Horst von Waldthausen
Albert Karl Horst von Waldthausen (born March 25, 1907 in Mainz , † August 27, 1933 in Marseille ) was a German-Swiss automobile racing driver .
Life
Von Waldthausen came from the respected Essen patrician and industrial family Waldthausen . He was born on March 25, 1907 as the second of three children and the only son of Martin Wilhelm von Waldthausen (1875–1928) and Klara Elise Theodore von Waldthausen. Korte (1871–1940) born in Mainz. His paternal grandfather was the Essen banker Albert von Waldthausen .
Horst von Waldthausen spent his early childhood in his native Mainz and from January 1910 on at Waldthausen Castle in the Lenneberg Forest between Mainz and Budenheim . His father had the representative villa built from 1908 to 1910 as a residence for himself and his family.
Waldthausen's childhood was overshadowed by the death of his two sisters: the younger sister Elisabeth died in March 1910 as an infant at the age of only ten weeks, the older sister Maria in November 1911 at the age of only five. At the beginning of the First World War , the family left Germany in 1914 and from then on lived in Switzerland and Liechtenstein . The von Waldthausens, and thus also the son, acquired Swiss citizenship .
Little is known about Waldthausen's further childhood and youth. At least he was very wealthy because of his father and lived in a large property in Nyon on Lake Geneva in the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud in the early 1930s . He even had a private racetrack built in the park after he turned to car racing.
In 1932 von Waldthausen founded the Villars-Waldthausen racing team with his Swiss friend Julio Villars and participated in various automobile races with moderate success. On August 27, 1933, he had a serious accident at the Grand Prix de Marseille at the Autodrome de Miramas in southern France. A tire of his Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 burst at full speed, the car rolled over several times and the driver was thrown against a concrete barrier. Horst von Waldthausen died that evening at the age of 26 in a hospital in Marseille from serious internal injuries.
literature
- Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen houses. 1917. Eleventh year, Justus Perthes, Gotha 1916, p. 910.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Name and place of death based on the family's tombstone at the Bredeney cemetery in Essen-Bredeney
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Waldthausen, Horst von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Waldthausen, Horst von; Waldthausen, Albert Karl Wilhelm Horst von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Swiss racing driver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 25, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mainz |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 27, 1933 |
| Place of death | Marseille |