August Prussing

August Prüssing (born September 21, 1896 in Berlin , † September 8, 1967 in Altdorf ) was a German engineer .

At the age of 15, Prüssing was already working on motorcycles of the Progress , Laurin & Klement and Phenomenon brands . During the First World War , he served in the Air Force and deepened his knowledge of internal combustion engines . After the end of the war, August Prüssing a. a. with motors for gliders . In 1921 he constructed a very modern 586- cc - two-cylinder - two-stroke engine with 9  hp . The engine weighed only 17  kg with its separate cylinder head made of light alloy . This led to contact with the Zschopau motorcycle manufacturer DKW , for whom Prüssing worked from 1925.

In the following years, under August Prüssing's direction, the largest motorcycle racing department of the time was created. Drivers such as Ewald Kluge , Walfried Winkler , Arthur Geiss or Toni Bauhofer won on DKW factory machines up to the Second World War a . a. eight motorcycle European championships and 23 German championship titles on the road and the silver vase in the International Six Days in off-road racing . In addition, DKW drivers set numerous world speed records , especially in the small displacement categories of up to 175 and 250 cm³.

During the Second World War, August Prüssing took over the technical management of the DKW plant in Zschopau, which had been converted to armaments production. After the end of the war, the production facilities in the small Saxon town were dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union . Prüssing then constructed engines and racing motorcycles again for an engineering office in Chemnitz . In the 1950s he worked for Hoffmann in Lintorf , where he led the development of the Gouverneur motorcycle . Later Prüssing was head of the test department at the Nuremberg manufacturer Viktoria .

August Prüssing died on September 8, 1967 at the age of 70 in Altdorf .

literature

• Woldemar Lange / Jörg Buschmann: The great days of DKW motorcycle racing . 1920 to 1941 (Zschopau). 1st edition. Bildverlag Böttger GbR, Witzschdorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-937496-29-0 , p. 178 .
• Siegfried Rauch; Frank Rönicke: Men and motorcycles - a century of German motorcycle development. Stuttgart: Motorbuch-Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-613-02947-7 , pp. 122-131