68 replies to this topic

[DNQ]

I am writing a short piece on motor sport immediatly before, and during WWII for my website, and have been reading up on the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix (for those who are not aware, the results are here at the great Golden Era of GP Racing site: http://www.kolumbus....ellman/gp40.htm).

A few questions have come up in my reading.

1. Only 5 cars started the race. Why so few? Did any cars withdraw after news of WWII filtered through? Had the original entry list been this small?

2. I can not find much about the Kalemegdan Park circuit. I can establish it was a 2.9km street circuit, with many cobblestones, manhole covers, gutters and other obstacles. Was it ever used for other top level motor sport?

3. I read that subsequent post-war Communist dictatorships effectively erased the event from the nations history ... why?

4. I understand the Yugoslavian King at the time "sponsored" the race. Was there much racing in Yugoslavia at the time??

I find this GP one of the most absolutely fascinating - that a race went on, co-inciding with the start of the defining moment of the 20th century is incredible.

Thanks for listening

[Rob G]

1. There were entries made by Maserati (Villoresi & Pietsch) and Alfa (two cars, no drivers nominated), plus a third Mercedes entry for Baumer, but Baumer's car was a non-starter and the Italian teams never arrived. I don't know if the Italians tried to make the trip. Perhaps they felt such a minor race wasn't worth the trip out of Italy?

[Boniver]

www.commondreams.org/kosovo/belgrademap.htm

map of Belgrade

the circuit was rond the Kalemegdan Park
"kalemegdam Fortress"

[taylov]

I have always found the inclusion of Baumer in the proposed Mercedes line-up a little odd. He had not raced since the 1938 Donington GP and does not appear in the published photos of the 1939 Monza tests either.

Meanwhile Hans Hugo Hartmann seemed to have become the first choice reserve and apperas in the entry list for the 1939 Eifelrennen, German GP and he had raced to a 6th place in the Swiss GP, the last held before Belgrade, so the choice of Baumer seems unexplained.

As regards the race going ahead as the Wehrmarcht entered Poland - why not?

Few within the German Government had given any credence to the suggestion that Britain might actually honour a treaty obligation to protect Poland. Indeed the history of the previous decade gave them every reason to think that this would go the same way as the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, rest of Czechoslavakia and the Memel district. So, why not race?

[Rob G]

Originally posted by taylov
I have always found the inclusion of Baumer in the proposed Mercedes line-up a little odd. He had not raced since the 1938 Donington GP and does not appear in the published photos of the 1939 Monza tests either.

Meanwhile Hans Hugo Hartmann seemed to have become the first choice reserve and apperas in the entry list for the 1939 Eifelrennen, German GP and he had raced to a 6th place in the Swiss GP, the last held before Belgrade, so the choice of Baumer seems unexplained.

Baumer and Hartmann were both listed as reserve drivers for the same car at Reims.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Rob G

Baumer and Hartmann were both listed as reserve drivers for the same car at Reims.

... and bear in mind they had lost Seaman earlier in the year, so there was theoretically a seat available. Added to that, Caracciola and von Brauchitsch were both approaching veteran status and might not have continued much longer: politically, hiring a non-German was fraught with difficulties and Bäumer and Hartmann were two of only a very few top-level German drivers outside Auto Union. From what I've heard, Bäumer didn't perhaps have the utter dedication of (say) Lang ...

The sparse entry list can perhaps be explained by the fact that the date was only a week before the cancelled Italian GP, for which Mercedes Benz might reasonably have been expected to give the W165s a second run out. In addition (had war not intervened) there were no fewer than three further Formula events scheduled in the next six weeks: in Zurich and Vienna and at Donington Park. The post-championship run-down in 1939 could have been very spectacular!

[Terry Walker]

I think this is the Beograd (Belgrade) circuit neighbourhood, from space

[DNQ]

Yup, that's definitely it, I compared it with some pictures and so-forth, and that's it alright

Thanks for the feedback so far.

This GP is a bit of an enigma, there is very little written about it.

[Tim Murray]

Another thing that has long puzzled me about this race is its very short length - 87 miles. In an era of 250 - 300 mile Grandes Epreuves, why so short?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by DNQ


This GP is a bit of an enigma, there is very little written about it.

Certainly the British press (apart from photographer George Monkhouse) don't seem to have been present. Neither Autocar nor Motor reported it at the time: I don't think Motor Sport did either. Rodney Walkerley of The Motor was in London, preparing to join the army and I would guess that Robert Fellowes (aka Spy George), who had substituted for him at Bern, was also back in Britain by then. Without checking, I think Sammy Davies of Autocar was already back in uniform and his deputy John Dugdale was definitely on the liner Normandie, returning from America. As Tim points out, it was a very minor race and one can only assume that the German teams must have been fulfilling some wider political purpose on behalf of the Reich.

As to the race length - I've never seen a distance quoted for the proposed Vienna race, which was probably going to be a similar flag-showing exercise. Zurich and Donington were both scheduled as full-blown GPs though. There was even to be a Voiturette support race in Switzerland ....

IIRC British citizens in Europe had been advised to return home ASAP in late August. Murray Walker has something to say about it in his autobiography, as he was with his father who was racing bikes in Germany.

[Brano Loewenstein]

3. I read that subsequent post-war Communist dictatorships effectively erased the event from the nations history ... why?
4. I understand the Yugoslavian King at the time "sponsored" the race. Was there much racing in Yugoslavia at the time??

I don't know anything about this race, but I think that the point 4 explains the point 3 - that is, the communists wanted people to forget anything what could reminded them of the King.

[ensign14]

And about the hapless Milenkovic...what do people know about him? There's sporadic mentions across the BB but nothing coherent. Just how many laps behind was he at the finish? Did he have a long pitstop or something?

[Vitesse2]

I've seen a picture of the start, in which Milenkovic's car appears to be being worked on at the side of the grid, so perhaps he got away more than a little late!

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by ensign14
And about the hapless Milenkovic...what do people know about him? There's sporadic mentions across the BB but nothing coherent. Just how many laps behind was he at the finish? Did he have a long pitstop or something?

He got a mention in Leif's report:

Milenkovic had to make a lengthy pitstop because of overheating. His mechanic didn't manage to unscrew the radiator cap, so he had to do it by himself, losing additional time.

Actually, it sounds like everyone had a grand old time there!

[Vitesse2]

Two pictures of the start, although not the one I'm thinking of:



Notice how Milenkovic appears to be heading for the strawbales and there's someone in white overalls apparently jumping out of the way!

[Wolf]

Re. political circumstances- Kingdom of Yugoslavia was member of Tripartite Pact (in March, British organized coup brought to power pro-Nazi govt- go figure it out), and Hitler's ally. Communist govt was same as any other totalitarian regime- nothing before them was any good, and nothing but them was any good, so no reason to keep it remembered.

Motorracing, esp. open-wheel, never got much attention from either regime or public. Around my parts (Croatia) there was a bit bigger interest, esp. in F1 and bikes- local enthusiasts held Adriatic GP for bikes ('60ies through early '90ies) and several European F3 races (late '60ies). IIRC The only bigger success by our competitor were recently Niko Pulic's 5 connsecutive European Hillclimb Championship titles...

[DNQ]

My article about the race and WWII & Motorsport is up here: http://cfm.globalf1.net/?page_id=104. I hope you enjoy it and it is factually fairly correct. As a 20-year old student, I am very new to learning about this golden era

[Rob G]

Originally posted by DNQ
My article about the race and WWII & Motorsport is up here: http://cfm.globalf1.net/?page_id=104. I hope you enjoy it and it is factually fairly correct. As a 20-year old student, I am very new to learning about this golden era

Thank you for the article. Unfortunately I won't be able to read the entire thing until later, but I did notice that your qualifying results are different from what I've seen before (von Brauchitsch on pole, followed in order by Lang, Muller, Nuvolari and Milenkovic).

[DNQ]

Originally posted by Rob G
I did notice that your qualifying results are different from what I've seen before (von Brauchitsch on pole, followed in order by Lang, Muller, Nuvolari and Milenkovic).

Thank you for pointing this out!

Seems I had that all mixed up, not sure why The qualifying results are now inline with those presented on the fantastic Golden Era of GP Racing website. Corrected

[taylov]

One element of DNQ's article might be a little misleading. The photo of the Auto Union carrying a Swatiska with the heading "Grand Prix Racing became propaganda in the Third Reich" needs explanation.

The Mercedes and Auto Union grand prix cars rarely carried this flag. This photo looks as if it was taken at the 1937 Vanderbilt Cup race in the USA which is the only race that I can trace where the Swastika was carried. The record cars on display at the 1938 Berlin Motor Show also were so adorned.

The drivers were members of the N.S.K.K. whose badge many wore on their race overalls but that seems to have been the extent of obvous Nazi symbols or publicity at races outside of Germany.

[sramoa]

I saw an Serbian forum:enterd more cars and drivers(two french and a hungarian driver)

Robert Mazaud(Delahaye)
Georges Grignard(Amilcar)
Sándor Wilhelm(Maserati)

[Vitesse2]

Mazaud had a Delahaye 135 at the time: this would have been eligible for a Formula race. But he would have been extremely unlikely to have travelled outside France to race.

Grignard's Amilcar and Wilhelm's Maserati: not Formula cars. And again - very unlikely to have been entered. Grignard seldom if ever ventured outside France (the only "major" event he did that year was Angouleme) and Wilhelm (as you know, sramao) was Hungarian: IIRC he owned a 6CM-1500, in addition to his responsibilities for the Festetics brothers.

Newspaper speculation at best

Edited by Vitesse2, 14 November 2009 - 23:05.

[sramoa]

This newspaper was very old,and I translated these words.
Mazaud and Grignard didn't present(write about War),Wilhelm "write"(???),but didn't present and the newspaper think:Caracciola entered too,but didn't present!
Interesting write,but I think speculation too...

[Radoye]

An useful address - Serbian Society of Motoring Historians:

Nebojsa Djordjevic
Udruzenje istoricara automobilizma
Jurija Gagarina 153/32
11070 Novi Beograd
Serbia

Phone: 063/216-804
fax: 011/3187-387


Mr. Djordjevic, who is the Society President, is an author of several books regarding the history of motorsport in former Yugoslavia and the neighboring regions. One of his books deals with the Belgrade GP of 1939, so he will have all the relevant information.

[ensign14]

Little bump as I came across this forum post - Google-translated but it gives some decent extra information on the race, and a mini-biography of Bosko Milenkovic.  Plus a small picture of his Bugatti.

 

Wonder what colour it was...

[Tim Murray]

Nice find, Ens. Further down the page there's some interesting stuff on the Awtowelo, too.

[Spaceframe]

One element of DNQ's article might be a little misleading. The photo of the Auto Union carrying a Swatiska with the heading "Grand Prix Racing became propaganda in the Third Reich" needs explanation.

The Mercedes and Auto Union grand prix cars rarely carried this flag. This photo looks as if it was taken at the 1937 Vanderbilt Cup race in the USA which is the only race that I can trace where the Swastika was carried. The record cars on display at the 1938 Berlin Motor Show also were so adorned.

The drivers were members of the N.S.K.K. whose badge many wore on their race overalls but that seems to have been the extent of obvous Nazi symbols or publicity at races outside of Germany.

The two streamlined W125s had swastikas on the side of the faired headrests for the 1937 AVUS race. Source: A picture in Cimarosti's book on the story of GP racing.

[David McKinney]

I think you'll find the Avus was (and is) in Germany

[D-Type]

Unlike the Avus Mercedes streamliners the Vanderbilt Cup Auto Unions did not carry swastika motifs as such.  The organisers required the cars to have national flags painted on them.  In the case of Germany, the national flag featured a swastika.

[tsrwright]

Would like a publishable photo of this race if anyone can suggest a source?

[Spaceframe]

I think you'll find the Avus was (and is) in Germany

Indeed!

 

However, over the years I've seen a large number of pictures of Mercedes and Auto-Union racing cars of the 1934-39 era, and I've never come across any other example of such cars carrying swastikas. Cimarosti also has a picture of the Auto Union mechanics rolling out their streamliner for the AVUS race and there's no swastika. Neither in a German language advertisment published by Auto Union (showing a nice picture of one of their teamcars negotiating the Karrussell) to celebrate their complete domination of the 1936 German GP.

 

However, the swastikas did appear on Mercedes' speed record car, so my assumption is that the Nazi authorities considered speed records worthy of being linked dirctly to the supposed virtues of the regime. Whereas ordinary Grand Prix races were considered less worthy and valuable for the regime's purposes.

[cpbell]

My understanding of the Swastika question is that the D-B board were somewhat more receptive to Nazism than their counterparts in Zwickau, though I can't provide  source as I can't recall where or when I read it!

[Tim Murray]

The use of swastikas was discussed in several earlier threads, notably this one:

 

"politically correct" auto union question...

 

Evidence was produced showing that, as already mentioned, swastikas appeared on the Mercedes at AVUS 1937 and on both teams' cars at the 1937 Vanderbilt Cup and during some record attempts. A swastika was also seen on the right-hand tail of Stuck's AU in the 1934 French and German GPs, with the German national flag (as it still was in 1934) on the left-hand tail.

[Spaceframe]

The use of swastikas was discussed in several earlier threads, notably this one:

 

"politically correct" auto union question...

 

Evidence was produced showing that, as already mentioned, swastikas appeared on the Mercedes at AVUS 1937 and on both teams' cars at the 1937 Vanderbilt Cup and during some record attempts. A swastika was also seen on the right-hand tail of Stuck's AU in the 1934 French and German GPs, with the German national flag (as it still was in 1934) on the left-hand tail.

Thanks

[Vitesse2]

Stuck's record boat Tempo - a sort of miniature version of Blue Bird K3 - also featured a prominent swastika.

[Radoye]

Would like a publishable photo of this race if anyone can suggest a source?

 

To quote myself,

 

An useful address - Serbian Society of Motoring Historians:

Nebojsa Djordjevic
Udruzenje istoricara automobilizma
Jurija Gagarina 153/32
11070 Novi Beograd
Serbia

Phone: 063/216-804
fax: 011/3187-387


Mr. Djordjevic, who is the Society President, is an author of several books regarding the history of motorsport in former Yugoslavia and the neighboring regions. One of his books deals with the Belgrade GP of 1939, so he will have all the relevant information.

 

If anyone can point you to the right direction in your search, it's Mr. Djordjevic.

[tsrwright]

To quote myself,
 

 
If anyone can point you to the right direction in your search, it's Mr. Djordjevic.

Many thanks ... Is there an email address, by pm if you prefer?

[sramoa]

Mr.Djordjevic a great person and very helpful!

[Radoye]

Many thanks ... Is there an email address, by pm if you prefer?

 

Sorry i don't have his email address.

[Tuboscocca]

Sorry i don't have his email address.

Radoye,

 

is the mentioned book of the 1939 Belgrad GP (your post #24)  still available, and do you know where?????

 

Many thanks Michael

[Radoye]

Radoye,

 

is the mentioned book of the 1939 Belgrad GP (your post #24)  still available, and do you know where?????

 

Many thanks Michael

 

I'll ask around and let you know.

[Tuboscocca]

I'll ask around and let you know.

THANKS a lot!! Seems there are more interested than just me!!

 

Michael

[helioseism]

Yes, I would be interested in getting a copy, and also the book he did on the late 60's Belgrade GP for touring cars. 

[Tuboscocca]

Yes, I would be interested in getting a copy, and also the book he did on the late 60's Belgrade GP for touring cars. 

Frank,

 

"prve beogradske medunarodne automobiliske i motociclisticke trke", Belgrade 1999. This snippet I found somewhere in the deep net..

 

The Touring car book seems to have an English title too..

 

Michael

[Radoye]

The links i had for the Serbian Society of Motoring Historians website appear to be dead; so that unfortunately seems to be a dead end. I will try a different approach, stay tuned.

 

EDIT:

Actually scratch that - here's the website's new URL: http://uiauto.rs/

 

There's a contact form here http://uiauto.rs/kontakt/ - i asked, let's see what they say

Edited by Radoye, 29 January 2014 - 20:21.

[Tuboscocca]

The links i had for the Serbian Society of Motoring Historians website appear to be dead; so that unfortunately seems to be a dead end. I will try a different approach, stay tuned.

 

EDIT:

Actually scratch that - here's the website's new URL: http://uiauto.rs/

 

There's a contact form here http://uiauto.rs/kontakt/ - i asked, let's see what they say

Radoye, I was impressed from the site--but  could read nothing!!

 

Thank you for handling the contact!!

 

Best regards Michael

[Radoye]

I know Mr. Djordjevic speaks English, so if you write to him directly he will be able to respond. I have no idea who is in charge of dealing with the contact requests on the website, we'll see if i get a response.

 

The website contents are quite interesting - Google translate helps - especially photos in the Activities section

[Tuboscocca]

I know Mr. Djordjevic speaks English, so if you write to him directly he will be able to respond. I have no idea who is in charge of dealing with the contact requests on the website, we'll see if i get a response.

 

The website contents are quite interesting - Google translate helps - especially photos in the Activities section

Thank you Radoye,

 

Contact to Mr. Djordjevic  via the contact page on the website??   http://uiauto.rs/kontakt/

 

Regards Michael

[Radoye]

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

 

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

[Tuboscocca]

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

 

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

Thank you very much..I'm dusting off the old typewriter!

 

You mean this address??

 

Nebojsa Djordjevic
Udruzenje istoricara automobilizma
Jurija Gagarina 153/32
11070 Novi Beograd
Serbia

 

 

Michael

Edited by Tuboscocca, 31 January 2014 - 16:10.