but had provided substantial support to private teams. It was expected that M-B would receive all of the 500,000 RM until the recently formed Auto Union company made representations. The 500,000 RM was divided equally between M-B and AU, and appears to have been given annually up to and including 1939.

 

Vitesse2 notes the difficult in making currency conversions. I can't easily find data on currency inflation for Germany during the period, but one should assume that 250,000 RM bought less engineering in 1939 than in 1934.

 

German companies or German subsidiaries of multi-nationals made major contributions to the racing effort. Both M-B and AU had partners outside Germany who could channel off-the-book expenditure -- more or less essential to buy components made outside Germany. M-B allegedly used production factory staff to support the racing division at times of stress. I'd like to understand how that worked following the organisation of factory activity after the merger of Benz and Daimler.

 

The three German GP races -- Grosser Preis, Eiffel GP, AVUS GP -- were probably self-supporting given the crowds which attended, and the German teams usually took most of the prize money. I can't imagine that the prize money for the Donington GPs contributed much to racing expenses. Or even the Vanderbilt Cup race in 1937.

 

I can't believe the Cameron Earl report suggestion that expenditure by M-B and AU was roughly equal. In 1939, M-B built a 1.5 litre Voiturette (sic, noting thread elsewhere) and had almost completed the M-B T80 land speed car, whilst building and racing GP cars which were more efficient than their predecessors. M-B reworked the T80 for three aero engines before the project was shelved. 

[guiporsche]

Maybe Eberhard Reuss's book has details on this as well? [I have not read the book myself, but it keeps getting mentioned in discussions about the Silver Arrows]

 

As an aside, in regards to the Reichsmark's exchange rate, it was nominally pegged to gold and was stable during the late 1930s. This was, however, mostly because of memories of the 1920s hyperinflation and fears that any devaluation would lead to an incontrollable depreciation. Schacht's need to conserve Germany's meagre gold reserves combined with the overvaluation of the RM, and the necessities of rearmament (imports) led in practice to the adoption of capital and exchange controls, and in the establishment of bilateral trade arrangements that allowed Germany to barter with its neighbours.

 

So, it was not so much that the RM would buy less goods in the late 1930s but that given capital & exchange controls, German companies' ability to source goods from outside was strictly controlled and politically supervised - all acquisitions resulting in RM outflows had to be approved by the Nazi authorities.

Adam Tooze's book on the Nazi war economy describes all of this in detail.

 

Meanwhile, this might be of interest:

 

http://www.history.u...ts/currency.htm

Edited by guiporsche, 19 May 2018 - 14:11.

[Bikr7549]

I agree that conversions of currency are speculative at best. I am not an economist but an interesting and easy read on the German economy in this period is Vampire Economy, preface is dated September 1939 so it was it very current evaluation of what was going on then. I tried to paste in the financial links in case anyone was curious but nothing would paste in when I tried to ctrl-v or right click. I see that others are doing this, how do you get them into a posting?

 

Earl doesn't mention where he got his information regarding the MB budget compared to that of AU. He does say that he had discussions with the former AU technical director so there is some support of the accuracy of their budget. One apparent difference between the way that the 2 teams were run was that (again according to Earl) the AU team shop made their own hardware while MB used the production side machine shop to produce their parts so some savings was there budget wise, although the factory workers had to be paid from somewhere. Today there would be a special charge number, maybe then the factory just absorbed the cost.

Edited by Bikr7549, 19 May 2018 - 15:00.

[Bikr7549]

guiporsche, your link is what I used to convert the currency data, pretty interesting information. I have not read the Tooze book, will track it down.

[Bikr7549]

The book Silberpfeile supports the Nixon book comment about the government support of 500,000 RM being split between the 2 companies, although this book says 450,000 RM. It also says that MB were not pleased with sharing this, but Hitler thought that the sharing of the grant (or gift depending on how you read the word used) encouraged competition between them. Also this book reports that each win would result in an additional 20,000 RM for the teams.

 

The Vampire Economy book I mentioned earlier was authored by Guenter Reimann.

[Tim Murray]

The Eberhard Reuss book does contain a section on how DB and AU financed their racing (pp 77-85 in the English edition). He estimates that in the period 1933-1941 DB spent a total of more than 20.5 million RM on racing, with AU spending around 5 million RM less than that.

He says that both firms were able to invoice the government direct for certain parts of their racing budgets, in the same way as for their military research, and offset other items against tax as advertising. The only hard numbers he quotes are for the period 1933/34, based on letters sent to Adolf Hühnlein from Dr Kissel of DB and Baron von Oertzen of AU in March 1935, which they copied to each other (!), asking for more money for their racing budgets.

These letters revealed that in 1933/34 DB spent a total of 2.2 million RM. The government granted them 907,000 RM and they received 310,000 RM from other companies and clubs, making their total subsidy 1,217,000 RM. This apparently didn’t include any income from starting and prize money.

In the same period AU spent 2,219,428 RM on racing, but received significantly less from the government - 692,857 RM. They received 260,000 RM from other sources, giving a total subsidy of 954,857 RM.*

In their letters Kissel estimated the DB racing budget for 1935 at 2.1 million RM, and von Oertzen’s estimate for AU was 1.95 million RM.

I’ll continue checking through the book for anything else relevant.

* I know these figures don’t add up, but that’s how they are given in the book.

[Vitesse2]

Okay, if I've translated Hochstetter's text correctly, then in 1933 Daimler-Benz received 500,000 RM, while Auto Union received 300,000. Annual breakdowns aren't given, but she says that by the end of 1939 Daimler-Benz had received 2775 million RM, Auto Union 2575 million RM from the Transport Ministry for the development of new racing cars.

 

In 1934, that subsidy was worth 28% of their total spend, in 1935, it was 23% and in 1936 it was 20%. No figures for subsequent years, although I'd guess it might have dropped further as a percentage, given the amount of work D-B (especially) did to develop three new cars in three years.

 

D-B received 330000 RM in prize money over the period, AU 237000.

 

I'm not 100% convinced that Cameron Earl's figures can be trusted, since quite a bit of what he was told about AU has subsequently turned out to be incorrect - or at the very least exaggerated. Not impressed with Pom's or Jenks' interpretations either, given that they were probably just repeating what was in effect 1930s German propaganda. A 1939 article by Walkerley refers to money being 'somehow no object' for the German teams.

[uechtel]

I am asking myself whether the whole question itself isn´t a bit misleading. Even if find out a certain amount fo Reichsmark or some budget püercentage paid by the government as direct subsidiaries to the racing teams, there are so many factors that make this quite uncomparable. The economic system under the Nazi government was far from being marked-balanced free-trade. The regime made mass-orders of military products simply on loan and almost regardless of cost. So the public debts rose until the state was almost bancrupt. (Tanks and Bombers don´t give the society any income as long as you do not successfully conquer other countries...). Therefore I think the economic situation was rather comparable to that of the Eastern Block in the 1980ies. There may have been an official currency exchange rate, but I doubt very much that you could really go shopping in the world with Reichsmarks in the pocket. On the other hand the military orders kept the factories running. In particular Mercedes, like other engine producers benefitted from the big airplane programme, but certainly the Auto Union like all other concerns did not stay much behind with their products. I am sure their increase of profit from this branch made any direct subsidiaries for the racing teams absolutely neglectable, whether they got 1 or 2 million and whether that made 10 or 50% of the companies´ racing programmes. Perhaps one can see them rather as promotion programmes for further orders from the state ("see how good successful our racing cars are, you can rely on us that we build for you the best airplane engines as well") and at the same time of course also means of propaganda for the government.

[Vitesse2]

No, you definitely couldn't 'go shopping in the world with Reichsmarks in the pocket.' Legally you could only take 10RM in cash out of Germany.

 

The actual numbers don't mean much, for the reasons you've stated. However, I think Hochstetter's figures on percentage of the total racing budget and the comparatively small return on investment from prize money are probably the most important, given that they're drawn from D-B and AU documents. The impression given by most writers has been that somehow the Nazi regime paid for the whole thing - which I think was probably what drove the OP's question. And of course this hasn't told us what - if any - money was funnelled to the DKW and BMW bike teams. Nor to the BMW sports car team, which was presumably subsidised via the NSKK rather than directly from the Transport Ministry.

[Tim Murray]

The Eberhard Reuss book does contain a section on how DB and AU financed their racing (pp 77-85 in the English edition). He estimates that in the period 1933-1941 DB spent a total of more than 20.5 million RM on racing, with AU spending around 5 million RM less than that.

Annual breakdowns aren't given, but she says that by the end of 1939 Daimler-Benz had received 2775 million RM, Auto Union 2575 million RM from the Transport Ministry for the development of new racing cars.

Shome mishtake here, shurely. These figures differ by two orders of magnitude. Somehow, somewhere, a decimal point has been misplaced?

[Vitesse2]

Indeed. Hochstetter's figures should be (in British notation) 2.775 million and 2.575 million. I was confused by the commas in the original. Plus the effort of translating long German words, a long hot day, two pints of Butcombe and a half litre of Abbot ...

 

So overall - if Reuss's estimate is correct - the direct subsidy from the Transport Ministry accounted for about 13.5% of total expenditure for D-B and about 16.6% for AU.

[DCapps]

While there seems to be some level of general agreement as to what may have been allocated to Daimler-Benz and Auto-Union for their sporting activities, but to what that extent that funding may have been for the entire effort seems to be open to question.

 

I would suggest that what uechtel and Richard are suggesting would appear to be the most likely interpretations. It seems that to suggest that the NS government fully funded the two auto racing efforts as many writers seem to assume, does not quite fit that is emerging. And, as suggested and too often ignored, good questions regarding the other automotive sport efforts, namely the motorcycle (DKW & BMW) teams, and the BMW sports car team. Also, what about the other automotive sporting activities, such as tours and rallies?

 

Michael's original query and the subsequent discussion would appear to suggest that this is yet another topic with much life left in it...

 

By the way, I also looked at Michael Eichhammer (Silberpfeile und Kanonen: Die Geschichte der Auto Union Rennwagen und ihrer Fahrer) (2004) and Uwe Day (Silberpfeil und Hakenkreuz: Autorennensport im Nationalsozialismus) (2005), this being the monograph of his disseration.

[uechtel]

And, as suggested and too often ignored, good questions regarding the other automotive sport efforts, namely the motorcycle (DKW & BMW) teams, and the BMW sports car team. Also, what about the other automotive sporting activities, such as tours and rallies?

The BMW team I think was on a completely different level than the silver arrows Grand Prix teams. The 328 was a nice machine, but still a production model. For racing the cars were hotted up and they also built some cars with special bodies, which could also be regarded as experimental cars or prototypes for later production models. From 1938 the racing team was rather a NSKK operation with factory support, as kind of a national team. This was also expression of the Nazi ideology which tried to get control of everything and did not like independent efforts very much.

Also for racing in general it seems to have been quite similar. During the twenties there had been a colourful variety of local events, like the Baden-Baden or Wiesbaden speed weeks, lots of hillclimbs etc. During the thirties these events became fewer, with mainly the bigger international ones surviving (Eifelrennen, Avus, Großglockner...). Instead there was an increase of events like corss-country-rides ("Geländefahrt"), which were off course more fitting to the nazi ideology than events for "gentlemen racers". Consequently besides some factory teams it were mainly teams from various nazi organisations participating. Many BMW 328 for example were owned for such purposes by institutions like the Reichspost or even the Wehrmacht.

[plannerpower]

I was, today, idly leafing through "Racing Cars" by Casucci (not the weightiest of historical tomes but it has cute drawings    ) and noticed this in the section on the W25 Mercedes;

 

"Cyril Posthumus relates in his Classic Racing Cars that the Fuhrer decided to grant a subsidy totalling 450,000 marks to Mercedes and Auto Union to help them prepare two Grand Prix cars worthy of the German tradition.  According to Posthumus, the decision stemmed from the crushing defeat the Germans suffered in Hitler's presence at the 1933 Avus Grand Prix when the Bugatti 4,900cc took first and second places followed by three Alfa Romeos".

 

Someone who has the Posthumus book might see if it contains any further information.

 

In the spirit of "just answer the question" I truncated my earlier quote from Pomeroy; he also said "... in Italy, the Fascists had consciously used motor racing as an instrument of national prestige and international propaganda and Hitler, who had a lifelong passion for motor racing, and knew the winners of all the important racing events for many years, decided to encourage German constructors to follow this example".

 

So Hitler may well have been at Avus in 1933 to see von Brauchitsch in a Mercedes SSK finish sixth.

 

I quoted Jenkinson earlier; I truncated the quote because the original question concerned the subsidy, not the amount that MB and AU actually spent.

 

Since that matter has, perhaps inevitably, come up, the complete sentence from The Racing Car is ""Eventually this prize money was divided equally between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union but by the time they had got their racing departments in full swing they had spent many times as much as they received from the State".

 

Jenks refers to a "prize" whereas other references describe a "subsidy" or the like; it seems clearly to have been a subsidy and not a prize as the term is usually understood.

 

We shouldn't be too hard on Jenks, Pomeroy and others; they were writing about the technical aspects of cars, not team organisation, finance etc, and their remarks on these aspects might best be viewed as obiter dicta.

 

I liked uechtel's point and take the liberty of quoting from his post;

 

"On the other hand the military orders kept the factories running. In particular Mercedes, like other engine producers benefitted from the big airplane programme, but certainly the Auto Union like all other concerns did not stay much behind with their products. I am sure their increase of profit from this branch made any direct subsidiaries for the racing teams absolutely neglectable, whether they got 1 or 2 million and whether that made 10 or 50% of the companies´ racing programmes. Perhaps one can see them rather as promotion programmes for further orders from the state ("see how good successful our racing cars are, you can rely on us that we build for you the best airplane engines as well") and at the same time of course also means of propaganda for the government".

 

The regime of the time was, perhaps even more so than dictatorships usually are, very subject to personal influence, bias, likes and dislikes; perhaps even more so in the aviation field where MB in particular were heavily involved.

 

It would have been in any manufacturer's interests to keep the company products favourable in the eyes of the public and of the government.

 

So far as propaganda is concerned, Deighton (Blood, Tears and Folly) mentions the use by the pre-war German military of dummy tanks & guns for training purposes and the derision that some commentators expressed.  Deighton comments;

 

"A more accurate picture of the expanding war machine was available to motor-racing enthusiasts.

.........

 

The Nazis were quick to see the propaganda benefits of international racing victories.  German cars, Mercedes and Auto Union, were highly specialised designs with engineering that was years ahead of their rivals.  ...  It could be said that the Germans invented the racing team as we now know it.  In every respect those victorious German racing teams of the Thirties provided a glimpse of blitzkrieg to come".

 

The "subsidy" would have seemed a very good investment in advertising at the time.

[Vitesse2]

Hitler's daily whereabouts have been meticulously researched and published in a book called Das Itinerar.

 

https://www.vice.com...e-itinerary-876

 

So it should be possible to check if he was at Avus that day ...

[Tim Murray]

In this earlier thread the consensus was that Hitler wasn't there, but it would be good to have definitive proof, one way or the other:

Hitler at the 1933 Avusrennen?

[Vitesse2]

I had a feeling we'd discussed it before, but didn't have time to check! There is also the apocryphal story about Hitler nearly being hit by bits of DePaolo's exploding Miller engine the following year ...

[uechtel]

I think there were lots of myths (today we would say urban legends) about the Führer. Some people saw him as like a new Messias, so no wonder there were all kinds of heroic tales about him. 

 

 

The regime of the time was, perhaps even more so than dictatorships usually are, very subject to personal influence, bias, likes and dislikes; perhaps even more so in the aviation field where MB in particular were heavily involved.

 

 

If you take a look at Göring´s role in the regime, who wonders? Aviation was perfectly suited into the nazi ideology, expression of modernity and ideal to demonstrate German engineering superiority. This kind of propaganda was so successful, that it did survive the regime. When I remember from the books of my youth, it was always like Mercedes IS auto racing, with nothing else being really serious.

 

 

[Arjan de Roos]

AH arrived in Munich on the Saturday the 20th (so before any races) for personal reasons. Then moved the 22nd to Kiel for Monday and Tuesday to check on the navy.

Crown Prince Wilhelm is reported to have been there, meeting Nuvolari, Borzacchini, etc.

[Tim Murray]

In his report on the 1933 Avusrennen Leif Snellman noted that Hitler did visit the Avus in May 1933, but for a different event on a different date, and that this may have led to the myth that he attended the Avusrennen. (This was also mentioned by Hans Etzrodt in the earlier thread linked to above.)

Statements to the effect that Hitler attended the Avusrennen on May 21, 1933 are pure fiction by misinformed writers of later times and false proclamations; one scribe perhaps copying the other. In fact Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels presented the victorious Achille Varzi with the trophy of the Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. The Wuppertaler General Anzeiger reported that Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler had indeed visited the Avus - but that happened on May 2, 1933. Hitler in company of Minister Dr. Goebbels and other important government officials showed up at the Avus when the participants of the 9. ADAC Reichsfahrt arrived for a special stage of two laps around the Avus. The writers might have mixed up the Avusrennen with the Reichsfahrt only three weeks earlier without crosschecking the dates.

[plannerpower]

Yestereve was cold and wet here so I occupied myself with a perusal of Pomeroy's Grand Prix Car; I quoted from p.209 earlier in this thread.

 

He makes further mention of the subject in vol.1, p.77 when discussing the Auto Union;

 

The German Government, under Adolf Hitler, had offered a prize of 40,000 to the most successful German racing car of 1934 and Porsche's design ... was an ambitious and highly original attempt to secure this reward.

 

Summing-up on p.82 he says;

 

There was little to choose between the successes of the two rival German manufacturers and the Nazi prize fund was divided between them.  By this time, however, the construction and operation of advanced designs of their kind involved expenses far beyond anything which had been previously thought possible in road racing and the prize money was but a tithe of the burden borne by each constructor.

 

To return to p.209; on that page, Pomeroy also says "... a complete (W.25) was sufficiently far advanced to be shown to Hitler in January 1934 ...".

 

Pomeroy was fond of a quote and at the beginning of the book, on p.11 if it were numbered, includes this;

 

The Fuhrer has spoken.  The 1934 G.P. formula shall and must be a measuring stick for German knowledge and German ability.  So one thing leads to the other; first the Fuhrer's overpowering energy, then the formula, a great international problem to which Europe's best devote themselves, and finally action in the design of new racing cars.

 

The passage is translated from Mannschaft Und Meisterschaft, an account of pre-WW2 German racing written for MB by Hans Bretz.

 

I have not read it (I'd like to but I don't speak German) but a search discloses some photos from it; one such is this;

 

picture uploader

 

 

The photo caption indicates that this was the 1934 occasion;

 

Dr Nibel is speaking to Hitler.  Goebbels' companion is not named; he looks rather like Goering but, to contradict that, it seems unlikely that Goering's name would have been omitted from the caption.

 

 

[Tim Murray]

The fourth man is Jakob Werlin, who was close to Hitler as his adviser on motoring matters and also a member of the Daimler-Benz board. The photo was taken on 4th January 1934 when Hitler was shown the new W25 at the Mercedes-Benz showrooms in Munich.

[tsrwright]

Am I right in thinking the Nazis look a bit bored. Could it be they have other things on their minds?

Edited by tsrwright, 01 July 2018 - 18:56.

[Tim Murray]

I’ve just finished re-reading all of the ‘Mercedes and paint-stripping’ thread. In it Holger Merten posted an Audi press release from 2009 covering the racing history of Auto Union. It included the following on the cost of the racing programme:

.
(etc)

It’s possible to calculate very accurately just what participating in Grand Prix motor racing was costing the company. From the first to the final racing season, expenditure rose from 1.3 to 2.5 Reichsmarks (RM). In 1935, a complete racing car cost about 50,000 RM; four years later, the figure had risen to about 70,000 RM. A staff of approximately 60, including the race mechanics, was needed in the racing department, which was formed in 1933. Its members were specially chosen, in most cases from the workforce of the Horch factory in Zwickau, where the racing department was located.

Between 1934 and 1939, Auto Union spent about 13.2 RM on Grand Prix racing, and received approximately 2.7 RM in subsidies from the government, an annual average of about 20 percent of its costs.

(etc)

If one inserts the word ‘million’ in the appropriate places, these figures would seem to corroborate some of those posted earlier in this thread (although of course they may have come from the same sources).

[JoBo]

I am asking myself whether the whole question itself isn´t a bit misleading. Even if find out a certain amount fo Reichsmark or some budget püercentage paid by the government as direct subsidiaries to the racing teams, there are so many factors that make this quite uncomparable. The economic system under the Nazi government was far from being marked-balanced free-trade. The regime made mass-orders of military products simply on loan and almost regardless of cost. So the public debts rose until the state was almost bancrupt. (Tanks and Bombers don´t give the society any income as long as you do not successfully conquer other countries...). Therefore I think the economic situation was rather comparable to that of the Eastern Block in the 1980ies. There may have been an official currency exchange rate, but I doubt very much that you could really go shopping in the world with Reichsmarks in the pocket. On the other hand the military orders kept the factories running. In particular Mercedes, like other engine producers benefitted from the big airplane programme, but certainly the Auto Union like all other concerns did not stay much behind with their products. I am sure their increase of profit from this branch made any direct subsidiaries for the racing teams absolutely neglectable, whether they got 1 or 2 million and whether that made 10 or 50% of the companies´ racing programmes. Perhaps one can see them rather as promotion programmes for further orders from the state ("see how good successful our racing cars are, you can rely on us that we build for you the best airplane engines as well") and at the same time of course also means of propaganda for the government.

 

Yes, the Nazis supported MB and AU with lots of cash.

And yes, in those days -and still today- you need lots of cash to fund a race program incl. development(s)

 

etc.

 

But the money is only one thing - its the ideas, the genius -call it the human factor- that counts. Without the ideas you have money....only!

 

In the 1950s MB got no big funds from the Gouverment -- and made it again!

 

JoBo

[D-Type]

Another aspect that we mustn't overlook is technology transfer.  The Treaty of Versailles placed many restrictions on aircraft development.  Now, motor racing requires strength and lightness - so does an airframe;  motor racing requires high power from engines and a high power to weight ratio - so does an aero-engine; a racing car has a limited fuel capacity and needs its engine to extract the maximum power for as long as possible from a limited weight and volume of fuel - so does an aircraft.  So, a lot of the innovations and developments from motor racing were directly transferable to aircraft.  Given the transferability of the technology, could the same  have applied to funding?  Both ways - funding for aircraft research being used for racing car development and funding nominally given as racing car sponsorship being for a thinly disguised military R&D programme

[Charlieman]

Both ways - funding for aircraft research being used for racing car development and funding nominally given as racing car sponsorship being for a thinly disguised military R&D programme

By 1938, of course, the Nazi government's denial of rearmament had worn a bit thin. It has been argued that some people at Mercedes-Benz viewed projects like the T80 a a way to slow down direct work on military contracts.

[plannerpower]

Auto Union was not involved in the design of aircraft or their engines; they did manufacture some Junkers engines under license.

 

Mercedes-Benz (MB) was the automobile division of the Daimler-Benz company; aircraft engine design and manufacture was done by the Daimler-Benz (DB) division.  Aero engines were designated DBxxx; whilst MB factories were used to make them, these engines were known as DBxxx types.  I have seen reference to the effect that a DB-603A engine is the same as an MB-603A engine, just made in a different factory, but the engines are invariably called DBxxx in writings of the time and later.

 

The cover of the '601A & B Handbook;

 

 

 

 

and that of the DB603A Handbook;

 

 

 

 

 

The DB-600 design originated from specifications issued by the RLM (the German "Air Ministry") sometime between 1927 & 1929 as near as I can discover; DB seems to have begun serious design & development in 1929.

 

MB were probably not considering their later "high-tech" racing cars at this time; certainly, design did not, indeed could not, commence until 1933 after the late-1932 announcement of the 750kg formula that would apply in 1934 and beyond.

 

By this time, DB were well-advanced with the aero engine and the DB600 emerged; it had carburettors but the RLM then mandated fuel injection for all large aero engines and the fuel-injected version of the DB600 was designated DB601.

 

There is little, if indeed any, similarity between the DB600 aero engine and the M25 racing car engine; their construction is quite different.

 

For example, the M25 cylinder blocks were forged steel with separate sheet-steel water jackets, a style that Mercedes had used in GP cars since 1914; the DB601 blocks were alloy with very clever steel liners.  Other details of the two engines are equally-dissimilar.

 

There may have been a little "cross-over" within the company with respect to materials, eg the light alloys that were then being developed, and techniques such as machining or welding, but the requirements of aero engines and racing-car engines are not really alike.

 

Aero engines ideally operate at constant speed; variable-pitch/constant-speed propellors encourage this as do two-speed gearboxes in some designs.

 

Despite the luxury of multi-ratio gearboxes, racing-car engines must operate over a fairly wide range of revolutions.

 

This difference is clear in the supercharging arrangements of the DB601 and the M25; the former uses a centrifugal device whilst the latter uses a Roots device.  Each type of supercharger had, by that time, been found best for different applications; centrifugal devices did well at Indianapolis but were not successful in European GP racing.

 

Even supercharging itself has a slightly-different application in the two types of engine; it is directed, in the aero engine, to compensating for low air density whilst, in the racing-car application, the requirement is maximum power at sea (or near-sea) level. 

 

There is a subtle difference between the two.  Perhaps that is why DB used fuel-injection on the DBxxx (although injection was an RLM mandate for large aero engines so they had no choice) whilst MB retained carburettors on the racing cars and, even until late 1937, the practice, long abandoned by others, of placing the carburettor between the supercharger and the engine.

 

I think that, whilst fuel-injection technology at the time was capable of supplying the relatively constant-speed needs of an aero engine, it could not do the same for a racing-car engine.

 

The inverted engine (another RLM mandate) also offered a different set of challenges to the "right-way-up" racing-car engine.

 

So far as chassis & aircraft fuselages are concerned, DB did not design aircraft; that is another area entirely and there is no apparent similarity between the fuselage construction of a BF/Me109 and the chassis of a W25.

 

On the internet I ran across a book, Silver Arrows In Camera, 1934-39 by Anthony Pritchard; the "blurb" on the Amazon site has this summary;

 

The battle in Grand Prix racing between the German Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams during the six years from 1934 through 1939 was probably the greatest, most spectacular and most important era in motor racing history. The two German teams almost completely dominated Grand Prix racing, mainly because of their technical superiority. This superiority was made possible by the vast sums that the two teams could expend on racing. The money paid to them by the German government was not a direct subsidy, but represented the generous margin above cost incorporated in government contracts. In effect, while Mercedes-Benz developed and manufactured aero engines for the Luftwaffe, the Auto Union Group manufactured tanks and other armored vehicles for the Wehrmacht.

 

The antepenultimate sentence that I have underlined is curious; I don't quite understand it.

 

Others, more commercially-minded than I am, may care to elaborate.