Kurt Mansfeld

Kurt Mansfeld (born April 3, 1910 in Hindenburg ; † January 15, 1984 in Bad Kreuznach ) was a German motorcycle racer .

Career

Mansfeld came from Hindenburg in Upper Silesia , today's Zabrze . At the age of 21 he drew attention to himself at the Giant Mountains Race and at the Berlin AVUS with victories in the ID class up to 1000 cm³.

As a licensed driver, he won the 1933 Hohnstein - hillclimb near Dresden . A year later, Mansfeld won the championship run in Hockenheim . With first places in the Giant Mountains, Gabelbach and Feldberg races , he impressively demonstrated his qualities on the mountain. In October Mansfeld won against Toni Bauhofer , Karl Bodmer and Sebastian Roth tied on points in an elimination run for the German Mountain Championship.

At the beginning of 1935, Mansfeld switched from BMW to the DKW racing team, where he became a works driver . In April he was able to celebrate his first big success for the Zschopauer . With the fastest time of the day he broke Bauhofer's long-standing dominance and became Eilenriedemeister . Mansfeld also won the 500 cm³ race on the Marienberg triangle on Ascension Day . In the final account of the half-liter class of the German championship , he finished second behind Oskar Steinbach ( NSU ) together with Toni Bauhofer.

At the start of the championship in Hanover in 1936, Kurt Mansfeld was successful again. In May he won the Cologne City Forest Race with the 500cc DKW . There he was the winner in 1937 as well. At the Solitude Race in 1937, Mansfeld drove the race of his life in front of 200,000 spectators . Lying at the back of the field after damage, he turned one record lap after another and won the race by 16 seconds. In August he started at the 12th German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring . In September, he won the Estonian Grand Prix. At the end of the season in Marienberg , he finished the run of the half-liter machines, as in 1935, in first place.

After the Second World War , Mansfeld competed again. In 1948 he was German runner-up in the 350 cm³ class on DKW behind Wilhelm Herz . In 1949 he was banned from racing because of unpublished allegations against the OMK and its members. After withdrawing the allegations, he was allowed to start again from June 1, 1949. In the early 1950s, Mansfeld was a works driver at Horex .

Kurt Mansfeld died in Bad Kreuznach in 1984 at the age of 73.

statistics

title

• 1934 - German 1000 cc mountain champion on a BMW

Race wins

year	class	machine	run	route
1934	1000 cc	BMW	Hockenheim motorcycle races	Hockenheimer triangle
	1000 cc	BMW	Feldberg race	Feldbergring
1935	1000 cc	BMW	Hockenheim motorcycle races	Hockenheimer triangle
	500 cc	DKW	Eilenriederennen	Eilenriede
	500 cc	DKW	Marienberg triangle race	Marienberg triangle
1936	500 cc	DKW	Eilenriederennen	Eilenriede
	500 cc	DKW	Cologne city forest race	Cologne city forest
1937	500 cc	DKW	International Solitude Race	Solitude
	500 cc	DKW	Marienberg triangle race	Marienberg triangle
		DKW	Estonia Grand Prix
1947	350 cc	DKW	Hamburg city park race	Hamburg city park

References

literature

• 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. 50-96, 113-121 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kurt Mansfeld. www.spiegel.de, June 2, 1949, accessed June 9, 2014 .