Adolf Rosenberger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mercedes-Benz SSK (1929)
Auto Union racing car (Type C)

Adolf Rosenberger (born April 8, 1900 in Pforzheim , † December 6, 1967 as Alan Arthur Robert in Los Angeles , California ) was a German racing driver and businessman.

Life

Adolf Rosenberger was born in Pforzheim in 1900. He was the son of an assimilated Jewish family and the foster son of his uncle Ludwig Esslinger, then the richest man in Pforzheim. At the age of 17 he became a war volunteer and a member of the air force in the First World War , then a technician, businessman and works racing driver at Mercedes-Benz .

run

In the 1920s he competed as a private driver with legendary cars such as the Benz teardrop car , the Mercedes-Benz SSK and the Mercedes Kompressor, and at the age of 23 was one of the most successful European racing drivers. Rosenberger won, for example, the Stuttgart Solitude race , the Kassel Hercules Mountain Prize three times (1925–1927) and one of the most difficult mountain races of those years, the Klausen race . On July 11, 1926, there was a tragic accident at the German Grand Prix at the Berlin AVUS , when Rosenberger lost control of his vehicle while attempting to overtake and raced into the lap counter and a timekeeper booth. While Rosenberger and his co-driver survived the accident injured, two students died in the timekeeping station and the sign painter on the lap board. Rosenberger had been co-owner of a property with a cinema in Pforzheim since 1925, which was leased to a cinema company.

Commitment to Porsche

As a friend of Ferdinand Porsche , Rosenberger became a co-founder of Ferdinand Porsche's newly opened design office, the Dr. Ing.hc F. Porsche GmbH . His shares were 10 percent. It is believed that Rosenberger's experience with the mid-engined Benz teardrop car had a major influence on the development of the Auto Union racing car , which was constructed on the same principle . Rosenberger might have hoped to become a driver of the construction, which began as Porsche Project No. 22, because the Wanderer companies and the newly formed Auto Union only financed the project after the National Socialist government announced subsidies for involvement in racing in March 1933. Rosenberger ensured that despite the initial lack of orders and Porsche's tendency towards expensive constructions, the office survived the early days financially. He gave the company a shareholder loan of 80,000 Reichsmarks and organized further loans through his Pforzheim relatives. In December 1932, Rosenberger announced that he would retire from the management. On January 30, 1933, he resigned as managing director due to insufficient earnings. Rosenberger was able to win Hans von Veyder-Malberg as his successor . Rosenberger was subsequently responsible for the exploitation of Porsche patents abroad. On July 30, 1935, he ceded his ten percent shareholding in Porsche GmbH at nominal value to Ferry Porsche .

Documents from the legacy of Adolf Rosenberger, however, show a different point of view, which was presented by the ARD political magazine "Report Mainz". In the years after the Second World War he wrote to his lawyers literally: "I was accused of the fact that a pennant ... would not be given as a Jewish-pure company as long as I am a partner. (...) I report to Messrs. Porsche and Piëch at least no personal anti-Semitism. As already described, however, they made use of my membership as a Jew to get rid of me cheaply. " The documents are kept in Los Angeles by the Esslinger family, who are friends with Rosenberger.

Arrest and emigration

The National Socialist takeover of power had far more serious consequences for Rosenberger. As a Jew, he was arrested on September 5, 1935 for " racial disgrace " and sent straight to the Kislau concentration camp on September 23 from the Pforzheim remand prison on Rohrstrasse . Four days later he was released - Ferdinand Porsche and his son Ferry were later to claim that this had happened on their intervention. Rosenberger alias Robert himself later contradicted this representation. After his release, he moved his main residence to Paris in November 1935. In 1938 Rosenberger emigrated to the USA, where he changed his name to Alan Arthur Robert and started a new life in California. After the war, Rosenberger demanded a severance payment of 200,000 marks from Porsche for the removal of his shares at nominal value and the shareholder loan. A settlement of 50,000 marks plus one car was agreed . Rosenberger and Robert died in 1967. His urn and that of his wife were buried in the Jewish cemetery in New York.

References

literature

  • Eberhard Reuss: Hitler's racing battles . The silver arrows under the swastika. Construction, 2006.
  • Martin Walter: An (almost) forgotten father of the Volkswagen, Porsche AG and a successful racing driver. The Pforzheimer Adolf Rosenberger - a German-Jewish fate. In: New contributions to the history of the city of Pforzheim. Volume 1 Ubstadt-Weiher 2006. ISBN 978-3-89735-447-0
  • Martin Walter: Adolf Rosenberger - On the story of a German Jew. From successful racing driver to co-founder of Porsche AG. In: Not just victory and defeat. Sport in the German southwest in the 19th and 20th centuries. Upper Rhine Studies Volume 28, 2011. ISBN 978-3-7995-7828-8
  • Nils Havemann: Adolf Rosenberger - motorsport pioneer and co-founder of the world brand Porsche . In: Stadion, vol. 43, 2019, issue 2, pp. 219-233, DOI: 10.5771 / 0172-4029-2019-2-219.

Documentation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b SWR2 Tandem: Adolf Rosenberger: Porsche's third husband and a less glorious chapter in the company's history. From: www.swr.de , September 6, 2012, accessed on November 6, 2012 .
  2. ^ Story in the first: The man behind Porsche
  3. ↑ Columbus - website: HILL CLIMB WINNERS 1897-1949: Part 3 (1924-1926). From: www.kolumbus.fi , accessed June 23, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Columbus - website: HILL CLIMB WINNERS 1897-1949: Part 4 (1927-1930). From: www.kolumbus.fi , accessed June 23, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel: Old-timer hill climb in Kassel: Anniversaries at the summit. From: www.spiegel.de , June 9, 2009, accessed June 23, 2013 .
  6. ^ A b Wolfram Pyta , Nils Havemann and Jutta Braun: Porsche. From design office to global brand. Siedler, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0100-4 , p. 117.
  7. ^ A b c Ulrich Viehöver: Ferdinand Porsche In: Hermann G. Abmayr (Ed.): Stuttgarter NS-Täter. From fellow travelers to mass murderers . Butterfly-Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-89657-136-6 , p. 247.
  8. ^ Wolfram Pyta , Nils Havemann and Jutta Braun: Porsche. From design office to global brand. Siedler, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0100-4 , p. 37.
  9. ↑ Hans Mommsen ; Manfred Grieger: The Volkswagen factory and its workers in the Third Reich, ECON Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-430-16785-X , page 74
  10. ↑ a b c Wolfram Pyta , Nils Havemann and Jutta Braun: Porsche. From design office to global brand. Siedler, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0100-4 , pp. 119–129.
  11. ↑ Report Mainz from November 28, 2017
  12. ^ Wolfram Pyta , Nils Havemann and Jutta Braun: Porsche. From design office to global brand. Siedler, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0100-4 , p. 136.
  13. ↑ Der Spiegel: Porsche's Past - The Dark Pre-History of the World's Favorite Sports Car. From: www.spiegel.de , January 10, 2009, accessed November 6, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Rosenberger, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robert, Alan Arthur (name after 1936)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German racing driver and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Pforzheim
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1967
Place of death California