Paul Pietsch

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the district administrator of the same name in the Silesian district of Brieg, see Paul Pietsch (district administrator) .

Paul Pietsch

Nation:	Germany
Automobile world championship
First start:	1950 Italian Grand Prix
Last start:	1952 German Grand Prix
Constructors
1950  Maserati  1951  Alfa Romeo  1952  Veritas
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 3 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Paul Pietsch (born June 20, 1911 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † May 31, 2012 in Karlsruhe ) was a German racing car driver and publisher .

In contrast to other German drivers of the 1930s, Paul Pietsch did not try his luck with the Silver Arrows from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union , but rather as a private driver with predominantly Italian cars. Before his death, Paul Pietsch was the oldest Formula 1 racing driver still alive. Then it was Robert La Caze (1917-2015).

His son Peter-Paul Pietsch works as a manager in the publishing house and operates motorsport in the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring . His daughter Patricia Scholten runs the Paul Pietsch publishing house in Stuttgart.

Life

Paul Pietsch was the son of a brewer who died early. He grew up with his mother in Friedenweiler . After graduating from business school, he began an apprenticeship as a beer brewer and, after his 20th birthday, bought a Bugatti Type 35 B from his inheritance . In 1932, Pietsch began his career in smaller races in Germany in this vehicle, which had belonged to private driver Heinrich-Joachim von Morgen . Together with the private drivers Hans Lewy from Dresden and Hans Simons from Berlin , he founded the PiLeSi racing community . His first race, on May 29, 1932 in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, he lost due to lack of fuel, in the following Kesselberg race he came in third. Pietsch achieved his first victories on August 28, 1932 during the hill climb in the Giant Mountains and on September 11 at the Elbe Cup in Leitmeritz in Czechoslovakia . In 1933 and 1934 he won several other hill climbs in an Alfa Romeo ; The power of his car was not enough for success in the major circuit races. For the 1935 season , Auto Union and Bernd Rosemeyer signed him as a young driver . After problems with the rear-wheel drive sixteen-cylinder Type B and disagreements with the race management, Pietsch left the team after a year. A shared third place in the 1935 Italian Grand Prix was his best result. From 1937 Pietsch drove a private Maserati again . At the Grand Prix of Germany in 1939 , he had his moment of glory: In the second round, he sat down at the top, the race against the might Silver Arrows for brake and ignition problems not win, but save the third place finish.

On January 2, 1940, Pietsch was drafted into the military and wounded twice in the war. After his return from captivity in 1946 he began a second career as a publisher.

In motorsport after World War II , he mainly drove sports car and Formula 2 races in Germany. On June 11, 1950, he won the sports car class up to 1500 cm³ in front of Helm Glöckler at the Eifel race on the Nürburgring and in the same year he became German champion in this class on his Veritas RS. In 1951 he won the title in the Formula 2 class with his Veritas Meteor with victories at the Eifel race on the Nürburgring and the hill climb on the Schauinsland . Sporadically he also competed in Formula 1 world championship races. At the 1951 German Grand Prix he drove an Alfa Romeo works car ; an accident ended this race. After a serious training accident on September 28, 1952 in a Formula 2 race on the AVUS , he retired from racing.

Since then, Pietsch has concentrated on publishing; he published numerous motorsport magazines and books and was a co-founder of the Motor Presse Stuttgart publishing house . The Paul Pietsch publishers also include Motorbuch Verlag and the publishers pietsch, Müller Rüschlikon and transpress as well as the Swiss partner publisher Bucheli.

In 1976 Pietsch moved his residence from Stuttgart to Titisee-Neustadt and withdrew from day-to-day business. In 1991 he was awarded the Baden-Württemberg Business Medal. In 2001 the city of Titisee-Neustadt made him an honorary citizen . A path in Neustadt bears his name.

The International Paul Pietsch Award has been presented for innovative technical developments in the automotive sector since 1989 . The prerequisites for the nomination are innovation and series production as well as a comprehensible utility value for the customers in the areas of environment, comfort, safety and economy.

To mark his 100th birthday, a rally with 100 vehicles from different decades from Freiburg to Stuttgart took place from June 17th to 19th.

Pietsch died on May 31, 2012 at the age of 100 in Karlsruhe.

burial

Paul Pietsch's wish to bury his ashes in the Neustädter Allmendfriedhof next to his wife Dolores (1925–1991) was opposed to the city's cemetery statutes. Since October 30, 2009, it has forbidden burials in elective graves in the old cemetery. Relatives of Pietsch ruled out a burial in the newer cemetery at the Stalter .

On September 25, 2012, the local council decided to change the cemetery statutes. Now, urn burials can be carried out by honorary citizens and their spouses in the cemetery chapel of the old cemetery. Pietsch's birth and death dates were added to his wife's family grave.

• 

  Family grave of Pietsch's wife

• 

  Listed chapel in the old cemetery

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
1950	Paul Pietsch	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Maserati 1.5 L4s	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
1951	Alfa Romeo SpA	Alfa Romeo Tipo 159	Alfa Romeo 1.5 L8s	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
1952	Motor-Presse-Verlag	Veritas Meteor	Veritas 2.0 L6	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
total				3	-	-	-	-	-	-

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th
1950
							DNF
1951
						DNF
1952
						DNF

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Web links

Commons : Paul Pietsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Paul Pietsch in the catalog of the German National Library
• A life as a racing driver and publisher , part 1 and part 2 at Motor-Klassik.de ( Motor Presse Stuttgart )
• Leif Snellman: Paul Pietsch (D). www.kolumbus.fi, November 24, 2019, accessed on March 3, 2020 . 
• Paul Pietsch in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paul Pietsch died: The founder of Motor Presse is dead . In: Auto, Motor und Sport , June 6, 2012, accessed June 6, 2012
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Titisee-Neustadt: Paul Pietsch . In: Badische Zeitung , June 19, 2010, accessed on June 11, 2011
3. ↑ 100 years of Paul Pietsch . In: FlugRevue , July 2011, p. 6
4. ↑ auto motor and sport . Retrieved January 15, 2020.
5. ↑ Holger Wittich: International Paul Pietsch Award: Clear majority for the BMW i3 . In: Auto motor und sport , January 30, 2014 (with a list of all award winners from 1989 to 2014).
6. ^ Paul Pietsch Classic: The big birthday rally . ( Memento from May 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) motor-klassik.de, June 20, 2011, accessed on November 21, 2012
7. ^ Peter Stellmach: Titisee-Neustadt: Cemetery statutes: Last resting place for Paul Pietsch: Exception for an honorary citizen? In: Badische Zeitung , August 24, 2012, accessed on September 7, 2012
8. ^ Titisee-Neustadt: Quiet protest stirs in the "Pietsch case" . In: Badische Zeitung , September 5, 2012, accessed on September 7, 2012
9. ^ Official journal of the city of Titisee-Neustadt , Volume 18, No. 20, October 4, 2012, accessed on November 21, 2012
10. ↑ epitaph