28 replies to this topic

[uechtel]

Initiated by humphries question in the Eifelrennen thread I think it is better to start a new topic.

Originally posted by humphries
Now, to pester you further, what do you know of racing at Halle? With your knowledge you could save us, me, a lot of work. After writing to local libraries I still know virtually nothing extra! From what I know in 1950 (25 June) the F2s ran with the 2000cc Sports cars and the sports cars appeared to have been a lot quicker. Even the 1100/1500cc Sportscars were quicker in their race but this may have been owing to weather conditions. Results for the 1951 F2 (22 April) race are restricted to the first three and in 1952 (8 June) we have no official entry list. The East German Motor Sport publication, of which I have a run, does not start until January, 1953 as you will know.

I have the following dates:
25.6.1950
Not really a combined formula 2 / 2 litre sports car race, but two races run simultaneously (the formula 2 cars started a minute after the sports cars), but from separate grids. Also the different sources give contradictional results. The Greifzu biography says that he won the Formula 2 race. It also says that the sports cars results were set up separately and names Theo Helfrich as the winner, while Axel Kirchner (Motorsport in Berlin) says that it was Niedermayr who has won.

About the 1.5 litre classes I have no results at all so I would be very thankful if you would post here what you know.

For 1951 things are not much better at me:
22.4.1951
Again Formula 2 and sports cars were run simultaneously in separate races. To the three finishers in Formula 2 (Krause - Reif, Klodwig - EIgenbau, Fitzau - DRS-Veritas) I can add four retirements (Rosenhammer - DAMW, Greifzu - DAMW, Baum - Eigenbau, Kubelka - EIgenbau) and I suspect that actually no more than those seven have have started. For the sports car race I have again contradictional informations. Winner is either Kurt Straubel (Straubel - DAMW, Wolf - BMW, Erfurth - BMW Spezial) - but he was entered originally in Formula 2 - or the obscure Willy Wolf, of whom I never heard or read again before or thereafter. Also there is information that there have been only those three startes in this class.

In the 1.5 litre sports car class there were at least six starters as I have a very bad quality picture of that. Result was 1. Baum - DAMW, 2. Wetzig - EIgenbau, 3. Klube - Eigenbau, 4. Bänsch - BMW or Stoewer Eigenbau?, 5. Althoff - Werkmeister-BMW.

2.9.1951
Indeed a second race at Halle in 1951. My source for that is extremely brief but very precise: Rosenhammer / Grassmann: Motorsport Almanach (yearbook) 1953, Krause biography, page 81: "...1951 winner at Halle, second in the autumn race on the same track behind Greifzu..."

So we have as Formula 2 result: 1. Greifzu - Greifzu-BMW, 2. Krause - Reif-BMW, 3. (deducted from championship table) Klodwig - Klodwig-BMW.

Also I have read somewhere (can not remember any more from where) that Fitzau had been entered in the DAMW in the sports car category, so there should have been a sports car race as well.

In 1952 things start to get better at me, as actually 'Illustrierter Motorsport' was already on the market!!! So my results are as following:

Formula 2:
1. Barth - IFA-Kollektiv (DAMW)
2. Heeks - AFM-BMW
3. Krause - Reif-BMW
4. Perduß - IFA-Kollektiv
5. Helfrich - Veritas RS
6. Peters - Veritas RS
7. Pawelka (CS) - Tatraplan
8. Melkus - Aro-Veritas-Alfa Romeo
9. Jäger - EMW 340/1
ret Reichardt - EMW Intertyp (1949) lap 5
ret Erfurth - Mitteldeutsches Autohaus-BMW lap 4
ret Stuck - AFM-Küchen (clutch)

Sports car 1.5 litre:
1. Rosnehammer - IFA-Kollektiv
2. Bobec (CS) - Skoda (1.1l Intertyp)
3. Baum - Baum-BMW
4. Cernohowsky (CS) - Skoda 1.1l)
5. Müller - GMG-BMW
6. Kühn - Kühn-BMW
7? Knoch - Webel-BMW
ret Straubel - IFA-Kollektiv accident lap 13 (crashed into the spectators, killed a child and injured about 12 people)
ret Klube - Klube-BMW lap 6
ret Knöfel - Werkmeister-BMW lap 5
ret Wetzig - Wetzig-BMW lap 4
ret Thoms - Thoms-Lancia lap 9
ret Jakobs - Eigenbau-BMW lap 10
dns Albert - BMW 315 (driver without license)

[Keir]

I drive at Halle on GPL!

Not one of my favorite tracks, but the only Eastern European one of my computer!

[Muzza]

Since we are talking about this... Has anyone been at the site where the races were held at the Halle-Saale Schleife?

It is an unusual setting: a riverside park? Some fairground/exhibition area? What are - and were - the surroundings?

[René de Boer]

On February 26, I will be taking part in the Handel Choir Festival in Halle and it sounds like a nice opportunity to put some motor racing history into that trip as well. I don't have any information about the track or something, so every input will be greatly appreciated!

[humphries]

Uechtel

1950 25/6 (Der Sport Reporter, Freiheit Nr 145 26/6)

F2:- Paul Greifzu won the 12 lap race in 41' 45.0 (90.65 kmh, FL 95.78 kmh) with Theo Fitzau some way behind finishing in 44' 32.4. Baum was third. Helmuth Weber was another entry.

Sports Cars (2.0):- Niedermeyer in his Reif Intertyp won in 41' 00.8 ( 92.28 kmh ) in front of Helfrich, who made fastest lap (98.6 kmh) with Straubel and Wetzig next up in BMWs. Rosenhammer (Aero-Veritas) retired completing 4 laps

Sports Cars (1.5):- Kurt Baum won in 27' 15.8 (92.55) with Klube, also in a BMW next, followed by an unknown 1100cc of Crunert.

The 750cc racing car class saw Bobby Kohlrausch, GvB, win in 25'32.5 (98.79, FL 101.10), 2nd Fitzau, 3rd Lehmann.

Not able to add anything to the two 1951 race meetings.

For 1952 I have Klodwig as #102 but he would appear to have been a non-starter.

John

[humphries]

Don't ask me where the non-smilies came from!!! Supposed to be end of bracket.

[Michael Müller]

[Hugo Boecker]

in an old magazin "Motorsport und Kraftfahrzeuge in der DDR " from the beginnig of 1951 I found some Dates of the 1950 and 51 seasons as well as an inofficel Championchip ranking

18.6.50 Sternberg Rennen Hillclimb
24/25.6.50 Halle-Saale Schleife
8/9.7.50 Rund um das Scheibenholz -Leipzig
27.8.50 Sachsenring Rennen
30.9./1.10.50 Dessauer Auto und Motorradrennen

Ranking points only for Eastgermans and West-Berliners
1st 6 2nd 4 3rd 3 4th 2 5th 1


Formula 2
Greifzu 18
Fitzau 13
Baum 13

Formula 3
Kolan 10
Weiser 6

Kleinstrennwagen
Lehmann 24
Weber 16
Weiser 12
Fitzau 9
Kohlrausch 6

Sportscar 2000
Niedermayr 19
Straubel 7
Wetzig 5

Sportscar 1500
Baum 25
Klube 13
Kühn 10

Sportscar 1100
Kranke 25
Richter 10
Katzer 8
Neuber 7
Grunert 6


also there were the averagespeeds for the courses

[FONT=courier new]

										 F2		   F3	  R750	 Sc 1100	SC 1500   SC 2000

Sternberg						 99,0				   88,1		  75,1		   80,7		96,0

Halle-Saale Schleife		  95,3w			   101,0		 94,6		   95,0w	  93,5w

Scheibenholz -Leipzig	  106,3	   95,8   101,4		 96,4		   99,1		103,5

Sachsenring					 139,9	  114,9  119,9		 99,7w		100,7w   124,6   

Dessau							 150,0	  109,2  128,7	   124,5		  135,9	   157,8

[/FONT]

w means wet race


and the planned 1950 dates

22.4.51 Halle
20.5.51 Leipzig Scheibenholz
17.6.51 Dresden-Hellerau
30.9.51 Sachsenring

and an additional race at Halle 2.9.51

[uechtel]

Thanks for your information updates.

Hugo, your list would mean, that Leipzig and Dessau did not count towards this unofficial "championship" as otherwise I would add a total of 21 points for Baum:

driver		 Sternberg	  Halle		  Leipzig		Sachsenring	Dessau

Greifzu		6			  6			  6			  -			  -			 18

Klodwig		-			  -			  -			  -			  6			  6

Baum		   4			  3			  4			  6			  4			 21

Fitzau		 -			  4			  3			  3			  -			 10

Krause		 -			  -			  -			  4			  -			  4

But where do the additional 3 points for Fitzau come from?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by humphries
Don't ask me where the non-smilies came from!!! Supposed to be end of bracket.

Aha, another victim! Close bracket plus colon is a smilie - leave a space between them and you avoid it! Thus: ) :

[Brun]

I've visited the track some time ago. Well, track... it's just normal streets. But finding it is very easy, since the street itself is simply called 'Halle-Saale Schleife' today

Very little to see there, though. The streets run through a beautiful park-like scenery next to the Saale river and through suburban surroundings.

Some information is on http://www.scheer-ha...de/hs/hs_rs.htm, but I guess you've all found that site by googling.

By the way, René, do spend some time sightseeing the city. It's probably the most melancholic of all former East-German cities I know. There once used to live nearly 400.000 people there, today it's around 250.000 if I recall correctly and estimates are that the numbers will keep dropping till they reach around 180.000. The enormous post-war apartment blocks in the districts 'Silberhöhe' and 'Neustadt' are almost completely empty, like an industrial ghost town.

No industrialised city in the world, except perhaps Detroit, has lost that much inhabitants in such few years. The authorities are now coming up with solutions to a unique problem: how do you keep a city alive when 2/3rds of it is empty? And many other cities in the world are watching, because they know the problem will arise in other places too, when all the baby-boomers meet their death...

Ooopps, getting carried away, all off-topic here. So sorry, but I do find these things fascinating!

[Brun]

Through http://halgis.halle...._tour_init.html you'll find an interactive map of the city. Enter 'Halle-Saale-Schleife' under Addresssuche (bottom right), klick on the results (under 'Hausnummer') and you'll arrive at the right point in the map. Then try selecting 'Luftbilder 2003' on the right of the page and klick the arrow next to it. You'll find that the current situation can be examined through aerial photographs... cool

[Hugo Boecker]

Originally posted by uechtel
Thanks for your information updates.

Hugo, your list would mean, that Leipzig and Dessau did not count towards this unofficial "championship" as otherwise I would add a total of 21 points for Baum:

driver		 Sternberg	  Halle		  Leipzig		Sachsenring	Dessau

Greifzu		6			  6			  6			  -			  -			 18

Klodwig		-			  -			  -			  -			  6			  6

Baum		   4			  3			  4			  6			  4			 21

Fitzau		 -			  4			  3			  3			  -			 10

Krause		 -			  -			  -			  4			  -			  4

But where do the additional 3 points for Fitzau come from?

I don't know which races counted and which not there were only the list without any results. Maybe they stopped counting as Greifzu was injured at the Ring in august 1950?

It was surprising too, to find Otto Kolan on this list. He was from Neumünster in Schleswig Holstein in North-Germany.

[uechtel]

Perhaps the author din´t know?

And no, they can´t have stopped the championship after that. Otherwise how could Fitzau then have collected his amount of points? Also I don´t think, that they would not have included the most important race of everey season at the Sachsenring.

[eukie]

As to 1950, maybe this could be of some use ...

[eukie]

By the way, René, do spend some time sightseeing the city. It's probably the most melancholic of all former East-German cities I know. There once used to live nearly 400.000 people there, today it's around 250.000 if I recall correctly and estimates are that the numbers will keep dropping till they reach around 180.000. The enormous post-war apartment blocks in the districts 'Silberhöhe' and 'Neustadt' are almost completely empty, like an industrial ghost town.
No industrialised city in the world, except perhaps Detroit, has lost that much inhabitants in such few years. The authorities are now coming up with solutions to a unique problem: how do you keep a city alive when 2/3rds of it is empty? And many other cities in the world are watching, because they know the problem will arise in other places too, when all the baby-boomers meet their death...
Ooopps, getting carried away, all off-topic here. So sorry, but I do find these things fascinating!

Expresses my feelings, too! Please allow another OT-link: http://www.shrinkingcities.com, with lots of scientific info about Manchester/Liverpool, Detroit, Ivanovo ... and the de-industrialized Halle-Leipzig region.

But back to normal: I haven't dealt yet with these pictures from Niedermayr's memorabila-stuff: could they be Halle 1950?

[humphries]

Marco

Much appreciated information.Thanks.

John

[uechtel]

Marco, superklasse!!!

And with the pictures I think you are indeed quite right
If you want to compare:




Only the building on the left is a little bit irritating, but the rest seems to fit quite well.

[uechtel]

Marco, we haven´t identified the cars yet.




Looks like Helfrich being on pole accompanied by Niedermayr in the Reif. Second "row" is certainly Rosenhammer in the ARo-Veritas, but who is who with tho two BMWs at the back?

As we have Straubel and Wetzig finishing 3rd and 4th in BMWs it´s them for sure, but Straubel´s car is often referred to as "BMW Spezial" (with the comment, that is was more or less a slightly modified production car, not to be mismatched with the "Eigenbau" he used in 1951), while Melenk says Wetzig´s car was a 319/1, but looking at this picture from the Sternberg race I don´t think so:




Also he, too, later converted the car. You can see the result on the center in the front row of the other picture I have shown in my last post.

[sat]

In 1952 things start to get better at me

I try correct spelling of Czechoslovak drivers:

Jaroslav Pavelka
Václav Bobek
Josef Cernohorský (C with hook)

[uechtel]

Thank you for the corrections.

The way I wrote the names is just the way they appeared in the contemporary entry lists and race reports.

And I did a little research on my keybord: the lower case ç you get by typing "135" with the "control" key pressed, but I have not found the uppercase one yet.

[sat]

For me with Czech keybord is that letter without any problem, but display in western european encoding looks something strange.

[uechtel]

So perhaps you can also help me on Czechoslovakian driver Fousek?

[sat]

So perhaps you can also help me on Czechoslovakian driver Fousek?

Miroslav Fousek was another factory driver of AZNP (Å koda)

[uechtel]

Sure he was:




And also a picture of Bobek (still to correct the file name):



Both pictures from "Illustrierter Motorsport"

Interestingly, with the presence of Pavelka, Bobek and Cernohorsky the organizers at Halle were very proud to be able to talk of an "international" event.

[sat]

Interestingly, with the presence of Pavelka, Bobek and Cernohorsky the organizers at Halle were very proud to be able to talk of an "international" event.

Often it was so in that time czech and german helped each to another to be international. Strange time...

[Brun]

Uechtel, Eukie,

The pictures you've posted are definately from Halle. The tramlines on the left are typical for the start/finish line on that track. The rails are still there today, making it easy to spot the right place.

[IMV]

Here are pictures from Halle 1952 race from Svet Motorù magazine:

start of category of racing cars to 2 l:


Rosenhammer (on the right) and Bobek after race of sport cars to 1,5 l:


Michal

[uechtel]

IMV, great stuff!



This is very interesting, as so far I did not see any picture of this race yet and it tells us something about the grid positions:

Looks like pole-man Stuck (on the left) has already problems with his clutch, as usually he tended to be away even when the starter has not yet lowered the flag.

If it was the 3 - 2 - 3 grid of the previous year, then we have one of the IFA-Kollektivwagen on second, probably their no. 1 driver Edgar Barth, with next to him Helfrich in the Veritas RS already up and away.

4th is not easy to spot behind Stuck, but the air intake is very likely to indicate the AFM of Heeks and on the other side Krause in the Reif is diving into the gap Helfrich has opened up already.

The car directly behind Barth looks like another offset seater, which could be either Otto Reichardt in the revived 1949 Awtowelo-BMW factory car or more likely the second IFA-Kollektivwagen driven by 150 kg-man Jürgen Perduß. If that is true then I would gess the car, most of which is overlapped by Barth, is the other offset car, hence Reichardt in the Awtowelo (now of course rechristened EMW).

Behind that it gets more mixed up and it is hard to recognize the grid positions, but I can see two other Veritas RS cars, with Peters the one in the center and Melkus the one at the end of the field. And far back in the distance that streamliner with unusal and "heart"-shaped radiator inlet is the "Mitteldeutsches Autohaus"-BMW of Gerhard Erfurth.

This leaves only Pavelka´s Tatra monoposto and Jäger´s EMW 340/1 pontoon unidentified in the pile-up behind Stuck and Heeks and we have a grid most likely as the following:

Helfrich	Barth	   Stuck

Veritas	 IFA		 AFM



	  Krause	  Heeks

	  Reif		AFM



Reichardt?  Perduß	  ?  

EMW		 IFA		 ?



	  ?		   Peters?

	  ?		   Veritas



Melkus	  Erfurth	

Veritas	 M. A.

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