Olaf von Fersen

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Olaf von Fersen (born January 21, 1912 in Reval ; † September 17, 2000 in Langen ) was a German journalist on automotive history and technology.

Life

Olaf Baron von Fersen dedicated his life to automobiles and technology. He was born in 1912 in Rival, a town in what was then still tsarist Russia. First he completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic and then turned to journalism. While his cousin Hans-Heinrich von Fersen pursued the same passion as a hobby, Olaf von Fersen maintained contacts with the development departments of the automotive industry as a specialist journalist ; he was considered a qualified expert. He began his journalistic career at the Revalsche Zeitung , later he became a correspondent for Autocar (London) and Automobil Revue (Bern), was chief of staff at the UPI news agency, editor-in-chief of the trade magazine Automobil (later Rallye Racing ), press officer at Lloyd Motoren GmbH and press spokesman for the British Motor Corporation for Germany. After many years of membership in the Car of the Year jury , he was an honorary member of this body until the end of his life. With his book A Century of Automobile Technology , Olaf von Fersen published probably the most complete investigation of the controversial question of who invented the automobile with a combustion engine in 1986 . The English automotive industry honored him as the first non-British to become a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers . Olaf von Fersen ended his journalistic career in 1998.

Publications (selection)

  • Racing cars, racetracks, racing drivers. Gildeverlag, Alfeld (Leine) 1963.
  • with Harald Linke: Opel, wheels for the world. Institute for Historic Research, Princeton 1986, ISBN 0-915038-18-8 .
  • A century of automotive technology. Passenger cars. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-18-400620-4 .
  • A century of automotive technology. Commercial vehicles. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-18-400656-6 .

literature

  • Halwart Schrader: Motor Men: People, myths and engines of automotive history. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-613-03202-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 26, 2000, obituary for Olaf von Fersen.
  2. ↑ The dispute over the "birthday" of the modern automobile ( memento from August 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) German Patent and Trademark Office , accessed on May 27, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Fersen, Olaf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist on automotive history and technology
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Reval
DATE OF DEATH September 17, 2000
Place of death Long