Hans Baltisberger

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NSU Sportmax : Hans Baltisberger won the German 250 cc championship in 1955 with such a machine

Hans Baltisberger (born September 16, 1922 in Betzingen ; † August 26, 1956 in Brno ) was a German motorcycle racer and two-time champion of the German motorcycle road championship .

Career

Hans Baltisberger was born on September 10, 1922 as the son of the doctor Dr. Wilhelm Baltisberger and his wife were born. He had three sisters and a brother. Baltisberger played the piano , graduated from high school and trained as a printer and typesetter . He later studied at the art academy in Paris and Antwerp . After the end of the Second World War and his return from US captivity , he became a freelance commercial artist and founded the company "HABAL-Reklame", which soon fell victim to the currency reform .

In 1947, Hans Baltisberger attended his first motorcycle race. After his first attempts on a 250 cc Victoria , his first season as a badge driver followed in 1948, in which he won five races on a 1937 500 cc Norton . Baltisberger competed in his first run as a licensed driver at the Grand Mountain Prize at Freiburg's Schauinsland , followed by a steep climb.

In May 1951, he drove his two racing machines, a 350 cm³ AJS and a 500 cm³ Norton , for the first time in the Feldberg race in Oberreifenberg im Taunus . Baltisberger's AJS 7R “Boy Racer” did not start at the start. He drove behind the field, but still went into the final lap in third place and won the race ahead of Roland Schnell , with whom he had also shared the championship lead up to then. After the last run, the German champion was Schnell, because Baltisberger collided with Rudi Knees at the Solitude near Stuttgart a few meters from the finish and had to let Schnell, who had been second up until then, pass.

In 1951, Hans Baltisberger received a works contract with BMW , where he worked alongside Schorsch Meier and Walter Zeller . With his private AJS he won in Dieburg , Rostock, St. Wendel and the Eifel race, among others . The BMW yield was the first world championship point as sixth in the German Grand Prix at the Solitude and third places in Munich - Riem and in the Hamburg city park race .

Hans Baltisberger finished the 1952 season in sixth place in the German championship in the half-liter class and in fourth place in 1953. At the end of the 1953 season, he switched to NSU, the then dominant manufacturer of the small displacement classes, in Neckarsulm , where he formed the works team with Werner Haas , Rupert Hollaus and Hermann Paul Müller . His height of 1.69 m and the associated weight of around 60 kg favored him on the smaller machines. The dominance of these "four musketeers" in international racing was overwhelming: 24 starts - 24 wins. Hans Baltisberger took fifth place in the motorcycle world championship in the class up to 250 cm³ in 1954 . In the class up to 125 cm³ he was sixth. The season ended early due to a fall on the Solitude in which he broke an ankle and shoulder blade.

After the end of the 1954 season, NSU withdrew from motorsport because of the fatal accident in Hollaus and because of the unsurpassable successes. In the following year, Baltisberger was German champion on a privately used 250cc Sportmax borrowed from NSU, just ahead of H. P. Müller. He won the Eifel race , on the Solitude and the Eilenriederennen in Hanover . In the world championship he achieved second place with a lap record at the Grand Prix of Nations in Monza after a tough battle with Carlo Ubbiali ( MV Agusta ).

In the following season Baltisberger was third in the Lightweight TT and fourth in the 250 World Championship run in Germany. At the Grand Prix of Czechoslovakia on the Masaryk-Ring near Brno on August 26, 1956, a race that was not part of the world championship, Hans Baltisberger had a serious accident. He was in the lead until he went off the track on the penultimate lap in a slippery forest in stormy rain and suffered fatal injuries. At the request of his mechanic Albert Kleindienst, NSU advertising manager Germer allowed Baltisberger's engines to be made available to Roland Heck for the last championship run at the Berlin AVUS . Heck and Horst Kassner fought for victory for long laps and ultimately both retired with engine failure. Hans Baltisberger was posthumously German 250 cm³ champion for the second time.

Baltisberger was buried on September 1, 1956 in the Reutlingen district of Betzingen with the sympathy of thousands of people, including HP Müller and Werner Haas.

Honors

In Betzingen, Baltisberger's hometown, a street was named after him. A memorial stone on the old Masaryk ring commemorates Hans Baltisberger.

statistics

title

Race wins

year class machine run route
1951 350 cc AJS Feldberg race Feldbergring
1952 350 cc AJS Saarland Prize St. Wendel
350 cc AJS Eifel race Nürburgring - Nordschleife
1955 250 cc NSU Eifel race Nürburgring Nordschleife
250 cc NSU Price of the Adriatic Opatija
250 cc NSU International Solitude Race Solitude racetrack
350 cc NSU Czechoslovakian Grand Prix Masaryk ring
250 cc NSU Eilenriederennen Eilenriede
1956 250 cc NSU Circuit de Floreffe Circuit de Floreffe
250 cc NSU Motorrace Tubbergen Circuit Tubbergen
350 cc NSU Motorrace Tubbergen Circuit Tubbergen
250 cc NSU Circuit van Zandvoort
350 cc NSU Circuit van Zandvoort
250 cc NSU Price of the Adriatic Opatija
250 cc NSU International Sachsenring race Sachsenring

In the motorcycle world championship

season class motorcycle run Victories Second Third Points Result
1952 500 cc BMW 1 - - - 1 18th
1954 125 cc NSU 3 - - 1 10 6th
250 cc NSU 4th - 1 1 14th 5.
1955 250 cc NSU 1 - 1 - 6th 9.
1956 250 cc NSU 2 - - 1 7th 8th.
total 11 0 2 3 38

References

literature

  • Bohumil Hrabal: The death of Mr. Baltisberger . Volk und Welt, Berlin 1970, DNB  457033770 (original title: Smrt pana Baltisberga . Translated by Karl-Heinz Jähn).
  • Kurt Oesterle: (M) north face and death curve . Two stories from post-war German sport. Hofmann, Schorndorf 1995, ISBN 3-7780-3123-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Baltisberger, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German motorcycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Betzingen
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1956
Place of death Brno