Hans Soenius

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Hans Soenius, ca.1928

Hans Soenius (aka Soénius ) (born May 19, 1901 in Godorf near Cologne ; † April 10, 1965 ibid) was one of the most successful German motorcycle racers before the Second World War .

Life

Hans Soenius was born the son of a hotelier in Godorf and attended the Cologne commercial school . He then joined the Cologne-Bonn Railways as an apprentice . After completing his apprenticeship, he was a volunteer at the Association of German Automobile Manufacturers (GDA) in Cologne . This activity brought him to racing.

He began his career in 1924 with a surprising start with his OEC Blackburne at the West German road kilometer race on the route from Cologne to Godorf, which he won by far as an outsider despite strong competition. After this happy start, he received numerous offers from well-known engine factories. In 1925 he became a factory driver for the Imperia works in Cologne-Kalk . In the same year he won the German track championship for the first time in Elberfeld . In total, he was German champion eight times: in 1925, 1926, 1930 and 1931 on the track and in 1927, 1928, 1929 (500 cc class each ) and 1934 (1000 cc class) on the road . In 1928 and 1929 he took part in the ADAC country trips for motorcycles through Germany, Gdansk , Poland , Hungary and Czechoslovakia . Soenius rode motorbikes from Imperia , Norton , BMW and NSU , among others . From 1927 to 1932 he was a factory driver at BMW, but used the brands of his choice on the track. In 1932 he became a works driver for Motosacoche in Geneva and in 1933 a private driver for Norton. From 1934 to 1936 he drove for the NSU works.

Soenius was a gifted motorcycle racer with an often daring driving style and great stamina. He was one of the crowd's favorites in motorsport in the 1920s and 1930s, when hundreds of thousands of people attended the races, e.g. B. came to the Nürburgring . He competed in four different classes, won cement railway races in Berlin , Wroclaw and Cologne and set various track records, some of which he was able to hold for several years. He was also successful at the Marienberger Dreieck , the Sachsenring , at the Solitude , at the Hamburg City Park Race and internationally at the Grand Prix of Barcelona . As one of the first motorsport athletes in Germany, Soenius was hired for advertising and advertised motorcycle accessories and clothing. In 1935, with his participation, a longer advertising film was produced for NSU, which celebrated the triumphant victories he had achieved on the brand in those years.

By the end of his career, he had a total of 198 individual victories. Internationally, however, he could not prevail against the overwhelming British competition. His attempts at Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz as a racing car driver in 1934 and 1935 were also unsuccessful - he was too old compared to his competitors in the test drives.

In July 1936 Soenius had a serious crash on the Schottenring near Darmstadt due to a bursting rear tire during a training run and had to give up motorcycling due to his injuries. Soenius had been married since 1935 and left the Catholic Church in 1938 . He had been a member of the NSDAP since 1933 and was drafted into the NS Motor Vehicle Corps in 1940 and used in Paris by a recruiting unit for foreign workers for the Air Force .

Until his suicide he was co-owner or after the death of his father Hermann in 1956 sole owner of his parents' hotel in Godorf near Cologne and lived in Cologne-Sürth .

literature

  • Hans Clemens: Design and Designer. Heads from the Cologne district. Verlag Der Löwe Dr. Hans Reykers. Cologne 1960, p. 160.
  • Steffen Ottinger: DKW motorcycle sport 1920–1939 . From the first victories of the Zschopau two-stroke model at track races to the European championship successes. 1st edition. HB-Werbung und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028611-7 , p. 26-73, 117-123 .
  • Steffen Ottinger: International Six Day Trip 2012. The story since 1913 . HB-Werbung und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Chemnitz 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-039566-6 , p. 17-18, 24-27 .
  • Steffen Ottinger: Around Zschopau. The story of an off-road motorcycle ride . tape 1 . Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft Marienberg, Marienberg 2004, ISBN 3-931770-49-4 , p. 13 .
  • Ulrich S. Soénius :  Soenius, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 533 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

  • Hans Soenius. In: BMW history. BMW AG, accessed on December 16, 2015 (CV in the BMW Group Archive): "Successes on BMW: 1927–1929 German road champion (up to 500ccm)"

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Peters: The great automobile and motorcycle races: Fichtenhain-Rennbahn 1925–1932. The rise and fall of a sports facility in Heide. Berlin 2013, ISBN 9783863865962 , p. 233 f.
  2. ^ NDB 2010, see BMW archive . According to other information, it was 196 ( AX archive by Thomas Bund 2007, Hans Clemens 1960).
personal data
SURNAME Soenius, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soénius, Hans (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Godorf near Cologne
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1965
Place of death Godorf near Cologne